[Webteam] Wiki vs. rich text editing (was Re: Choosing the platform for website)

[Janko Mivšek]

Hi Matthew,

Speaking as proposer: let me start answering you part by part, because 
discussion on every your point separately is important.

 >>From what I have seen of Scribo, it is not intended for people
 > who have ever used a wiki before, but for business people who
 > live and breathe word, and cannot imagine a markup language. I
 > don't like it's rich text editor, and much prefer a simple wiki
 > markup system, regardless of syntax.

This dilemma I actually had by myself when starting developing Scribo 
precedesor 5 years ago. We started with Wiki markup (which is still 
possible in Scribo) but end users just don't like it. Yes, those end 
users are secretaries etc, definitively not programmers.

But let we ask ourself about our user base. Who will be authors of 
content of squeak.org in the future? As you know the plan is to broaden 
author base so that  all subcommunities will maintain its part of 
website by their own.

When you broaden author base you can soon expect unfamiliarity with Wiki 
markup syntax, not to mention that anyone really like to know many 
different syntaxes for many different Wikis (Wikipedia, SmallWiki, 
WikiWorks etc.).

On the other side anyone is immediately familiar with those buttons in 
rich text editor. Conclusion is therefore obvious: if we want to succeed 
with broadening author base, we need to make more familiar content 
editing. And rich text editor is more familiar, there is not doubt on that.

Best regards
Janko