[Webteam] Wiki vs. rich text editing (was Re: Choosing the platform
for website)
Janko Mivšek
janko.mivsek at eranova.si
Fri Jul 18 08:35:42 UTC 2008
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
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