Why Wiki Syntax Is Important

Wiki markup (or syntax) offers many advantages.

Wiki markup is a) a user data entry method b) a storage format

Good

• Rock-solid and cross-browser - unlike WYSIWYG editors, it doesn't need any additional technology, like JavaScript or Flash and it works equally well on all kinds of web browsers, making use of any additional features they might offer (like checking spelling or using external editor, for example).
• Readable - with wiki markup, text is still readable by less technical users (more than HTML), you can just ignore all the funny characters and read the text alone.
• Accessible - for blind people, for software, for searching and indexing.
• Secure - because it's just text, you can't really put any malicious code in there, like you can in HTML and/or JavaScript.
• Good for styling - because there is no style information in the text itself, you can easily associate a style via CSS.
• Extensible - Syntax can be extended to do more things (access external services, etc).
• It can even be used like a mini-programming language
  • Wiki syntax can generate different things per context (ex.: web vs mobile)
  • Have syntax like Print / no print
• Future proof - you can determine a wiki syntax and change the HTML output centrally. For example, if you have a syntax for icons or smilies. Can produce evolving html over time. As standards evolve, wiki parser can evolve from <b> to style='strong'
• Easy to learn - People learn from examples/others (how they used the syntax). For example, with group plugin, you can show different contents to different groups.
• Fast - (after initial learning period). Some people don't like to have to use the mouse for formatting. Learning and using the key shortcuts is hard and doesn't provide good feedback.
• Fault tolerant - most parsers tolerate small faults in input markup. Rendering won't be perfect then, but also not fail completely usually. If everything else fails, you can just look at the raw source and see what the author meant.
• Easy to split - good for diff display (try that with html)
• Easy linking
• Mobile - it suits mobile phone keypads really well
• User-controlled the user is in full control of what gets saved in the wiki in the edit mode nothing is hidden, nothing is automatically added or removed. There is no converting or other magic working behind the user's back. There might be exceptions like automatic dates or signatures, but these are rare.

Related links:

"Seeing as I’ve spent the last few months writing a product that uses Wiki markup as its basis, I thought I might come to the markup’s defense."
http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2004/03/19/in_defense_of_wiki_markup

"The author is distracted from the proper business of composing text, in favor of making typographical choices in relation to which she may have no expertise (``fiddling with fonts and margins'' when she should be concentrating on content)."
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html

"The simplification process of text markup has therefore reached a point where you can't make it much simpler; and as it turns out, it seems to be finally simple enough for end users. A Canadian study among 4th grade students (age 8 to 9) showed that indeed wiki markup can even be used by children after a 15 minute introduction [Désilets 06]. The study shows that the wiki markup itself is by far not the biggest usability issue with wikis. The real issues that were revealed by this study are the understanding of the hypertext nature of the Internet, and related to that, link creation and management. The success of wikis and Wikipedia in particular therefore indicates that we seem to have the missing simple markup finally to get the masses involved."
http://www.i3g.hs-heilbronn.de/attach/Ver%C3%B6ffentlichungen/What+you+see+is+Wiki.pdf

Not so good

• Common standard is not yet widely adopted http://www.wikicreole.org/
• Doesn't look appealing
• Not good for page design or manipulating large data sets (like really wide tables)
• Conflicts can appear like unwanted link

References:

• "Wiki markup has no future" from Column Two.

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Related

RFCWiki
http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/TikiWikiCMSGroupware

Other

Why version history is crucial

• People learn from others and can experiment.
• If something goes wrong, it's easy to rollback.

When/Why a Wiki should be the central part of your information system:

• See WikiPedia success.
• Superior way of handling certain types of information
• More flexible to deal with the chaos
• Useful in so many Use Cases

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