[OGDev] other things going on

[Kake L Pugh]

On Tue 24 Apr 2007, "M.B.Gaved" <M.B.Gaved at open.ac.uk> wrote:
> I think I've mentioned it before, Kake, but after me turning up and
> waving the flag for the Open Guides at WikiSym in Odense last year
> (and meeting Evan), I've been asked to be on the program committee
> for WikiSym2007 in October this year - reviewing papers and helping
> put together the list of papers to be accepted.

Ah-ha, yes!  I think I failed to register that previously because I
wasn't sure what WikiSym _was_ - but it's basically a conference for
people interested in wikis, yes?

I'm interested in the mention of usability at the URL you gave.  I'd
like to see what the wiki people make of that topic.  Something I've
found very difficult in participating in different wikis is that you
always have to figure out the local wiki syntax, because every one is
slightly different.

This may, of course, be a very old and overly-debated idea, but
basically, I think it's a shame that wiki syntax has always been so
jammed-in with the whole idea of wikis.  I think the "read, think,
click, edit, publish" thing of wikis is utterly fantastic, but I hate
being forced into using the local language when there's a universal
one available.  With the advent of livejournal and similar services,
most people who're willing to contribute user content have at least a
basic working knowledge of HTML - why can't we just let them use this
HTML that they're familiar with?  Why are we so convinced that our own
made-up markup language is going to be easier for them to use?

(By the way: this is not an idea that came to me out of thin air; it
comes from talking to people and observing them as they try to use
OpenGuides and other wikis.  You don't actually have to be observing
them in real life; you can learn a surprising amount about what people
find hard by looking at a page's edit history.  "I hate wiki markup"
is a surprisingly common edit/changelog comment.)

Relatedly, I think one of OpenGuides' strengths (again, this came from
listening to naive user comments) is that it gives definite boxes to
put things in.  Wikipedia's "template" functionality is powerful, but
it's an entry barrier.  This, for example, is quite terrifying:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_Kent_Line&action=edit

Kake