SJ’s Longest Now

“Wikis need WYSIWYG editors” — Ward Cunningham

Posted on August 1st, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: chain-gang.

In a recent interview (last fall), Ward Cunningham
highlighted the most pressing unresolved problem with wikis : the lack
of a simple and familiar editing interface for most users.  Asked
what one thing he would change about Wikipedia, he said immediately, “I’d put a WYSIWYG editor in front of it.“

Since then, no progress has been made towards changing the default editor for Wikipedia or for MediaWiki in general.  But discussions today with non-MediaWiki developers at the start of Wikimania’s Hacking Days
suggest that modern web-based WYSIWYG editors are becoming fairly
mature and fast, and are certainly reasonable as interface options, if
not as the default option, for wiki users.

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