Version 0 of Wiki Gripes

Updated 1999-03-05 21:14:59

Purpose: a place to list weird side effects, surprises, and ... gripes, with regards to the concept of Wiki Wiki webs, or Wiki in short. Related pages: Comments on the Tcl'ers Wiki, Suggestions for Wikit, and WiKit Problems.

JC: Some of the comments below ought to be moved to the above (new) ones, I think

The concept of Wiki is fascinating. Here's a list of thing which may need some improvement, please feel free to add notes:

  • URL recognition is tricky, "(URL)" links to "URL)", for example.
  • Bold and italic can be used only once on each line of text (wrapped lines count as one). There's no good excuse for this, it's just a bit trickier to implement.
  • It's yet another formatting convention (albeit a very simple one) - the basic requirement being that it must display well as HTML, and on Tk. A secondary goal is to make it reasonably obvious and readable as plain text.

AK: I would like to embed image references and have the converter recognize them, showing the image instead of a simple link.

AK: I could have added this to Comments on the Tcl'ers Wiki, but my solution is more a general Wiki thing, so I did it here instead. I found no links to Gripes, Suggestions and Comments pages other than in the ChangeLog itself. It might be nice to have some sort of overview page containing references to all pages in the Wiki Web (Sitemap).

AK: Ok, I found the main references to the pages mentioned above, in Jean-Claude Wipplers page, but I think it illustrates a general problem. A Wiki usually grows in unpredecented ways, and very unstructured, thus easily causing the "lost in (hyper)space" syndrome: Where am I, where were I, how do I find X. I believe that at least one (trusted) user, in case of complex Wiki's some more, should try to "moderate" an area. Hm. ... I am not thinking of moderation in the sense of "pre-edit approval", it is more like gardening. First a spurt(?) of growth, then the moderator/gardener starts weeding (removing OT-post), structures the contents into something more coherent, afterward the next cycle of growth and weeding begins. These phases may overlap, of course.

JC: Does the new search capability compensate for the lack of a site map?