The document summarizes discussions at the WikiSym 2008 conference on wiki markup, WYSIWYG editors, and spatial wikis. Some key points discussed include novice users struggling with wiki markup syntax, the need for assistance transitioning to WYSIWYG editors, and the potential for spatial wikis and linking data from other sources through autocomplete features. The conference covered moving away from wiki markup to WYSIWYG editing and treating tables like Excel files that can be uploaded and edited.

1. WikiSym 2008
Wiki Editors
From Wiki Markup To WYSIWYG And Spatial Wikis

2. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
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3. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Observations
• Novice users often need assistance with
wiki markup.
• About half of “collaborative edits” is
created to fix up markup.
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4. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Observations
• There is a plenty of wiki markup syntaxes,
each of them requires some additional
work to get used to.
• Wiki Creole project is finished after two
years of development, ’08 session was
pretty same as ‘07
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5. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Observations
• There was even some side talks on
introducing WYSIWYG into Wikipedia.
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6. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Conclusions
• Wiki markup have reached its limits and
about to stagnation.
• WYSIWYG seems to be close future for
editing text in wikis.
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7. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Implementing
WYSIWYG
Wiki Markup, Shoo Away!
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8. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Stage I
“Two In One”
• Wiki & HTML editors are both supported
simultaneously
• User can switch editor during edit, with
possible minor loss of markup
(such as complex tables from HTML)
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9. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Stage II
“WYSIWYG”
• Default editor — WYSIWYG
• Support team should work on conflict
situations to find missing features and fix
issues with transition from wiki markup to
WYSIWYG.
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10. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Are You Scared?
re e
he ar
u
Yo
Wiki WYSIWYG
Markup editor
If you find over-decorated pages — feel free to fix them.
This is wiki after all!
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11. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Next Station
ar You
re
he
e
Wiki WYSIWYG Spatial
Markup editor Wiki
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12. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
How’s “Spatial” Look Like?
Sample image from
Tinderbox software
Current state of
spatial software is
most appropriate
from collaborative
Mind-Mapping.
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13. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Spatial Wiki Samples
• ShyWiki — wiki engine capable to
compose pages as spatial collection of text
and image blocks
• Tinderbox — standalone Mind-Mapping
software
• Socs — research project for social network
visualization for Wikipedia community
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14. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
On WikiWord Linking
• There is no known solution for inflexion
problems with WikiWords
(which is actual for Slavic languages)
• WikiName: a short address or a brief title?
• WYSIWYG is not well suited for
WikiWords detection & linking as you type
them
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15. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Linking Outside
• Links to issues from bugtrackers (JIRA)
• Links to people pages (in some social
networks)
• Other “inter-wiki” stuff, which is used in
encyclopedias mostly
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16. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Obvious Solution:
Auto Complete!
• Easy to implement in WYSIWYG
• Common interface for all kinds of links
• Helps fight typos & inflexions
• Allows to provide additional information on
link target while linking
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17. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Next Actions
• After WYSIWYG implementation we plan
to add autocomplete-based link creation
supporting not only links to other wiki
pages, but a bugtracker issues, people links,
etc.
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18. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Table Issues
• Table-related issues are common to
intranet wikis.
• Current wiki-engines don’t focus much on
issues with tables.
• WYSIWYG helps sometimes, but does not
cover all the issues.
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19. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Markup Tables
• low on cell amount
• rich markup inside
cells
• WYSIWYG is the
most effective tool
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20. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Data Tables
• Zounds of simple-decorated
cells, often only numbers
inside.
• MS Excel is used for data
preprocessing frequently.
• Convenient to store as
.XLS files.
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21. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Next Actions
• Files should be uploaded from the edit
screen (from WYSIWYG toolbar?)
• Uploading a file leads to insertion its
contents into page
• XLS/CSV-files should be inserted as tables,
not “download” links.
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22. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Future Investigation
• There was some talks on successful
WebDAV integration on the conference.
• We plan to investigate, how we can
organize access to wiki through some kind
of “network drive” interface, so user can
open attached file in his preferred table
processor, make changes and simply save
the file.
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23. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
So
• WYSIWYG is going to replace wiki markup
• Autocomplete should be used to handle
linking instead of WikiWords
• Big data-oriented tables should be treated
as XLS-files.
• Spatial Wiki — young but interesting
technology that can replace WYSIWYG
sometimes. Not now.
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24. WikiSym 2008: wiki markup, WYSIWYG and Spatial Wikis
Authors and contributors
• Nikolay Yaremko
makiwara@humanemagica.com
• Konstantin Kolomeetz
kolomeetz@yandex-team.ru
and other WikiSym participants
More WikiSym 2008 stories?
http://wikisym2008.humanemagica.com
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