Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Peace In Our Time

[Jimmy Wales]

Dan Geiser wrote:
> >I like the decision to use XML as a submission format.
> 
> I can't reiterate this enough but, I truly dislike this idea.  Assuming we 
> honestly want to have an open submission policy the easiest thing for me to 
> keep in mind when following that policy concept is "Can my Mom do this?".  
> Brother, I'll tell you right now my Mom would NOT be comfortable submitting 
> an article to an Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource 
> (henceforth known as GNUFUEL) if she had to complete an XML form to do so.  

Absolutely!  Authors should be encouraged (and empowered) to submit articles
in _their own native format_, whatever that may be.  If it is plain text, or
LaTex (for the physics and math people), or *shudder* Word .doc (for the
history and english people and Dan Geiser's mom, etc.), then that's great.

It's wonderful to imagine that we could have automated tools to move
easily from one format to another, but I think that to some extent
that's a pipe dream.  What will be needed are XML-aware volunteers,
culled from our many technical volunteers, to take raw submissions and
massage them into a standard-ish format.  Is there a better way?

(It is worth noting, too, that at least with raw text, the conversion
is as simple as doing something like adding article metadata (author,
etc.) in a standard format.  The body of the article could be just left
as-is, at first.

There are separate questions here -- what format(s) shall we empower
authors to use versus what format ought we to store the 'canonical'
versions of the articles.

--Jimbo


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