Regardless of the below discussion,
the webmaster has turned WikiWords off, so it
doesn't much matter.
A WikiWord is the concatenation of two or more capitalised
words, giving a single string that starts with a capital and has embedded
single capitals. The obvious example is, of course, WikiWord.
Having given above the naked, uncommented definition, discussion arose
from subsequent thoughts on the question of how to generate links in Wikis.
The discussion is below, the "executive summary" is:
- Using WikiWords one avoids extra "noise" in the plain text.
- By avoiding special characters we remove a potential barrier to technophobes.
- BiCapitalisation looks silly.
- The special characters are "essential markup."
- We'll never agree.
Discussion follows.
In the original Wiki the idea was that links would be created with no extra
"noise" or fiddly bits. All you had to do was run the words together and the
link would be created for you automagically. It still works in this Wiki, but
as capitalisation is frowned on in lojban an alternative method has been
implemented in which square brackets are used to create links.
Opinions differ about this. Some say that BiCapitalisation looks silly, and
that the square brackets used to create links are "essential markup." Others
say that requiring extraneous symbols is a barrier to the non-technical who
may feel intimidated by the use of these unfamiliar symbols. On the other
hand, square brackets are hardly rocket science.
So, is Wiki markup intended to exclude the hoi polloi or is Wiki non-markup
to include the hoi polloi? Can we ever know? — ColinWright
Of course. As with any controversy in lojbanistan, we all already know that the other side is wrong. The question is, can we ever agree?