Growing Successful Communities

[#1]

Hi all, me again.

I am interested to get the opinion of everyone here, regarding the support for which markup language is best in communities. 

In my mind there are 3 real choices these days. HTML, BBcode or WikiCode.

Before becoming a Lithium customer our communities had settled into a nice routine with BBcode, so post migration, it has taken a while them (and us) to get used to using HTML. We still even now get a lot of questions and comments about what you can and cannot do with HTML in the community forums etc..

So... I would love to hear some comments from people on this subject.  Also,  from the Lithium Team, you have any plans to add support for other mark up languages, or even look to expanding the current permission settings; so Administrators can dictate which HTML elements their users are allowed to use.

Cheers,

    Phil....

[#2]

Unfortunately (or maybe, fortunately, heheh), I cant speak for Product Management on this subject.

However, I can say that we do have an outstanding request for "spoiler code" (a common bit of bbcode used to hide "spoilers"), but I dont think it is coming in the form of bbcode or wiki markup.

This is probably not much help at all, and I know it definitely does not address your questions, but I at least wanted to share something quasi-related to your question.

[#3]

I have found that BBcode seems to be more convenient for the inexperienced coders and doesn't seem to be as versitile as HTML.  I think both have their purpose but I have found that HTML provides the user with better capabilities to customize things such as a Signature.

[#4]

I think all of the different mark-ups have their place.

BBCode is simple to use, though with the advent of "rich text" editors it has perhaps lost a little bit of the urgency it once had.

The various wiki mark-ups are, I think, extremely powerful when they're linked to a macro capability. I love the idea of being able to embed a little application in my post through safe mark-up alone.

HTML is HTML, so it's powerful and offers high fidelity. When I first came to Lithium, I was fairly surprised that we allowed people to input HTML into their messages because of the security issues. But we've developed pretty good filtering techniques, and if the truth be known -- clever hackers have figured out how to convert "safe" (non-HTML) mark-up into malicious code. So you can never be too careful.

Ultimately, I would love to be able to support all of the different mark-up styles. The biggest limitation is switching between them in a single editor. Since there are things that are possible in HTML that are not possible in simpler mark-down languages, you end up with an odd user experience if you give people the choice within the same editor. It's not insurmountable, and you can do things like give people a choice as a user preference. But it does introduce complexity.

Thanks for your interest!

Phil

[#5]

I've always been a big fan of BB code, but that was when you had a simple text editor with no buttons to add code for you...

Now if you can create an environment where users can post safe html then I think it gives the users much more freedom in what they can do in their posts.

So many people have experience with webpages now days what with it being taught in schools I don't think it is as out of reach as it used to be