If you’ve tried out several wiki engines, you have probably noticed that the developers of each of them have invented their own wiki markup language. I guess no-one has a problem with that. It’s a free world after all. However, all these different versions of markup languages easily become a pain when you have to submit content to several different wiki engines. For instance, Wikipedia, various popular bug trackers, wiki engines dedicated to projects like Ubuntu are all very popular wikis, but, unfortunately, the contributor has to learn several different markup languages to be able to submit rich content to all of them.
I admit that I’ve always been frustrated by this situation. But, fortunately, there is some light. The Creole Project is an effort to create a standard wiki markup language using democratic procedures. The goals page reveals that this project is serious and will finally deliver something useful to humanity. The Creole 1.0 specification has been completed, but some work is still being done on several (necessary in my opinion) additions.
I think everyone who is interested in collaborative content should be happy about Creole. This is for the benefit of both the projects and their contributors because a standard wiki markup language promotes productivity. I think the language still needs more official additions, but I guess this is just a matter of time.
I got the impression that the Creole Project deserves more popularity, so I wrote this small post for all of you who might have never heard of it. It would be nice if you did the same!
Creole – Standard Wiki Markup Language by George Notaras is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright © 2010 - Some Rights Reserved