Suggestion Should BB Code and Markdown Be Combined for Post Editing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter michaellee8
  • Start date Start date
AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on the potential benefits and drawbacks of combining BB Code and Markdown for post editing in forums. Proponents argue that Markdown offers a more universal and readable format, especially for scientific documentation, while BB Code is seen as less portable and harder to read. Critics express concerns that introducing Markdown could complicate formatting further, as current mixes of BB Code and LaTeX already lead to unpredictable rendering issues. Additionally, some participants question the necessity of features like headers in forum posts, emphasizing that forums are not publishing platforms. Ultimately, the decision to integrate Markdown will depend on its popularity and the platform's future direction.
michaellee8
Markdown is a somehow universal language to do some documentary work, especially for Science and Computer works. There are already forums like Stack Exchange that uses this way to provide more human-readable presentation of posts.
However, BB code used here is quite a specific markup that is intended for Forums usage, and hence not really portable and compatible with the scientific discussion here. Those BB codes are in fact quite hard to read if you ask me.
i believe allowing a combination of BB code and markdown for post editing could be great, what do you guys think?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
What functionality would that add above the BBCode and LaTeX mix we have here?
 
  1. Support for more ways to write those documents
  2. Headers that is rendered with h1 h2 h3 etc.
  3. More readable source code since BB Code is a bit strange actually.
 
michaellee8 said:
Support for more ways to write those documents

We have BBCode and Latex, people already mix them in unpredictable ways. Adding another layer will only make things worse. Such posts are often impossible to quote and sometimes they are erratically rendered which makes them unreadable.

Headers that is rendered with h1 h2 h3 etc.

I don't think I ever needed headers in a forum post. Forum is not a publishing platform.

More readable source code since BB Code is a bit strange actually.

For someone used to BB code same can be said about markdown.

Once it gets popular things may change (it will be in the end up to @Greg Bernhardt to decide), but at the moment the markdown plugin for xenforo is far on the list of plugin downloads. Yes, it gets popular in some places, No, I don't see how it is going to improve PF at the moment.
 
This is a forum, and BBcode is used in most forums.

Markdown tends to over-interpret symbols used in formulas, especially *italics* when you want to write a*b*c, and links to WolframAlpha are a big mess because you have to escape every single closing bracket.
 
I want to thank those members who interacted with me a couple of years ago in two Optics Forum threads. They were @Drakkith, @hutchphd, @Gleb1964, and @KAHR-Alpha. I had something I wanted the scientific community to know and slipped a new idea in against the rules. Thank you also to @berkeman for suggesting paths to meet with academia. Anyway, I finally got a paper on the same matter as discussed in those forum threads, the fat lens model, got it peer-reviewed, and IJRAP...
About 20 years ago, in my mid-30s (and with a BA in economics and a master's in business), I started taking night classes in physics hoping to eventually earn the science degree I'd always wanted but never pursued. I found physics forums and used it to ask questions I was unable to get answered from my textbooks or class lectures. Unfortunately, work and life got in the way and I never got further the freshman courses. Well, here it is 20 years later. I'm in my mid-50s now, and in a...
Back
Top