User:Deltahedron/work2

Background

About 1% of Wikipedia's 4.5 million articles are assessed as being in "Mathematics and Logic". Probably a similar number are in theoretical physics and in computer science. So in about a hundred thousand articles, the ability to render mathematics is indispensible to the reader: the ability to write and edit mathematics is indispensible to the author and editor.

Currently the predominant mathematics markup system in all forms of document preparation is some flavour of LaTeX. It may be presumed that any serious mathematics content contributor will be thoroughly familiar with LaTeX. LaTeX is rendered on web pages in a variety of ways: currently Wikipedia uses two of the more popular methods, rendering formulae as PNG images and rendering dynamically using MathJax. There are deficiencies in the current implementation of each of these methods.

The stability and usefulness of current mathematics rendering is reduced by the following

• Incremental development of reader and editor interfaces is apt to degrade the reader or editor experience without warning.
• Major changes in editor interfaces, such as the introduction of Wikipedia:VisualEditor and Wikipedia:Flow, may be radically incompatible with existing LaTeX markup practices.
• Effort to support mathematics editing and rendering comes entirely from the volunteer community. Currently one volunteer is working on mathematics rendering, and support for mathematics editing in VE consisted of one GSoC summer volunteer.

WMF planning

We are reliably informed that WMF has no plans for development of mathematics rendering and editing. That is, there is no plan to coordinate volunteer effort; no plan to integrate volunteer effort into existing products; no plan to ensure the sustainability of mathematics rendering and editing through major changes to the software and user interface.

As a consequence of the lack of plans, there is no allocation of WMF developer effort to the maintenance, sustainability or enhancement of mathematics rendering and editing. It is assumed that volunteer developers will undertake any tasks that are necessary, even though there is no plan to coordinate those efforts.

It is reasonable to say that there is considerable expertise and experience in mathematics rendering and editing in the existing editor communities. There is no explicit mechanism to capture that experience and make use of it in planning, development or review. Such efforts as have been made to do so are limited in extent and driven by the user community rather than WMF. The role of Community Advocates in linking the editor community and WMF planning and developers in this context has not been effective.

Suggestions

• General

1. WMF planning address the issue of development of mathematics and other complex rendering markup and editing components.
2. WMF liaise actively and effectively with existing editor and reader communities in (1).
3. WMF draw up roadmap for development of complex rendering and editing.
4. WMF liaise actively and effectively with volunteer developer communities to determine required frameworks and work packages.
5. WMF allocate funds and resources to support work packages.

• Specific

1. Mathematics rendering to be based on MathJax as principal vehicle, with efficiency and resources issues resolved on a wide variety of platforms.
2. LaTeX markup retained as principal mode of editing mathematics text with concomitant option to directly edit at the wikitext markup level.