[Pmwiki-users] Re: more --signature markup thoughts

[JF@3wplace.com]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:40:40 -0700, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> 
wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 02:34:33PM +0100, Christian Ridderstr?m wrote:
>>
>> As a general question... how important is it that the signature markup
>> resembles the appearance? I.e., if it should appear as '--' (or as
>> &mdash;), should the markup then contain '--'?
>
> In general, I think that markup should always resemble the output when
> possible, otherwise it should be made visible.
>
>> Then I started thinking about what a signature is, and it's purpose:
>> [...]
>> Is this what we all mean by a "signature", or are we thinking of other
>> uses for this markup as well? Would we like to use the markup just to
>> refer to a person? (E.g. '[[~Pm]] wrote that...')
>
> Well, after your excellent analysis I think that we're not really
> looking for a signature as much as an easy way to reference identities--
> while '--' has become a common wiki convention for indicating signatures,
> it probably has too many other meanings in text to be useful as markup.
> So, we need something else that can denote an identity, and it might as
> well be something that can be used in text as well as at the end of
> a line.
>
> Bear in mind that my conception of author identities is that names
> shouldn't be limited to WikiWords--i.e., I should be able to call myself
> "Patrick Michaud" and not just "PatrickMichaud".  So, if we allow
> identities in text then there has to be something that marks the end
> of the identity string, throwing out markup such as "~~username".
> That leaves me with the following choices:
>
> in text:                         as a signature:
>   1.  ~Patrick Michaud~            -- ~Patrick Michaud~
>   2.  ~~Patrick Michaud~~          -- ~~Patrick Michaud~~
>   3.  [[~Patrick Michaud]]         -- [[~Patrick Michaud]]
>   4.  {{~Patrick Michaud}}         -- {{~Patrick Michaud}}
>   5.  ~{{Patrick Michaud}}         -- ~{{Patrick Michaud}}
>   6.  ~PatrickMichaud              -- ~PatrickMichaud
>
> Of these my preference thus far is #4, as it helps to reinforce the
> idea that identities are free link text.  I've implemented this one on
> the beta site if anyone wants to try it out.  But the others are
> reasonable too.
>
> {{~Pm}}

Both 4 and 5 have some appeal to me.  I like the "free link" association.
Here's another alternative for consideration:

{~{JF}~}