text/wiki vs dozens of text/vnd.*.wiki

[Linus Walleij]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Mario Salzer wrote:

> Now the question: Does it make any sense on attempting
> standardization such an text/plain-alike "hypertext format"
> (would become text/wiki) or should the over-registration of
> MIME types (which only were minor variations of each other!)
> just happen?

For the first question: YES it makes sense! DO IT. The Internet needs a
Wiki interchange format standard. There are two possible fora:

1. Workgroup at W3.org to get this done. (W3 people are at this list and
   may tell their view on the subject). I *think* W3 would very much
   recognize Wiki as their baby.

2. Workgroup at IETF to get this done, if W3 don't want it.

Both approaches will cost incredible amounts of time and energy :-)

We cannot stop people from registering vnd.xxx and prs.xxx types. However,
from experience a very few people go through the (very simple) process of
actually registering such MIME types anyway. Their interchange needs are
not big enough.

Linus Walleij