Your comments
I completely agree with this sentiment. Markdown is the thing that - I think - has kept a number of writers off of Weasyl and on the other, bigger sites. If that was removed as a problem here, then I think that a number of authors in particular would be willing to come to FN and give it a shot.
As it stands, all users are being asked to throw out the common experience that they're used to on all the other big sites in favor of something that's a bit of a minority. I am a bit inexperienced, admittedly, in being on a number of different sites, but I've never had to try Markdown before Weasyl lifted its head, and due to the extreme difference and difficulty - and the lack of italics support - I couldn't work my stories in over there. That is going to be a big problem here as well.
BBCode is a pretty simple thing, when you get right down to it. A simple [, followed by your tag, followed by a ]. Almost anyone can learn how to do it. Anyone saying that Markdown is simpler is right only in the fact that you use the same key, only more times, to get an effect; it is NOT easier to memorize, nor easier to work with in terms of the versatility it offers.
Easier to use on mobile? No, but most writers and most posters of longer works - where we NEED this versatility - are not using mobiles. We're using keyboards, where the keys are easy to tap and there's no real worries about flexibility of keys, but more worries about remembering what the hell we're typing, and if we've picked the right sort, and whether we'll need to go back and fix it later. Which is a huge worry, for most of us.
Should Markdown be taken out? No.
Should it be the only choice? HELL no.
I don't know how coding works, and I don't know if there is a way to have both. But we need something better than Markdown for written works, or authors - at the very least - will be less invested in coming here, and anything involving more extensive work will have a hard time developing.
The recent decision about 'professionalism' being important to the site should be considered for this.
I don't know that that's a good idea. What would be good is an option like what is available on FA, IB, and (usually) on SF, where you can put the BBCode into the text and it formats it. The problem I have with the toolbar is that you have to insert the raw text and then go through and add the formatting, whereas if you've been adding the formatting as you write - like I do, and a fair number of others I've seen - you have to go through and strip it out and replace it with the formatting you get from the toolbar.
In other words, a massive slowdown, which is not what anybody wants.
Not to mention it would be great if you could find a way to send it over as is; most stories loaded up on FA, if formatted, will have a lot of bbcode in them. I don't know if it's possible to bring that over with markdown being used here, but it would help massively in my case. I don't look forward to porting over several hundred stories.
Customer support service by UserEcho
Coming in late to the party here, but I would say that the toolbar above the text box is not good for anything other than short responses, a paragraph or two at most. Past that, we need proper formatting tools, or people will be at the process of making a post far longer than they should be.
Markdown is one method of formatting posts, but as other people have noted, it varies from site to site depending on the type that is adopted. It also requires a different sort of memorization in how it is used. Instead of having distinct labels for their use, Markdown resorts to making you memorize how many of one specific character you throw at a line to format it, and if you remember wrong, tough luck, gotta go back and look up how to do it, gotta go back and find out where you put it, and hoping you're putting it in the right way this time.
I can't help but feel that Markdown is insufficient for writing fiction. I have yet to attempt to use it in my profile here, but I can tell that I will have a headache and a half trying to get my various stories converted from bbcode to Markdown, and not all of them CAN be converted, due to the inherent limitations.
I suppose that is the biggest problem. You are asking people to change what they have been working with - what they've been using on other sites for a LONG time - and lose versatility tools in hopes of them learning something new, using it in a way that may or may not match the style that they've had in the past, for a reason I can't really understand. It is going to drive people away eventually; for a site that prides itself on professionalism, as professed by your recent decisions, it is a serious problem when you deny professionals the use of their tools.
For those of you that think the editor toolbar is good enough, it's not. Make what marks you like in a document, but if you format it the way that a lot of authors will, that will add anywhere from five minutes to a half hour to each upload, going through and changing it to what you want. That headache may not seem like much, but it will add up and it will make uploads slow to a trickle as people stop seeing the point of it.
Give us options, ones that are more or less a standard on the internet scene.