Not got time right now to read the entire thread but big bump up for this. We’ve recently launched Discourse for CAMRA, a consumer organisation of beer & cider drinkers in the UK with over 170,000 members to replace phpBB. It’s not yet been launched to the membership as a whole but I felt compelled to return to Meta to put a plea in for WYSIWYG.
These are not technical users with the average age being over 40. The lack of a WYSIWYG editor is the biggest problem with Discourse. It’s the single consistent thing the early adopters have complained about. It’s seen as a blocker to adoption.
Heck, I’ve worked in IT as a programmer and IT manager for over 30 years and even I don’t like mark-up for this purpose. I hate having to keep switching my focus between left and right panels. When I use italics using ctrl-I, I always forget to move over the trailing underscore - that’s horribly user unfriendly.
So yes PLEASE implement a WYSIWYG editor with some urgency.