The discussion revolves around integrating Pandoc with Discourse to facilitate the conversion of Markdown posts to MediaWiki format. sunjam aims to automate the process of drafting MediaWiki documentation from Discourse, as the current approach involves manually copying and converting text using Pandoc.
sunjam describes the existing workflow, where users draft posts in Discourse and then manually convert them to MediaWiki format using Pandoc. The goal is to simplify this process and make it more user-friendly, especially for non-technical users.
merefield and pacharanero raise questions about the workflow and suggest exploring alternative solutions, such as using the Custom Wizard plugin or a MediaWiki Sync plugin. merefield also suggests using Zapier as a potential solution.
sunjam clarifies the desired workflow, which involves drafting in Discourse and publishing to MediaWiki. pacharanero suggests a bidirectional sync between MediaWiki and Discourse, which could streamline the process.
pfaffman proposes migrating the wiki to Discourse, but sunjam explains that the MediaWiki installation is beloved and has been in use for 12 years. pfaffman later suggests embedding Discourse comments in MediaWiki via JavaScript as an alternative solution.
The discussion highlights the need for a more streamlined process for converting Markdown posts to MediaWiki format and explores various solutions, including integrating Pandoc with Discourse and using existing plugins or tools.
Continuing the discussion from Converting links from raw markdown to HTML:
I’m for Pandoc integration. I see there is this web app available with a REST API. Looking for a way to automate drafting out mediawiki documentation from Discourse.
Currently I’ll drag and drop markdown into Try pandoc!
Could you describe the workflow in more detail?
Yes, we have a longstanding mediawiki installation: Making sure you're not a bot!
our Discourse forum: Discuss
And this hosted version of Pandoc we’ve encouraged users to use for quickly turning Markdown into the more esoteric mediawiki markup.
I’m hoping there is a way to turn this into a more automated workflow, as we want mediawiki pages from non-technical types who have enough trouble just registering an account.
Obviously we could do this within Discourse, but our mediawiki has been online since ~2007 and has a longstanding following, so no one wants to mess with it. But, it is a bit difficult / long in the tooth for drafting documentation in 2020. 
I’m not fully sure on next steps. But, this would be a big help to our pool of volunteers! So far I’ve discovered this restful api version of Pandoc, or the hosted demo linked above.
I’m still not clear where the data is coming from, but it’s going to your wiki?
What screens and controls might be involved? What discretion does the user have about where it is going?
Hmm, excellent questions. I’m not totally sure. Perhaps the process of drafting out mediawiki pages could be best served through the Custom Wizard plugin.
The issue is volunnteers are having too tough a time writing mediawiki pages in 2020. It is something people master 100% or are terrible at. Hope this makes sense as a problem I hope to address. If not, don’t want to waste your time.
I’ve been very interested in integrating Discourse with our Mediawiki installation to add user friendliness, but I notice a couple attempts to use Discourse for Discussions in mediawiki, have not worked out.
If I were you I would mock up the screens, controls and process before pursuing further. Don’t worry about the solution for now.
If you don’t like the old software, How about migrating the wiki to discourse?
It doesn’t matter if I like it. The wiki has lived for 12 years and is beloved. Just needs some love. 
So you want a way of publishing a Post from Discourse to your Wikimedia instance via a Pandoc translation of Markdown into HTML, is that right?
Sounds very interesting. But also sounds like something Zapier might solve?
PS I get why you might want to stay on the Wiki software. It’s a robust standard that’s designed for that use case.
Right now I’m just copying the mediawiki text into Pandoc, then posting the converted Markdown into a Discourse post by hand. It is tedious, but works.
Are you drafting in Discourse and publishing to Mediawiki?
Or are you taking content from Mediawiki to publish it in Discourse?
Some kind of Mediawiki Sync plugin might be a nice way to please everyone here. I have had similar wiki/Discourse discussions in the past (not least at Leigh Hackspace, which is something I founded back in 2015, and where we once hosted Mitch Altman, one of Noisebridge’s founding team) and a bidirectional sync might work.
Yes, which is why I’m thinking it would be ideal to add in Pandoc to simplify conversion. We are held back by:
Yes, just doing everything by hand.
Hoping to streamline this process. 
If possible, this would be awesome. Both mediawiki and Discourse and useful tools. It is great to have important information in the wiki, plus discussion in the forum. Obviously, it is ideal to drop url links so people can easily page between both tools.
I know there have been attempts by the wikimedia foundation to integrate both of these tools together. You can find details on the forum. I was also hopeful to allow login to our Discourse from Mediawiki SSO, but that plugin breaks account creation on our forum.
Why not just leave the stuff on MediaWiki and have discussion on discourse with Embedding Discourse Comments via Javascript?