The above discussion was pretty busy and the thread is now closed with some comment about a proof of concept. To save me having to read all 77 posts, could somebody kindly give me a summary of the next steps? Don’t want to kick start the discussion again - just a summary of where Discourse is going on this subject and maybe a time frame?
If there is a vote, then a BIG vote for a wysiwyg option. As a programmer and reader of Coding Horror, I’m well aware of the back story, positives etc but usability and familiarity for 180,000 non-technical www.camra.org.uk members is very high on our requirements.
I have a high(ish) traffic, yet low user count, non-tech forum and the editor has not been a concern for my audience. And yes, they have raised lots of other concerns, but I don’t think that the editor/wysiwyg thing was never brought up. The new forum was constructed as an open community project, so they all had opportunities to contribute (and they did).
How far from WYSIWYG the Discourse actually is today?
You have the UI buttons for basic message formatting, and a real-time updated preview panel. So in practice What You See Is What You Get. Out of the box.
There are zero plans for that in the forseeable future. If pure WYSIWYG is an absolute bedrock must-have requirement, the sooner you look elsewhere, the happier you will be.