I've been reading the pages HtmlSyntaxAllowedDiscussion, FlexWikiEngineDecoupling & FlexWikiData.

I like the discussions there, but I think key points are being missed.

The following features are needed:

• An XML standard format for WikiTopic content - let's say WikiML to be trite.
• A WikiML Web Service (or ServiceOrientedArchitecture) needs to be able to server up and store WikiML documents, based on namespace and topic name, etc.
• Wiki Format Transformation Engines should be able to perform the following transformations:
• WikiML "<==>" WikiML (identity transformation)
• WikiML "<==>" XHTML (standard XHTML that can be editted with a standard XHTML compliant editor - but would expect lossy backward conversion.)
• WikiML "<==>" WikiText (the ye ol favourite format)

Then we are able to separate storage from display.

Also we can now be agnostic toward the choice of editor/format that is used.

Also we can define a standard way to interact with any other document creation engine - either through XSLT or by transforming XHTML.

Suggested Diagram

Visio Document