>but what i didn't fully appreciate was that my long play also
engendered their _pride_.  so now, even though they realize
that light-markup is the way to go, it still makes them choke,
and they can't get themselves to use it as the master-format.

At least in this posting BB makes clear he intended course of action.  Rather than as he has claimed previously that he is not attempting to “force” anyone one to do anything, rather here in this posting he makes it clear that he IS attempting to “force” people to do something: namely he is attempting to “force” PG to adopt ZML as a “master format” replacement for the already odorous requirement to submit txt70, thus “forcing” all PG volunteers to make a version of their volunteer submission efforts in ZML. Why does BB want to “force” volunteers to take such actions?  Simply because he knows that they would not take such actions voluntarily – the vast majority of volunteers DO NOT want to support BB and do not want to write in ZML.  What do volunteers want to write in?  Overwhelmingly they want to write in HTML. Some would like to write in EPUB, and some would like to write in MOBI – or at least be allowed to submit in addition in EPUB or MOBI.  A smaller fraction want to write in txt70 only. If in fact ZML were a superior format then BB wouldn’t have to try to “force” volunteers to do anything – they would naturally flock to a tool that makes their efforts easier and more fun!

Does HTML have problems?  Absolutely.  Namely it seems that the great majority of people posting to PG don’t know or don’t care about what it takes to write HTML that actually “works” on the great majority of reader devices that PG readers use.  [But this problem could be “solved” if PG required that HTML that contains of one these obvious fatal flaws be fixed before submission.  The problem could also be “solved” if PG were to document what it takes to write HTML that actually works on the great majority of reader devices] Does HTML have any advantages?  Absolutely – at least ONE overwhelming advantage: Namely it is what volunteers overwhelmingly want to write in. Another advantage is that it has thousands of well-developed tools from 100s of professional suppliers.

If somehow BB were able to “force” PG to replace the onerous txt70 requirement with an even more onerous ZML requirement the end result is clear: Namely that the volunteer transcribers will simply choose to post elsewhere than PG.

Again, BB is simply attempting to once-again to re-litigate the last 40 years of markup languages, claiming vast superiority for his preference for the use of tilde ~ as the markup symbol of choice in his lightweight markup language, as opposed to say equal-sign = in reStructuredText.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_language

My simple counter-suggestion is: Allow volunteers to submit in whatever one-or-more formats the volunteers want to submit in, as long as at least one format is non-encrypted non-compressed.  You could even require one format be a txt-like format for archival purposes – as long as you don’t require additional onerous hand-markup requirements on that txt-like format, such as IS required by ZML or txt70.  PG can and should (as it has always done between some formats) auto-convert between supported formats. You should also allow and encourage volunteers to submit hand-conversions to the other formats when the original submitter declined to submit in those formats.

Part of the current problem with PG is simply that PG does not allow volunteers to submit in the formats of their choice – rather PG forces anyone wanting to submit in EPUB or MOBI to instead submit in HTML – and then wait and see what kind of EPUB or MOBI the PG mechanizations spits out at public posting time – and then the volunteer gets to regret their HTML choices at their leisure.