Problem: Create a diagram in Wikipedia is tedious. You have to basically create an SVG file. It makes updates on the diagrams difficult. SVG code is quite verbose.
Proposed solution: Use a high-level language for describing diagrams. For instance PGF/TikZ which is the somehow main stream solution for making figures/diagrams in a LaTEX document.
Who would benefit: Any contributor that wants to create/update a diagram/picture for a Wikipedia article.
More comments: Supporting PGF/TikZ language would be in some sense in the same spirit that the already existing support of Lilypond language (for music notation). The benefit of PGF/TikZ over other diagram languages is that it also offers support for LaTEX formulas directly. Of course, we should discuss the choice of the supported language. We could also offer the possibility to describe a diagram in many languages (PGF/TikZ, graphviz, etc.). In case this wish is selected, I would be glad to participate to development.
One of the argument against is: 'a feature would add undue complexity to MediaWiki'. I am not sure to completely understand the point. The complexity will be the same than for the extensions for music (Lilypond) and for formulas (LaTEX). --Fschwarzentruber (talk) 20:07, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm not a programmer so I cannot comment on that, but what I do know is that diagrams are as you say. There are loads of articles that would benefit from those and but I never add them because it is so time consuming. Magnoliasouth (talk) 22:19, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There's already a graph extension which produces beautiful, interactive graphs and charts, and it uses Wikitext's familiar template syntax. Introducing another language or format just for generating diagrams is going to intimidate users unfamiliar with the technology, and those who *are* familiar likely already have ways to generate diagrams themselves. Moreover, such a feature would add undue complexity to MediaWiki, especially if it involves large, hairy dependencies like TeX. Definitely something we could do without. Alhadis (talk) 21:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per HLFan. The already available graph extension is quite powerful and editing data in Visual Editor is pretty easy. Couldn't we improve it instead, especially including more graph types to be editable in the Visual Editor? Lion-hearted85 (talk) 11:49, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]