Wiki-like editing of abstract and detailed description fields

As an enhancement, please consider making the abstract and the detailed
description fields on the student's application be editable in a fashion
similar to a wiki.  That is, allow simple markup for paragraphs, lists,
links, headers, preformated text, and the like.  I'm not saying that you
have to go all the way to full wiki formatting, but enough so that it's
possible to present a technical proposal.

Both fields should be editable.  The fields should be editable up through
the end of the evaluation period; the student should be able to react to
comments by evaluators to clarify (or otherwise modify) their proposal all
the way up until the evaluators make their final choices.  (A case can be
made that the abstract should be editable even longer, but it should be
editable at least through the end of the evaluation period.

Ideally, the (public) comments and the deltas between versions would be
part of the same dialog so one could see what the student changed as they
responded to a comment.

This process is basically what we put our students through.  We require
that they create a page on our wiki for their proposal and edit it as they
receive comments.  The problem is that the comments (and student replies)
are typically via mail, so the sequence of comments, replies, and changes
can be hard to recreate.  Moreover, the wiki entry is discoverable, so it's
possible that ideas and concepts presented by one student could be stolen
and used by another student.  We would rather that the interaction be done
via Google's dashboard, where only the student and the mentors can see it.

UI design is really a separate topic, but I visualize this as three sheets:
 one with the student's proposal (info, abstract, and detailed
description), one with the public comments and (side-by-side) deltas, and
one with the mentors' evaluations and ratings.  The student sees the first
two; the mentors see all three.  Exactly how that's presented is a flame
war for another time and place.

Oh, while you're looking at this issue, I'd appreciate it if you could get
rid of the 7500-character limit, or maybe allow an organization to set the
upper limit.  We've found that our proposals are typically three or four
times longer than that (but then we ask for a lot of supporting detail).
Original issue reported on code.google.com by Greg.Noe...@gmail.com on 26 Apr 2007 at 2:08
engasmaa / google-summer-of-code

Wiki-like editing of abstract and detailed description fields #102
