[Vim-l] Character entities in wikitext

[John Beckett]

I've been wondering what to put in wikitext:
    <CR> (this works but is "wrong"), or
    &lt;CR&gt; (this is "correct" but confusing when editing)

I'm trying to get some guidance on what the MediaWiki software does in this thread:
http://lists.wikia.com/pipermail/wikia-l/2008-May/003053.html

I suspect that the topic is not well documented. Experiment shows that using "<CR>"
in wikitext gives "&lt;CR&gt;" in the html (good), but putting these in wikitext
spectacularly fail:
    <S-F1> (gives strike through and omits '-' + following)
    <q-args> (gives curly quotes and omits '-' + following)

In the past, I have advised editors to use &lt; &gt; &amp; instead of < > &. I put
an example of <S-F1> failing here:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Datagrok

In the last few weeks, I've been using < > & instead and it makes the wikitext MUCH
easier to edit (and MUCH easier for new editors). I'm thinking I might continue
using < > & but we need to watch out for failures and put <nowiki>...</nowiki>
around the problem. An alternative might be to use a template, such as the test
created by Angela:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Template:S
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Vim_Tips_Wiki:Sandbox

As far as I can tell, when you are inside <pre>...</pre> you can use any characters.
For example, here is <S-F3> in a pre block:
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/VimTip1544

If I get more confidence I might use my bot to do some mass changes, although some
care would be needed to not cause damage. Things like converting "&lt;CR&gt;" to
"<CR>" should be ok. Any thoughts?

John