For me, because I usually don't have to write a full fledged paper, only short math articles.
I use Pandoc + pandoc-citeproc + mathjax and a Haskell code to make it more useful for writing math on the web. (basically, define theorem enviroments, and allow one to refer to theorems from before) https://github.com/Mgccl/blog/blob/master/mathdoc.hs
It is almost good enough, the only problem is there is no way to number the sections and refer to sections. Note it can be fixed in the output side.
Seconding the pandoc approach. I've written articles in markdown (+citeproc) and then used pandoc to convert to LaTeX or MS Word. Easy, clean and elegant. I think it provides all the things that these people want, without needing to reinvent the wheel or make yet-another-markup language.
So the consensus is that LaTeX is perfect, except that it's complex and hard to use. What's the evidence that recreating LaTeX from scratch will lead to something simpler?
It's something I would love to have, and that I've thought about myself. However, I'd love if someone sees into this hackpad more than a list of wishes by a group of folks.
Is this group of folks notorious for solving and shipping problems of this kind?
Author here (or rather - people who started this collaborative Hackpad).
1. As for any use of Markdown, it is aimed at short notes and things which are (and should be) more lightweight than full LaTeX (to make them easily editable + make it possible to have them as webpages, etc).
2. Open collaborative pads: I enjoyed a lot collaborative discussions, where anyone can edit. Most of the time results were wonderful (and for this pad, up to 8h ago, it was great). I was both sad and disgusted to see an anus instead of the content (as I see it takes only 2 malicious users among a few dozens to spoil the experience). I reverted them and set some moderation options.
I'm not familiar with HackPad, but I don't think that's what's happening, because the `img` tags point directly to goatse.info. I think someone edited the document, removed whatever content was once there, and replaced it with goatse pics. That's a shame, because I was interested in reading the article.
I use Pandoc + pandoc-citeproc + mathjax and a Haskell code to make it more useful for writing math on the web. (basically, define theorem enviroments, and allow one to refer to theorems from before) https://github.com/Mgccl/blog/blob/master/mathdoc.hs
It is almost good enough, the only problem is there is no way to number the sections and refer to sections. Note it can be fixed in the output side.
An example: http://www.chaoxuprime.com/posts/2014-03-08-even-cycle-in-a-...