You've been told that because "wiki languages" are ill defined to say the least. The really bad part is "trying to parse" them, not "using php and regexps" .
Probably the issue is that you have to run your regular expressions one at a time each across the entire contents of the wiki page, and that takes a lot of processing time. A simple solution is to use some sort of delimiter for tags, such as , and you process the text sequentially from beginning to end. Each time you find a tag, you search for the end tag .
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.