discuss: Re: Documentation Wiki
Subject:
Re: Documentation Wiki
From:
Brian White ####@####.####
Date:
6 Jun 2006 14:59:25 -0000
Message-Id: <44859827.6090901@precidia.com>
> Hmm, I seem to remember that there were some comments on this. Don't seem
> to be in the list though...
>
> Anyway, the subject turns up from time to time, but there are some
> inconveniences:
>
> - - authors usually get feedback by E-mail, and if they are active, they
> usually include the feedback they get that way. It would require an extra
> effort from the authors to check the wiki. Besides, half of our document
> collection is unmaintained, i.e. the authors can not be contacted. Sad
> but true. For those a wiki might be handy, but who is going to maintain
> the wiki info? We are lacking resources as it is.
The Wiki can notify authors of changes made. In fact, I got one today
(someone corrected a typo for me).
It's exactly the second reason that I think a Wiki would be good because
others can maintain it when the author does not. The documents aren't
static. Plus, they're dated and I'm trying to be specific about what
version of software a document applies to.
As to the last point, I understand lacking resources, which it what I'm
trying to help. This wouldn't require any effort on your group's part
other than a DNS entry pointing to the site. If, eventually, your group
wanted to take it over completely that could probably be arranged, but
for now it's just a convientent pointer for people to follow.
wiki.tldp.org.
> - - Users usually don't give feedback. If they do, they have the E-mail
> address of the author at hand. It has been argued a couple of times that
> users who do not give feedback, won't be tempted to do so either if they
> first have to go to a wiki. Keep in mind also that users might be reading
> docs off-line -> even less incentive to go to the wiki.
Very true. But in the cases where users do, this allows them to
contribute directly rather than going through the author who may not
have the interest to update their personal file or the time to integrate
the new with the old; and no matter how vigilant an auther is, they
can't changed pages that are archived list messages.
Then there are users in between who would contribute if it were easy but
won't take the time to write a complete and discriptive email. Also, a
Wiki means that the contibutor is responsible for integrating the
information rather than the author. It's easier for both.
> - - There is no standard format (RFC) for wikis. So we would have to chose
> one that is available now. If the maintainers stop maintaining the chosen
> wiki, we're stuck.
Yup. I'm using MediaWiki because I'm extremely impressed with it and
it's likely to stay around (since it's maintained for the Wikipedia and
friends).
> - - There is no standard format for wikis -> hard to sync into existing
> document three.
Yup. A definite minus. But we already have disparate trees: howtos,
man pages, info pages, email postings, blogs, etc. Plus, if it's
popular, people will start writing tools to do the conversion; that has
been shown before.
Anyway, I understand where you're coming from. I'm willing to do the
work right now. I was just hoping for a dns alias and a link.
Brian
( ####@####.#### )
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