discuss: Linux documentation wiki
Subject:
Re: Linux documentation wiki
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
16 Jan 2002 08:41:44 -0000
Message-Id: <20020116004201.B206@lafn.org>
On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 09:14:13AM -0500, David Merrill wrote:
> I will not support making this something we force on authors. It will
> be each author's choice whether to allow collaborative editing. Not
> the LDP's!
>
> Also, the choice as I propose it is fourfold:
>
> 1. the author only edits it, basically as things work now
> 2. registered users of the LDP database can also edit it
> 3. promiscuous editing by anyone
> 4. editing by selected registered users only (two authors or three,
> perhaps all those already maintaining the howto)
I think that for most docs, more improvement could be made per hour of
the author's time by means other than using wikis. To present the above
choices will pose a significant burden on most authors since you will
also need to accompany it by a document discussing the pros and cons of
each choice. Almost all authors are not following this discussion and
would not really have strong opinions on which choice to select.
So many authors may select an option and then be disappointed with it.
If so, they will blame LDP for it. The good-will of the authors is of
paramount importance. I know of one person who wrote a HOWTO but will
not submit it to LDP due to his poor opinion of us.
If an author picks option 2, nothing may happen to the doc. If option
3, poor changes may anger the author. Just presenting these options is
an implicit statement that we think it's a good idea (or at least that's
what many people will think).
So what we might do is to ask for volunteer guinea pigs to try this out.
At first just offer this to authors on the mailing list. Then depending
on the results of the experiment, go on from there. If only a few
HOWTOs are wiki (promiscuous), then there will not be as much editing of
them as there would be if many HOWTOs are wiki (due to the wider
publicity we would get if we had a large number of promiscuous wikis).
We need to keep this in mind when evaluation trial results.
> > Another question: Does adding the wiki add to maintainers' work load?
> > Are they now required to check the wiki from time to time for new
> > input, or can the wiki be set up to email the maintainer when edits
> > are made.
>
> No, no, no. Never. Unless we can come up with a really easy way to
> manage the "drift" we should ask the author to use the wiki only if he
> does so exclusively.
I don't understand. If someone edits your wiki, you need to know about
it right away. Notification by email seems logical. Of course
reviewing edits made by others adds to the maintainers workload.
David Lawyer
