Subject:
Wiki questions
From:
Erik Moeller ####@####.####
Date:
13 Jan 2003 09:49:19 -0000
Message-Id: <1042451357.1285.55.camel@chesoo.fokus.gmd.de>
Hi,
I currently work for the BerliOS project, which is an initiative
sponsored by the German government to promote and coordinate open source
/ free software development. Among other projects, we run
developer.berlios.de, a SourceForge-style service (but ad-free and based
only on free software) with over 500 projects. We also run an LDP
mirror. Let me first extend my thanks to all the people of the LDP for
their hard and important work.
We are in the process of setting up a Wikipedia-based knowledge base on
the subject of open source / free software. This project will be called
OpenFacts and reside on http://openfacts.berlios.de (for the German
version, there will also be an English one).
Wikipedia is a wiki-based encyclopedia and the largest wiki, with nearly
100,000 articles in English alone. The software is under the GPL; I am
among the developers. One reason Wikipedia works, in my opinion, is that
it does not use the CamelCase (AKA ShiftedCaps) syntax of the original
wikis to create links, which quickly results in an ugly, unreadable mess
(check out the AbiWord wiki, for example, and be amazed by links like
"UnixFaqAbiWordCouldNotLoadTimesNewRoman"). In contrast, Wikipedia uses
[[free links]] which are put in double square brackets. Wikipedia also
uses most of the other Usemod syntax and has a fairly decent user
interface.
As you can probably tell by now, I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and think
that its principle of massive collaborative editing would greatly
benefit existing open source / free software documentation. However,
this is a different model as opposed to the current LDP model, and I do
not think the two can be reconciled; they can just be tried separately.
It is also my understanding from the mailing list archive that the LDP
is not interested in using wiki technology for anything else but article
preparation, and that a completely open editing process is considered
inappropriate. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!)
So where do we go from here? The new BerliOS wiki(-pedia) will launch
officially in the next few days. I will import existing HOWTOs and FAQs
where the license allows copying and modification. I will also contact
some of the authors to ask for permission where this isn't the case. We
will encourage software developers on developer.berlios.de to use the
wiki for their documentation and man-pages, and we will add some
original content. Everything originally contributed to the wiki is
automatically put in the public domain, so it is free for others to
re-use in any way.
We hope that this platform evolves into a central meeting point for
those interested and able to help build a knowledge base about open
source / free software. People could jump between editing a HOWTO here
and a program-specific FAQ there, between providing a translation and
describing a new application. Any developer should be able to use this
platform to ask for volunteers in the documentation process.
I am writing you first and foremost to let you know this, and second to
ask a couple of questions and to address some possible concerns. My
questions:
1) There is a conversion program called "wt2db" to convert usemod-style
wikitext to the Docbook format. Is there already a conversion program
that accomplishes the reverse? Is there an archive of wikitext-based
HOWTOs somewhere?
2) Similarly, is there any existing converter for the manpage
groff-format to wikitext?
3) Are there any parallel wiki-efforts I should know about? I am aware
of the LinuxWiki project and will contact Thomas Waldmann to discuss
possible cooperation.
There are some possible concerns related to what we are trying to do
here, and the most likely one is the fear of forking. This fear is, in
part, justified: If the OpenFacts project takes off, it will be
necessary to merge changes from OpenFacts into the existing CVS and vice
versa. This will be somewhat tricky because both are based on different
formats, so diff will not work reasonably well (optimizing the
conversion software will be important). However, realistically we do not
need to do this for every single change. It is sufficient to perhaps
compare the revisions once per month and add relevant new material.
A better long term modus operandi is to use OpenFacts for the editing
process, and to use LDP/CVS for selecting trusted revisions of the
documents in regular intervals. That way you get the massive
collaborative nature of wikis combined with the trusted authority of the
LDP collective. A similar process is currently being discussed for
Wikipedia in the form of the "Sifter" project, which is an attempt to
filter high quality Wikipedia articles into the parallel "Nupedia"
project.
But I fully realize that many of you will remain skeptical towards the
wiki process, and rightly so. It is not our intent to impose this
process on anyone, and we would fail miserably if we tried to. We are
merely trying to provide an additional tool. Wikipedia has compiled
replies to some common anti-wiki arguments here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AOur_Replies_to_Our_Critics
If you have any questions, please ask away. If you are interested in
cooperating, feel free to contact me immediately. :-) We will set up a
mailing list for this project where project-specific matters are better
discussed than here.
Very truly yours,
Erik Moeller
PS: A bug report: the subscription link at
http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:dds:0:200301 leads to the e-mail
address ####@####.#### , which does not exist.
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de
