Subject:
Re: Wiki questions
From:
Stein Gjoen ####@####.####
Date:
8 Feb 2003 11:46:01 -0000
Message-Id: <3E33EE6F.7090703@mail.nyx.net>
Erik Moeller wrote:
> Hi,
[snip]
> 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!)
The understand the position of the LDP it is necessary to consider
the entire process, which simplified concists of 4 steps:
- authoring
- review
- distribution
- reading
The Wiki approach seems to conflate all these and assume that the
entire readership has adequate networking available which is a much
too big assumption. Many of the big growth areas for Linux are
indeed places where full internet access, much less broadband, is
available, for financial or political reasons that the LDP is quite
unable to do anything about.
Similarly you have the reading process where the LDP has made a
decision to support the lowest common technology by making the
documents available in plain ascii.
I believe Wiki can be used for authoring. That still makes it necessary
to have a responsible editor of the document, for two important reasons:
1: make releases available to the LDP for LDP-type distribution.
2: have a point of contact for corrections for inputs from
readers who are not able to connect to the Wiki but can still
use email.
If such an editor can make a review and send the properly formatted
document to the LDP I am sure it will be possible for the LDP to
use it. The question is then if this extra step is too much burden
for someone at the Wiki side of the process
Review is becoming an important part of the LDP though it is rather
resource intensive and we are short on reviewers. We have however
seen it is quite imnportant.
Distribution is where Wiki differs the most from the LDP. Wiki is
centralised around the server, the LDP uses a huge number of mirrors
and offers the documents in numerous formats for incusion with Linux
distributions. A Wiki system for offline reading does seem to defeat
the purpose of Wiki and does not justify the added complexity. If
however a Wiki-to-LDP pipeline would be possible then I for one would
welcome the extra contributions.
> 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.
Copyright is in itself a big issue that keeps going on here on the LDP
lists. Our web pages gives examples of a few types that are compatible
with the LDP.
Personally I wouldn't mind you uploading my Multi Disk HOWTO as long
as you keep its existing copyright. I like crediting contributions
but I am not sure how that would be possible from Wiki inputs.
> 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 hope means could be devised to include those without good quality
internet access. I for once live in the West but find good internet
access awkward and slow and for that reason pop mail home only about
once a week with a bandwidth of 3K/s. I hope therefore people can
trim quoted text...
> 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?
I believe ESR made a groff-to-docbook converter, so if you find a
docbook-to-wikitext you should be OK.
> 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.
I don't know but I hope you can keep us updated with what you find
since that would be useful for linking to.
> 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.
I believe a release-editor is the answer though it does look like
being somewhat against the anyone-do-anything concept of Wiki.
> 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.
An explanation of the Sifter process might be useful, perhaps it
could be used in the Wiki-to-LDP pipe.
> 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.
Authoring tools are important and I think that is widely acknowledged.
The process and focus of the end users, the readers, is perhaps more
of a hobby horse of mine but at least I feel it is very important. My
lack of good internet access has given me some practical insight. Doing
my contributions on a 150 MHz Pentium 1 (no MMX even) helps too.
> Erik Moeller
Best regards,
Stein Gjoen
