Subject:
Re: small demo page
From:
Yaroslav Fedevych ####@####.####
Date:
20 Aug 2005 19:19:00 -0000
Message-Id: <20050820191856.GA2035@fly.osdn.org.ua>
On Sat, Aug 20, 2005 at 11:21:51AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting jdd ####@####.####
> > are you kidding? we are here 4 or 5 people ready to go.
>
> Then _go_: Do that pilot project. Nobody's stopping you.
> Of course, that requires actual work, unlike all of this time-wasting
> advocacy babbling you've been chewing up our time with.
>
I am very sorry for my jumping in, but... I think I rather have
something which may be considered in the future (that future being near
or far depends on your optimism) such a project. I run a project aiming
at translating all free Linux and Unix documentation into Ukrainian.
Having, however, full-time job, I cannot do it the TLDP way. So I have
set up a Mediawiki site and encouraged people to contribute, so that the
process is actually a kind of laissez faire (or, bazaar to its maximum
extent), and I don't have to do what others are able and willing to do.
That being said, I have run into some problems which one has to keep in
mind.
The first is, Mediawiki has no syntax features to make up documents in
semantic, not presentational manner. It means that no 1:1
to-and-from-Docbook conversion is possible. As for the moment, of course,
because it is an itch for me and other volunteers, which means it just has
to be done.
The second: even given that Mediawiki has the "subpages" feature, it has
no mechanism of actually linking subpages together as parts of a big
whole. This basically means that TOCs for big guides (which is traffic
wasting to put into one big page) have to made by hand, which often
renders information, well... inaccurate.
The third: not all decent authors and translators are happy with the way
a wiki works. They want to be in control of what is contributed. And
they won't give me anything unless they have control there. While we may
agree or disagree with them, on one hand, they may make very precious
contributions, and on the other hand, by everything, we *must* respect
their wishes. Not because they are right or whatever, but because it is
their wish, period.
And Mediawiki lacks so suitable in that situation Unixy user/group
permissions for pages, which would solve it once and for all. Mediawiki
people are giong to implement a thing like that in 1.6 release, so I
just wait to not reinvent the wheel,but if that's not flexible enough, I
will have to make my own implementation.
And, besides, there ain't such thing as premoderation on contributions
some authors want to have. And it is damn cumbersome to do, I need to
say.
So, if anyone goes for a project like this with a wiki, at least these
problems have to be resolved. And if you manage to do it sooner than I,
please let me know :)
P.S. Sorry if some of my English is broken...
--
X Windows: The problem for your problem.
