Subject:
Re: To or not to Wiki, a summary [Was Re: small demo page]
From:
Randy Kramer ####@####.####
Date:
21 Aug 2005 21:02:06 -0000
Message-Id: <200508211707.26304.rhkramer@gmail.com>
Since this was addressed to me (with a copy to tldp), I felt I should try to
respond--I may have, in some cases, forced a response where none was really
necessary.
On Sunday 21 August 2005 12:45 pm, Pradeep Padala wrote:
> I want to contribute to improving tldp, but I don't clearly understand
> where it is heading. So as a first attempt, I have tried to summarize
> this long fruitful(?) thread, I am just going to write down my
> understanding of what people are thinking. I may have misunderstood
> something, please correct me, if so.
>
> Problem: Many HOWTOs are out-of-date and authors seem to have forgotten
> about them.
At least, many authors have not responded to the recent inquires from (iirc)
Machtelt. (And, from what I understand, this has been an ongoing problem.)
> Updates are slow and (tldp) world is coming to an end. (Is it?)
Presumably, but my understanding is we have a few billion years left. ;-) (I
plan to make the most of them. ;-)
> There are many ways to tackle this, and a few are listed on TARPL[1] (I
> like the Ticket Tracker that's how I want my HOWTO to be extended).
Interesting. We could do something like this (really, a workaround) by having
two pages in the wiki (TWiki) (as jdd has), one editable and one not, and
convince the user to display those two pages in two different browsers side
by side (and page them simultaneously). Cumbersome, but a way to "prove" the
concept.
> Some people think that a full-fledged Wiki (not simple commenting
> mechanism) is more useful, as that allows other people to directly
> change the HOWTO. This is certainly useful for 'bringing some howtos
> back from dead' as mentioned by Yaroslav [2].
As mentioned in another post, I like this idea.
> jdd put up a demo page with editable and non-editable pages at [3]. The
> idea is to allow readers to change the editable page at will and later
> autor/tldp maintainers can see the differences and merge with a stable
> non-editable one. Perhaps, we can convert the stable version to docbook.
>
> Wiki advantages:
> *) Quick updates - anybody can improve as they are reading the HOWTO and
> find mistakes. It also doesn't have to go through the slow/length
> TLDP review process.
> *) Easier updates - It's much easier to edit a Wiki page than an .sgml
> file. The learning curve with sgml tools is sttep. For begineers
> there's HOWTO generator [4], but later updates have to be in SGML.
> *) Easier management - Once setup it can work on its own depending on
> the readers interest.
>
> Wiki disadvantages
> *) Connecting Wiki with docbook as a backend is difficult. If this is
> not possible, we have to find a better way to convert to print
> formats etc.
> *) Vandalism problems - Do we simply throw the HOWTO on a Wiki and hope
> that it turns into a master piece? or let the author tightly control
> the content by allowing only comments?
In the context of a dead HOWTO with no current author, his original text is
locked (not editable), so we only worry about damage in the "scratchpad"
wiki. As others have mentioned, I prefer that the wiki require registration,
and further, that users register with something close to their real name, and
perhaps verified by requiring them to provide a valid email address and
respond to a confirmation request (email).
Yes, spam/vandalism can be a problem. And poor writing can be a problem.
Several wikis still maintain their "excellence" with self-policing by their
"members". TWiki continues to work on ways to deal with vandalism. If
things get bad we can lock all pages or something similar. (In TWiki,
specific users or groups of users can have permission to edit specific pages,
excluding all others from editing those pages.)
I don't think we should give up because of the potential for vandalism.
twiki.org, WikiPedia, Ward's Wiki, and many other wikis are "maintaining
their own" in the battle against vandalism.
> *) What happens to the flow of a long document if it is edited by a lot
> of people? I am quite uneasy with this, as all the hardwork put in by
> the original author for the HOWTO organization etc. goes waste.
Again, in the context we're talking about here (I think) (that is,
resurrecting dead documents), the original document is locked. The rewrite
process may be messy, but, if necessary at some point, maybe one person (or
small group) has to take the the (potentially messy) results of that process
and clean it up. Then, for the next revision cycle, their product is locked
just like the original (missing) author's was, and a revision can start on an
editable copy of their work.
> There are some general issues like
>
> *) Copyright issues. Who owns the content once it is on the Wiki?
That can be defined. On WikiLearn (all of twiki.org) and several other wikis,
the content is noted as belonging to the author / contributor (several
people may share "overlapping" copyrights on some pages). Some other wikis
require contributors to agree to some license terms prior to contributing.
(One I've looked at recently requires contributions to be licensed under the
GPL, and includes a statement to that effect next to the save button, iirc.)
There could even be different licensing terms for different documents (if, for
example, authors cannot all agree on the same terms).
Without remembering exactly how tldp handles the copyright on documents in
general, I'm sure we can find an approach that does not impede the use of the
content by the tldp in ways similar to the current uses. (I seem to recall
that the tldp allows some flexibility to the author with respect to the
licensing of his work, or, at least, they were not required to agree that if
they could not be located by some reasonable process in some reasonable time
frame, the copyright would be transferred to the tldp ;-)
> *) How do you wikify existing content? There was some work on this by
> Blake [5]. I am not sure about the current status.
Again, in the current context (resurrecting dead documents) and with TWiki, it
becomes fairly easy, as TWiki can display most, if not all, (X)HTML. For
other scenarios we may have to develop other approaches. But, let's start
with some "dead" (but interesting) HOWTOS.
> Ok, that's all I can think of right now.
Good! (But I'm glad you brought them up for discussion, although I think some
have been touched on before.)
regards,
Randy Kramer
>
> 1. http://www.nyx.net/~sgjoen/tarpl.html
> 2. http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:9567:200508:pedejonpkemjljkegodm
> 3. http://dodin.org/mediawiki/index.php/Tldp_demo_page
> 4. http://www.nyx.net/~sgjoen/The_LDP_HOWTO_Generator_ng.html
> 5. http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:9116
