discuss: Thread: Wiki Conversion Process

Hi all



I was digging around wiki.tldp.org while investigating this task of
converting old HOWTO's into the wiki site.

I came across this page [1] detailing some methods, particularly the
pre-process HTML to wiki method. I like the pre-process method, or
even the text-only method, with manual tidying up afterwards in both
cases. Is this OK?

Then going over to the old docs [2], taking one as example:
Quake-HOWTO, we see it's licensed under GPLv2, so that particular doc
is safe to migrate to the wiki.

Next I glance over the content and roughly guess whether it is still
relevant enough to migrate - only 2 years since last updated. So I'd
vote yes, it is still relevant.

So, would it be courteous to contact the author and ask anyway, and if
so, propose they handle wikifying their own work? Of course they don't
have to and we can offer to do it for them.

Also, I propose we create a "List of" existing HOWTOS [3] to keep
track of what has been done. I separated the list into items yet to do
(untouched), and in progress. We can add Completed, Obsolete and
FooBar lists as needed. Is this OK, any objections?

I take the process as:

* edit the ListOf page, moving the howto into In Progress
* create the wiki link on my user homepage, move the article words and
format until pretty.
* edit the ListOf page entry into Complete

When taking a HOWTO into the In Progress list, I add my wiki user page
next to the item so others can see who took it (P.S. what is the
correct wiki syntax to link users?)

Question: Do we need a review system to ensure quality conversions?
Would this flow through this discuss list, or via some wiki-based
notification system?

On naming of pages:

I see the original articles use the "FooBarBaz-HOWTO" naming style
(howto postfixed to the name). Should we keep with this, or prefix
instead? (HOWTO-FooBarBaz). Just asking to cover as many bases.

That is all for now, just my thoughts while I was doing these tasks.

[1]: http://wiki.tldp.org/Converting-a-HOWTO#Use_html_as_Source
[2]: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/
[3]: http://wiki.tldp.org/ListOfStableHowTos

> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:47:19PM +0200, Wesley Werner wrote:
>Hi all
>
>
>
>I was digging around wiki.tldp.org while investigating this task of
>converting old HOWTO's into the wiki site.
>
>I came across this page [1] detailing some methods, particularly the
>pre-process HTML to wiki method. I like the pre-process method, or
>even the text-only method, with manual tidying up afterwards in both
>cases. Is this OK?
>
>Then going over to the old docs [2], taking one as example:
>Quake-HOWTO, we see it's licensed under GPLv2, so that particular doc
>is safe to migrate to the wiki.

See the Domain registrant.

I'm no lawyer, but have some experience with law within the US.

They likely have lawyers at their finger tips for questions like these 
miniscule issues.  Matter of fact, most lawyers won't waste their time, unless 
1) There's profit involved, and TLDP has none that I know of from the documents 
and from what was recently discussed within the past week; 2) There's some sort 
of damage or injury, or reasonable belief harm can be done etc, and there are 
no intentions that I know of here, but then again, I'm just going what things 
look like.

Also see the discussion on this mailing list for the past week, including my 
responses for the past week.  (ie. The documents are proposed to only be moved 
within the same domain.  Although I'm no lawyer, I don't see a need to even 
contact an author, aside from maybe pushing a public notice to the website and 
maybe mailing list.  You're just looking for problems if you send an email to 
every author's private corporate email address, whom submitted documentation in 
their free time - separate from work.  ;-)  (I think most lawyers would agree 
with my last comment here.)

Personally, I now see it as a waste of time even responding to these questions, 
as you'd likely have more problems making sure you get permission from the 
head-honcho here (ie. Domain registrant) versus worrying about the other 
authors.  ;-)  And, I think I now see why there's such a fuss for preserving an 
unadjustable hard-copy, as it would ensure integrity.  However, Wikipedia seems 
to be doing a fine job, but I'm sure the head-honcho would suggest otherwise.

Very likely all the GPL licensed stuff could be moved, regardless as to whether 
or not it still exists within the tldp.org domain, however, likely hasn't been 
moved as tldp.org is a big target for people looking for help.  Or, more likely 
people just haven't had to the time to rewrite something once it was written, 
or read once.  Technology is a fast paced biz.

Another reason the head-honcho at tldp.org might refuse the move to Wiki, 
they're paying for the servers, or are in charge of negating the funds for 
paying for the servers.  Or for political reasons, such as it might make them 
popular or famous again.

If you keep asking me, I can keep coming-up with more excuses as to why the 
head-honcho might say no. ;-)

-- 
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/

On 1/8/13, Roger ####@####.#### wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:47:19PM +0200, Wesley Werner wrote:
> See the Domain registrant.
> I'm no lawyer, but have some experience with law within the US.

You know what I would say about it...  either find a Lawyer, to
provide input, or at least,
assume the risk does exist, and take an accordingly maximal
conservative approach.
Being overly cautious has less downsides than leaping through the darkness.

> 1) There's profit involved, and TLDP has none that I know of from the
> documents  and from what was recently discussed within the past week;

The same cannot necessarily be said about all consumers of TLDP
documents, eg OS vendor who might like to include TLDP documents as
supplementary files in commercial open source software distributions
for customers' convenience,  who might in theory like to point the
finger back at the TLDP or individuals involved: in the unlikely event
of an alleged infringement.

> 2) There's some
> sort of damage or injury, or reasonable belief harm can be done etc, and there

Yes, but that's a fairly low barrier for anyone interested to cross.

> within the same domain.  Although I'm no lawyer, I don't see a need to even
> contact an author, aside from maybe pushing a public notice to the website
> and  maybe mailing list.

Perhaps it is the courteous thing to do; if there was not a prior
understanding,  about whatever changes would be made to their
document.

Perhaps, as authors, they are owed that much, morally.

Perhaps, the very first thing to do, if you actually don't want
lawyers to be involved,  is:
ensure not to treat authors inequitably,  unfairly, or in such manner
as makes anyone upset --  make sure the authors are informed of what
you are doing,  and given the opportunity to object,  without lawyers


> You're just looking for problems if you send an emai
> to  every author's private corporate email address, whom submitted documentation
> in  their free time - separate from work.  ;-)  (I think most lawyers would
> agree  with my last comment here.)

If they did not intend to be contacted:  possibly, they would not have put
that e-mail address in the document.

Or perhaps a note needs to be made in the document that the e-mail
address no longer works,  or   the author now wants to be contacted at
 (new address)
or not at all.


--
-JH

Within this logic, I'd assume that the website having been grounded
and no longer existed would infringe upon the authors rights.

There is no problem migrating the EXACT content to a different format.
That same format is put into printed text  (FOR PROFIT) as mentioned
before in this same discussion.

Lets migrate the data. The articles deserve a better home, we can we
leave a "link to the old site" for a feel good factor.

V/R,

Paul Hendricksen

On Jan 8, 2013, at 6:01 PM, Jimmy Hess ####@####.#### wrote:

> On 1/8/13, Roger ####@####.#### wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:47:19PM +0200, Wesley Werner wrote:
>> See the Domain registrant.
>> I'm no lawyer, but have some experience with law within the US.
>
> You know what I would say about it...  either find a Lawyer, to
> provide input, or at least,
> assume the risk does exist, and take an accordingly maximal
> conservative approach.
> Being overly cautious has less downsides than leaping through the darkness.
>
>> 1) There's profit involved, and TLDP has none that I know of from the
>> documents  and from what was recently discussed within the past week;
>
> The same cannot necessarily be said about all consumers of TLDP
> documents, eg OS vendor who might like to include TLDP documents as
> supplementary files in commercial open source software distributions
> for customers' convenience,  who might in theory like to point the
> finger back at the TLDP or individuals involved: in the unlikely event
> of an alleged infringement.
>
>> 2) There's some
>> sort of damage or injury, or reasonable belief harm can be done etc, and there
>
> Yes, but that's a fairly low barrier for anyone interested to cross.
>
>> within the same domain.  Although I'm no lawyer, I don't see a need to even
>> contact an author, aside from maybe pushing a public notice to the website
>> and  maybe mailing list.
>
> Perhaps it is the courteous thing to do; if there was not a prior
> understanding,  about whatever changes would be made to their
> document.
>
> Perhaps, as authors, they are owed that much, morally.
>
> Perhaps, the very first thing to do, if you actually don't want
> lawyers to be involved,  is:
> ensure not to treat authors inequitably,  unfairly, or in such manner
> as makes anyone upset --  make sure the authors are informed of what
> you are doing,  and given the opportunity to object,  without lawyers
>
>
>> You're just looking for problems if you send an emai
>> to  every author's private corporate email address, whom submitted documentation
>> in  their free time - separate from work.  ;-)  (I think most lawyers would
>> agree  with my last comment here.)
>
> If they did not intend to be contacted:  possibly, they would not have put
> that e-mail address in the document.
>
> Or perhaps a note needs to be made in the document that the e-mail
> address no longer works,  or   the author now wants to be contacted at
> (new address)
> or not at all.
>
>
> --
> -JH
>
> ______________________
> http://lists.tldp.org/
>

> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 07:01:09PM -0600, Jimmy Hess wrote:
>On 1/8/13, Roger ####@####.#### wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:47:19PM +0200, Wesley Werner wrote:
>> See the Domain registrant.
>> I'm no lawyer, but have some experience with law within the US.
>
>You know what I would say about it...  either find a Lawyer, to
>provide input, or at least,
>assume the risk does exist, and take an accordingly maximal
>conservative approach.
>Being overly cautious has less downsides than leaping through the darkness.

Same perspective here.  

However, my solution would likely be more than adequate for my situation(s).

This situation with tldp.org, from what I see, is entirely up to the registrant 
or owner -- separate of anybody's opinion here unless they're associated with 
the registrant.  Am I not correct?

>-JH

This reminds me of children selling lemonade at a stand on a public sidewalk.  
Well, there's a possibity a customer could get sick.  And the kids are serving 
from a public sidewalk.  So, the children should go see a lawyer, about the 
possibility of poisoning their customers prior to selling?  Oh, and they're 
selling lemonade with the intent to make money here.

As a parent, I probably would let the children go ahead and do so, without 
using a lawyer, as I already know I have some insurance and kids tend to be 
quite honest.  But if you don't understand this, then it might be good advice 
to see a lawyer.  (shrugs... but I feel somebody is still going to want to 
argue this. lol.)

-- 
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/

On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 03:27:39PM -0900, Roger wrote:
> 
> See the Domain registrant.

Do you know who the registant is?  Use the whois command to find it.
The registant is "The Linux Documentation Project" (TLDP).  So the "head-honcho" 
is an informal organization, TLDP, with only a manifesto to guide it and the
governing authority is this mailing list.  So there just isn't any "head-honcho" 
person.  Or rather, the head-honcho is us.

			David Lawyer

> 
> I'm no lawyer, but have some experience with law within the US.
> 
> They likely have lawyers at their finger tips for questions like these 
> miniscule issues.  Matter of fact, most lawyers won't waste their time, unless 
> 1) There's profit involved, and TLDP has none that I know of from the documents 
> and from what was recently discussed within the past week; 2) There's some sort 
> of damage or injury, or reasonable belief harm can be done etc, and there are 
> no intentions that I know of here, but then again, I'm just going what things 
> look like.
> 
> Also see the discussion on this mailing list for the past week, including my 
> responses for the past week.  (ie. The documents are proposed to only be moved 
> within the same domain.  Although I'm no lawyer, I don't see a need to even 
> contact an author, aside from maybe pushing a public notice to the website and 
> maybe mailing list.  You're just looking for problems if you send an email to 
> every author's private corporate email address, whom submitted documentation in 
> their free time - separate from work.  ;-)  (I think most lawyers would agree 
> with my last comment here.)
> 
> Personally, I now see it as a waste of time even responding to these questions, 
> as you'd likely have more problems making sure you get permission from the 
> head-honcho here (ie. Domain registrant) versus worrying about the other 
> authors.  ;-)  And, I think I now see why there's such a fuss for preserving an 
> unadjustable hard-copy, as it would ensure integrity.  However, Wikipedia seems 
> to be doing a fine job, but I'm sure the head-honcho would suggest otherwise.
> 
> Very likely all the GPL licensed stuff could be moved, regardless as to whether 
> or not it still exists within the tldp.org domain, however, likely hasn't been 
> moved as tldp.org is a big target for people looking for help.  Or, more likely 
> people just haven't had to the time to rewrite something once it was written, 
> or read once.  Technology is a fast paced biz.
> 
> Another reason the head-honcho at tldp.org might refuse the move to Wiki, 
> they're paying for the servers, or are in charge of negating the funds for 
> paying for the servers.  Or for political reasons, such as it might make them 
> popular or famous again.
> 
> If you keep asking me, I can keep coming-up with more excuses as to why the 
> head-honcho might say no. ;-)
> 
> -- 
> Roger
> http://rogerx.freeshell.org/
> 
> ______________________
> http://lists.tldp.org/
> 
> 

Le 08/01/2013 22:47, Wesley Werner a écrit :

> So, would it be courteous to contact the author and ask anyway, and if
> so, propose they handle wikifying their own work? Of course they don't
> have to and we can offer to do it for them.
>

a two years old HOWTO is probably not outdated and maybe the author is 
still active (my own HOWTO was not updated for some years now, but still 
pretty complete)

> Also, I propose we create a "List of" existing HOWTOS [3] to keep
> track of what has been done. I separated the list into items yet to do
> (untouched), and in progress. We can add Completed, Obsolete and
> FooBar lists as needed. Is this OK, any objections?

IMHO it should be better to keep only one HOWTO list, that is 
http://wiki.tldp.org/Page_Status, eventually adding a column to it if 
necessary. It was pretty long to make this page roughly complete :-)

> Question: Do we need a review system to ensure quality conversions?
> Would this flow through this discuss list,

yes, best system

by the way do you have an old account or a new one? looks like new 
accounts can't login (at least the one I created for testing this feature).

May be I can create account (I have still some admin permissions)

thanks
jdd


-- 
http://dodin.org

Le 09/01/2013 05:48, Paul Hendricksen a écrit :

> There is no problem migrating the EXACT content to a different format.

certainly not, it's what the tldp do since the beginning. We can moive 
any doc to the wiki, adding the tag "read only" if the licence do not 
allow modification.

simply some authors, still active, prefere to keep they previous 
workflow and there is no reason to lose authors when we have so little :-).

As always, if somebody wants to make our web site look better, why not? 
simply propose a mockup here to discuss it.

Notice that the site *have to* be easy to read in any simple browser 
(including w3m or similar).


jdd


-- 
http://dodin.org

> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:01:56PM -0800, David Lawyer wrote:
>On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 03:27:39PM -0900, Roger wrote:
>> 
>> See the Domain registrant.
>
>Do you know who the registant is?  Use the whois command to find it.
>The registant is "The Linux Documentation Project" (TLDP).  So the "head-honcho" 
>is an informal organization, TLDP, with only a manifesto to guide it and the
>governing authority is this mailing list.  So there just isn't any "head-honcho" 
>person.  Or rather, the head-honcho is us.
>
>			David Lawyer

responded off-list to this.

-- 
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/

# Apologies, it seems earlier my reply did not include the list. Here
is my earlier message:

Thanks folks, for your detailed licensing issues replies. The example
HOWTO I had no issues with, as mentioned: GPLv2 allows us this
freedom. I was merely pointing that fact out.

jdd, the Page_Status seems exactly like what I was looking for, and
failed to find at first - how did I miss that? - thanks for correcting
me there :)

As for the accounts, I don't believe I ever had an old account, only
this new one created at end December, no login issue found.

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Roger ####@####.#### wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 11:01:56PM -0800, David Lawyer wrote:
>>On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 03:27:39PM -0900, Roger wrote:
>>>
>>> See the Domain registrant.
>>
>>Do you know who the registant is?  Use the whois command to find it.
>>The registant is "The Linux Documentation Project" (TLDP).  So the "head-honcho"
>>is an informal organization, TLDP, with only a manifesto to guide it and the
>>governing authority is this mailing list.  So there just isn't any "head-honcho"
>>person.  Or rather, the head-honcho is us.
>>
>>                       David Lawyer
>
> responded off-list to this.
>
> --
> Roger
> http://rogerx.freeshell.org/
>
> ______________________
> http://lists.tldp.org/
>