wiki: Thread: Revision History & and periodical freezes

Hello :-)

HOWTOs need a "revision history tag". However, now we have a wiki, so 
revision are to be done each minute or so, and it's not usefull to add 
  a revision history line for each typo edited.

I'm very gratefull to the people who took the time to correct my typos 
and ortograph mistakes (too many :-(), but we must take into account 
the *readers* needs. Wiki already have an history of the work (see 
info) and the last modified date (bottom of each page).

So I propose we only add a revision history line when the author feels 
it's necessary. At least when making static pages from wiki.

Of course this is to be discussed ! when anybody could give advice, 
the result will be written to the author's page.

In fact we should discuss on the way how will the relation from the 
wiki and the static mirrored site setup.

That mean, when, how and why should we "freeze" the wiki. Remember, 
it's necessary to mirror the HOWTOs and include then into 
distributions or other CDs

I see several way to do so, very different in scope:

* do this each quarter. Each quarter (January, April...), the wiki 
will be freezed, that is only the registered Authors can write and 
only to they own HOWTO. After, say, 15 days, all the HOWTOs are copied 
to dockbook and to the static web site.

-> pretty hard to manage, I guess, but distros work like that

* manage the ACL's of moin to allow the author of a HOWTO to freeze 
his HOWTO at will. When the author is happy of the result, he mails 
the discuss list, add a "to be stored" tag to his howto and copy the 
page to a new wiki page for editing again. (or the other way round)

->more author friendly, but need some work from the author. more like 
the present management

* ??? any other idea??

thanks
jdd
-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

On 8/27/08, jdd ####@####.#### wrote:
> Hello :-)

Hi jdd,

> HOWTOs need a "revision history tag". However, now we have a wiki, so
> revision are to be done each minute or so, and it's not usefull to add
>   a revision history line for each typo edited.

It depends on the type of revision tag.

> I'm very gratefull to the people who took the time to correct my typos
> and ortograph mistakes (too many :-(), but we must take into account
> the *readers* needs. Wiki already have an history of the work (see
> info) and the last modified date (bottom of each page).
>
> So I propose we only add a revision history line when the author feels
> it's necessary. At least when making static pages from wiki.

That's not very user friendly, when you Google for a howto/guide you
normally get multiple hits and only spend a few seconds deciding which
one to read -- the revision number at the top of the page is normally
the clincher.

> Of course this is to be discussed ! when anybody could give advice,
> the result will be written to the author's page.

We need a visible revision number, I suggest going over to date based
revision numbers and finding some way to get moin to add it near the
top -- the bottom is to far away.

We also need to get a style for moin that doesn't display the path
name so prominently, that way we can have pages names that are the
same as on the main site and full titles. This will also make
automatic document retrieval easier to script.

> In fact we should discuss on the way how will the relation from the
> wiki and the static mirrored site setup.

I'm still struggling with that, I was hoping to find a 1:1
relationship between wiki and site, but due to limitations in wiki
design that isn't possible.

> That mean, when, how and why should we "freeze" the wiki. Remember,
> it's necessary to mirror the HOWTOs and include then into
> distributions or other CDs

Why, we haven't had scheduled freezes before? That's a job for the
distributer and not one we necessary need worry about.

> I see several way to do so, very different in scope:
>
> * do this each quarter. Each quarter (January, April...), the wiki
> will be freezed, that is only the registered Authors can write and
> only to they own HOWTO. After, say, 15 days, all the HOWTOs are copied
> to dockbook and to the static web site.
>
> -> pretty hard to manage, I guess, but distros work like that

We're not a distro. They do things like that for reason's that don't
apply to us.

> * manage the ACL's of moin to allow the author of a HOWTO to freeze
> his HOWTO at will. When the author is happy of the result, he mails
> the discuss list, add a "to be stored" tag to his howto and copy the
> page to a new wiki page for editing again. (or the other way round)
>
> ->more author friendly, but need some work from the author. more like
> the present management

"The present management" setup is not efficient, please leave the wiki
to do what wiki's do best and handle freezes in CVS.

> * ??? any other idea??

Yes, please don't have everything revolve around author co-operation,
they have let us down in the past and that's mostly because we aren't
thinking like a library.

The LDP is a library and should be run as one, many of our problems
would be reduced if we did and we would be offering a better service
to the community that way.

-- 
Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer a écrit :

> Yes, please don't have everything revolve around author co-operation,
> they have let us down in the past and that's mostly because we aren't
> thinking like a library.
> 
> The LDP is a library and should be run as one, many of our problems
> would be reduced if we did and we would be offering a better service
> to the community that way.
> 
I don't really see what you mean.

Library buy books and keep them until they are too worn to be read.. 
but these books are novells, mostly.

at present time, authors send the revised HOWTO to the discuss list 
and somebody (who?) puts it on the CVS.

The wiki is our cvs, now, or else how can we manage both?

all this is not easy, but we have to find something manageable. One of 
the main thing I disliked in previous LDP was the fact than nobody 
know how/who is managing what, so when something don't work, how fix it?

the questions are there: what do we want? how do we expect things to 
be done? who will do the task? when? what if the task is late?

for example, who/how is managed this list (it's content) 
http://lists.tldp.org/go.to?list=feedback&cmd=monthbydate&month=200808

jdd
-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 10:11 PM, jdd ####@####.#### wrote:
> Robert Spencer a écrit :
>
>> Yes, please don't have everything revolve around author co-operation,
>> they have let us down in the past and that's mostly because we aren't
>> thinking like a library.
>>
>> The LDP is a library and should be run as one, many of our problems
>> would be reduced if we did and we would be offering a better service
>> to the community that way.
>>
> I don't really see what you mean.

I'm not sure how to explain (it can lead to a long winded
description), I assumed everyone knew how libraries work. A faulty
assumption, I'll have to think about this and break it up into points.

> Library buy books and keep them until they are too worn to be read.. but
> these books are novells, mostly.

There are different types of libraries (legal, medical, deposit,
municipal, ...) that work on the same core theory, but with slightly
different results.

> at present time, authors send the revised HOWTO to the discuss list and
> somebody (who?) puts it on the CVS.

The present path isn't clear and is confusing. IIRC, authors have CVS

> The wiki is our cvs, now, or else how can we manage both?
>
> all this is not easy, but we have to find something manageable. One of the
> main thing I disliked in previous LDP was the fact than nobody know how/who
> is managing what, so when something don't work, how fix it?
>
> the questions are there: what do we want? how do we expect things to be
> done? who will do the task? when? what if the task is late?
>
> for example, who/how is managed this list (it's content)
> http://lists.tldp.org/go.to?list=feedback&cmd=monthbydate&month=200808
>
> jdd
> --
> http://www.dodin.net
> http://valerie.dodin.org
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM
>

Sorry, I don't know why Gmail sent half of the message.

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 12:27 AM, Robert Spencer ####@####.#### wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 10:11 PM, jdd ####@####.#### wrote:
>> Robert Spencer a écrit :
>>
>>> Yes, please don't have everything revolve around author co-operation,
>>> they have let us down in the past and that's mostly because we aren't
>>> thinking like a library.
>>>
>>> The LDP is a library and should be run as one, many of our problems
>>> would be reduced if we did and we would be offering a better service
>>> to the community that way.
>>>
>> I don't really see what you mean.
>
> I'm not sure how to explain (it can lead to a long winded
> description), I assumed everyone knew how libraries work. A faulty
> assumption, I'll have to think about this and break it up into points.
>
>> Library buy books and keep them until they are too worn to be read.. but
>> these books are novells, mostly.
>
> There are different types of libraries (legal, medical, deposit,
> municipal, ...) that work on the same core theory, but with slightly
> different results.
>
>> at present time, authors send the revised HOWTO to the discuss list and
>> somebody (who?) puts it on the CVS.
>
> The present path isn't clear and is confusing. IIRC, authors have CVS

accounts and upload their documents themselves or if they are new and
don't have an account ask staff to upload for them. Howto's aren't
supposed to be sent via the discuss list.

>> The wiki is our cvs, now, or else how can we manage both?
>>
>> all this is not easy, but we have to find something manageable. One of the
>> main thing I disliked in previous LDP was the fact than nobody know how/who
>> is managing what, so when something don't work, how fix it?

Yes, that's a big problem. :-(

>> the questions are there: what do we want? how do we expect things to be
>> done? who will do the task? when? what if the task is late?

Unless we can get the present staff's attention and co-operation it's
all futile.

>> for example, who/how is managed this list (it's content)
>> http://lists.tldp.org/go.to?list=feedback&cmd=monthbydate&month=200808

It's not managed/moderated hence the spam. Sergiusz Pawlowicz is list
server admin and Machtelt Garrels is suppost to answer mail on the
feedback list. I haven't heard anything from her in quite a while, I
hope she's still okay. :-(

-- 
Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer a écrit :

> accounts and upload their documents themselves or if they are new and
> don't have an account ask staff to upload for them. Howto's aren't
> supposed to be sent via the discuss list.
> 

http://tldp.org/jobdesc/author.html

in fact there is a submit list

I never (as an author) used cvs

jdd


-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM