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On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 10:31, Joshua Saddler <nightmorph@g.o> wrote: |
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> No, he's definitely out to kill GuideXML. Just give him time. |
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Why the antagonism? Ben isn't out to kill anything, he has no personal |
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vendetta against anything. Actually, nothing here is personal, but you |
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seem offended by some of the things which are being said, and you |
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really shouldn't. |
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|
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>> A wiki can fulfill several purposes for us: |
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>> |
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>> 1. Easy collaboration among devs, for brainstorming, developing new |
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>> documentation, assembling upcoming meeting agendas, and so on |
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>> [for which there currently is not really any obvious place] |
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> |
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> This is not *impossible* with our current setup; it can still be done in a few different ways: |
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> |
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> 1) project spaces in /proj/$LANG/foobar/ -- how hard is it to commit to CVS when going through document drafts? |
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> 2) devspaces -- it's easy enough to dump stuff in here for others to refer to |
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> |
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> However, a wiki *does* make it easier for everyone to jump right in and edit stuff as ideas are passed around, rather than waiting for someone to make changes to something in a devspace. |
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That's exactly what we're looking for. That's what makes a wiki useful |
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in the first place. |
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|
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>> 3. A place to host and maintain our existing documentation |
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>> [which is currently in GuideXML] |
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> |
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> Entirely unnecessary duplication of effort. To quote the forum mods, "don't cross-post" . . . and especially don't do it if you'll be violating a doc license somewhere. It's one of the reasons why we don't use existing unofficial wiki content in our docs. I and the GDP have written about that ad nauseum over the years; just search the list archives. |
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> |
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>> I am not pushing for our existing documentation to be migrated into a |
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>> wiki at this point. But I think that once the place is there, and it |
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>> functions well, it would be the obvious next step to do so. As I said |
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>> before, the barrier to contributing and maintaining documentation is |
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>> much higher in the case of GuideXML, so it doesn't really make sense |
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>> to keep that around when we have a better solution. |
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>> |
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>> I know there are people who do not agree with me on this last point |
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> |
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> . . . to say the least. |
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> |
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> [snip] |
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> |
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> I ain't out to stop ya'll from using a wiki. I do agree that they have some advantages. However, I will point out how limited wikis are. They're not a magic bullet that will solve all our problems. |
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Why would you want to stop us? Have you been to gentoo-wiki.com? There |
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are a lot of *very* useful articles there. With all due respect to the |
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doc team (and I have tremendous respect for them and the splendid |
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documentation they have written for Gentoo), they're limited by |
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manpower, by time, and by scope. They simply can't cover all the |
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things that are interesting and useful for our users. Some examples |
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which can never be covered by the official documentation: |
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1. Most of the stuff that's on the Documentation, Tips & Tricks forum. |
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And all the stuff that's already there can not be updated or changed, |
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and cannot even be found easily, so it's just rotting there. |
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2. All hardware specific information that's extremely useful to users |
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(information for Macs, all kinds of laptops, netbooks, how to update |
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your BIOS, etc.) |
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3. HOWTO's and guides for *a lot* of the software on the tree (many |
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kinds of mail servers available, HTTP servers, databases, spam |
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filters, alternative init systems, boot loaders, experimental drivers, |
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etc.). Some of those are covered by official documentation, by it can |
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never cover it all. |
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|
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And I could go on (please do not argue about a specific point where I |
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may not be accurate, that's not the point). Our users want this kind |
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of information available, they want to share the information they |
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learned, they want to improve guides written by other people, build |
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upon work done by others. Gentoo can earn so much from a system that |
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will allow this. Our users want to help us and each other, let's help |
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them to that. |
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Furthermore, when an article on the wiki reaches maturity, it can be |
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included in our official documentation. Stuff can move around between |
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official documentation and wiki. Out of date official documentation |
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can be moved to the wiki where it can be improved instead of rotting. |
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Both can coexist and feed each other, providing more answers overall. |
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|
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A wiki is not a new concept. Users know what they're getting from a |
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wiki. They know it's not official, know it was written by other users, |
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know that not all information is necessarily accurate, up-to-date or |
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relevant. But you can't ignore how useful a wiki is, what new heights |
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we can reach with it. |
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|
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At first, I'd wish for things to be migrated from the unofficial wiki |
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(if the license does not allow for copying, then re-writing it. Our |
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users will do a lot of it, I'm sure). I'd wish to migrate a lot of |
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things from the forums, after getting the authors permission if |
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necessary. Maybe at some point I'd like the devmanual to be moved to |
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the wiki (probably only editable by devs or a certain team, the |
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specifics are not important right now). The quizzes can be put on the |
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wiki. GLEP summaries in language users understand. Drafts for news |
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items. The list goes on and on. |
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|
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Dror Levin |