Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Iain Buchanan <iaindb@××××××××××××.au>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] An official Gentoo wiki
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:25:52
Message-Id: 491A3E8B.4090803@netspace.net.au
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] An official Gentoo wiki by Ciaran McCreesh
1 Hi,
2
3 Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
4 > On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:45:32 -0500
5 > Mark Loeser<halcy0n@g.o> wrote:
6 >> What are others feelings on this? What issues do you see with having
7 >> a wiki? Do you see anyway to resolve the issue you see with us
8 >> having a wiki?
9 >
10 > What will policy on articles that are horribly dangerous or outright
11 > wrong?
12
13 see my previous email - wikipedia looks like they're writing a robot to
14 deal with "Articles that need attention"[1]. We could do the same,
15 there's nothing stopping us from deleting "really bad" pages. (archives
16 are always available for someone who wants to revive and improve them).
17
18 There's also the huge amount of "Cleanup tags"[2] which I really like
19 (the principle, not the huge amount). We could tailor this however we
20 wanted.
21
22 > Is Gentoo prepared to block or warn about articles that recommend
23 > stupid things?
24
25 I think we definitely should. Someone needs to discover that the
26 article does so first!
27
28 > If a warning is used, what will be used to distinguish
29 > between a generic "wiki, not necessarily checked by sane people" and a
30 > "article known to be horrible"?
31
32 Cleanup tags! One for each. Nice notice written at the top of the
33 article saying exactly what you've said.
34
35 > The problem with wikis is that enough of them contain enough good
36 > information that people assume that all of them are entirely correct.
37
38 sure, but isn't that similar to, say, a forum?
39
40 > Even if warnings are used, the assumption is often "well I was warned
41 > about another article too and that turned out OK so I can ignore the
42 > warning".
43
44 sure, some users are idiots :) Better idiot proofing doesn't protect
45 you - it only creates better idiots. (I don't have a reference for this
46 one).
47
48 > And whilst it might be OK for some people to say "well, we
49 > warned you, so tough luck", it makes life very difficult for developers
50 > who end up having to deal with hordes of users with broken systems...
51
52 I agree "tough luck" might be a response by some, so the user will go to
53 the next person to help. I don't think this would necessarily fall back
54 to developers. Just like forums, mailing lists and the current wiki,
55 there is good and bad advice. From my experience on the gentoo-user
56 list, bad advice generally gets noticed and corrected reasonably
57 quickly. Even big stuffups (oops I unmerged python) are helped.
58
59 There is a good culture on the user list which still calls an idiot an
60 idiot. The common one being people using ~ARCH on a remote production
61 box, then complaining it broke for a ~ related reason, adding that they
62 have no physical access (it happens often enough). The usual response
63 is "you shouldn't have done it, you were warned, here's how to fix it".
64 I see no problem with this.
65
66 > it makes life very difficult for developers
67 > who end up having to deal with hordes of users with broken systems...
68
69 The only place where I could see specific developer loading, is users
70 who take their problems as a result of following bad advice to bugzilla.
71 I wouldn't expect the hordes would go there first...
72
73 Anyway, the wiki exists with all it's "bad advice" already. Making it
74 official would only improve it and hence "reduce developer loading", IMHO.
75
76
77 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention
78 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup_resources
79
80 cya,
81 --
82 Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>
83
84 Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse.
85 -- Oscar Wilde