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Hi, |
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|
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Ciaran McCreesh wrote: |
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> On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:45:32 -0500 |
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> Mark Loeser<halcy0n@g.o> wrote: |
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>> What are others feelings on this? What issues do you see with having |
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>> a wiki? Do you see anyway to resolve the issue you see with us |
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>> having a wiki? |
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> |
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> What will policy on articles that are horribly dangerous or outright |
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> wrong? |
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|
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see my previous email - wikipedia looks like they're writing a robot to |
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deal with "Articles that need attention"[1]. We could do the same, |
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there's nothing stopping us from deleting "really bad" pages. (archives |
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are always available for someone who wants to revive and improve them). |
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|
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There's also the huge amount of "Cleanup tags"[2] which I really like |
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(the principle, not the huge amount). We could tailor this however we |
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wanted. |
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|
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> Is Gentoo prepared to block or warn about articles that recommend |
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> stupid things? |
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|
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I think we definitely should. Someone needs to discover that the |
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article does so first! |
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|
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> If a warning is used, what will be used to distinguish |
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> between a generic "wiki, not necessarily checked by sane people" and a |
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> "article known to be horrible"? |
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|
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Cleanup tags! One for each. Nice notice written at the top of the |
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article saying exactly what you've said. |
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|
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> The problem with wikis is that enough of them contain enough good |
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> information that people assume that all of them are entirely correct. |
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|
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sure, but isn't that similar to, say, a forum? |
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|
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> Even if warnings are used, the assumption is often "well I was warned |
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> about another article too and that turned out OK so I can ignore the |
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> warning". |
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|
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sure, some users are idiots :) Better idiot proofing doesn't protect |
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you - it only creates better idiots. (I don't have a reference for this |
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one). |
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|
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> And whilst it might be OK for some people to say "well, we |
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> warned you, so tough luck", it makes life very difficult for developers |
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> who end up having to deal with hordes of users with broken systems... |
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|
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I agree "tough luck" might be a response by some, so the user will go to |
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the next person to help. I don't think this would necessarily fall back |
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to developers. Just like forums, mailing lists and the current wiki, |
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there is good and bad advice. From my experience on the gentoo-user |
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list, bad advice generally gets noticed and corrected reasonably |
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quickly. Even big stuffups (oops I unmerged python) are helped. |
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|
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There is a good culture on the user list which still calls an idiot an |
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idiot. The common one being people using ~ARCH on a remote production |
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box, then complaining it broke for a ~ related reason, adding that they |
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have no physical access (it happens often enough). The usual response |
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is "you shouldn't have done it, you were warned, here's how to fix it". |
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I see no problem with this. |
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|
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> it makes life very difficult for developers |
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> who end up having to deal with hordes of users with broken systems... |
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|
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The only place where I could see specific developer loading, is users |
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who take their problems as a result of following bad advice to bugzilla. |
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I wouldn't expect the hordes would go there first... |
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|
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Anyway, the wiki exists with all it's "bad advice" already. Making it |
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official would only improve it and hence "reduce developer loading", IMHO. |
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|
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|
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention |
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[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cleanup_resources |
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|
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cya, |
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-- |
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Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au> |
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|
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Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. |
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-- Oscar Wilde |