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Meino Christian Cramer <Meino.Cramer <at> gmx.de> writes: |
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> > Sure, I was temporarily 86'd from the list for being |
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> > a 'bone-head' about iptables......... |
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This was meant to reference inappropriate 'attitudes' |
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I unwisely shared openly. It was not |
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meant to characterize those persons with questions |
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and/or language barrier issues..... |
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|
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> > On another note, frequent creation and updates to |
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> > wikis allows for quick responses to these sort |
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> > of recurring questions. If the talented |
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> > folks create such wiki pages, the bone-heads could |
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> > easily learn to refer questions to the wikis in |
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> > lieu of all of this repetition and misguided |
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> > responses.... Furthermore, ordinary gentoo-linux |
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> > readers could volunteer to maintain these wikis, |
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> > thus reducing the burden on the pool-o-genius..... |
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> > Perhaps a tool like eix/esearch that first |
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> > (priortizes) searches for official/unofficial wiki-responsed |
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> > to these common questions? |
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> There are three common problems left for those like me asking |
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> "repetitioned questions": |
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> 1.) Most search engines of wikis are as "bone-headed" as those trying |
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> to answer the question like the above example. Search engines dont |
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> understand any context. |
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this is not a search engine proposal. I use the word 'search' in |
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its generic meaning, not specifically relating to 'search-engines'. |
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> 2.) For one not being a native English speaker it is often difficult |
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> to get the right words for the right match. |
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English (US) is my native language. Struggles with english accompany |
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most of us, our entire life. Get use to struggles with english. |
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> 3.) Sometimes one can describe the problem without the faintest idea |
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> of any keyword to be filled into such [CENSORED] search engines. |
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And that is solved and refined during the ordinary discussions |
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on gentoo-user. |
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> Without the evolution of search engine into finding enginges mailing |
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> lists will exist, where questions are answered more than once. |
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Maybe I did not articulate the idea clearly. It would not use |
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traditional search engines, such as google, Jeeves....... |
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It would be a gentoo tool that runs on your machine like 'eix' |
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call it 'eix-help <keyword> ' |
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where a typical keyword might be drive/harddrive/ATA/scsi/ide |
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so a listed of all of the official and testing |
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wikis that related to these keywords would be listed. The index |
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could be a brief description of the wiki. |
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|
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Here's a simple script written by Ciaran that allos searching |
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to get the meanings on the flags. It was posted to this gentoo-user |
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group some time ago. I put in rooot's .bashrc: |
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# USE flag settings hack by Ciaran McCreesh: |
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explainuseflag(){ sed -ne "s,^\([^ ]*:\)\?$1 - ,,p" $(portageq portdir)/prof |
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iles/use.{,local.}desc; } |
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alias ef="explainuseflag" |
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# |
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So when I want to know what a flag does all I type is |
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ef <flag> |
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For example |
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'ef x264' reveals multiple listings: |
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Enables h264 encoding using x264 (FFmpeg code) |
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Enables h264 encoding using x264 |
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Enable x264 codec for mp4live (using x264-svn) |
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Enables h264 encoding using x264 |
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hmmm, more than one explaination for a flag? |
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Simple, quite useful and scriptable. |
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There are lots of folks that answer similar questions over and over |
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again. Sometimes the answer is long, content-rich, and very |
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informative, even to those with experience. These 'perls' quickly get |
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lost if not harvested quickly. |
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The linux.gentoo.user search engine I use at gmane.org, |
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is less than robust, but, at least it is limited to this gentoo-user |
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list of postings. |
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Restated simply, I'm suggesting: |
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1. A simple wiki template be created/cited as a reference for |
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quick documentation creation. |
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2. Individuals with some measure of experience/ability populate |
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the template with subject matter specific information, |
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primarily gleaned from this |
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gentoo-user forum, supplemented with other knowledge. |
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3. A few keywords be included at the beginning of the wiki. |
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4. A simple tool/scipt could index these wikis according |
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to the number of keyword matches; and/or the priorty match |
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of keywords (that is the most relevant keywords would be |
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placed a the beginning of the keyword list for a given |
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specific wiki). The more keyword matches the higher order |
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a given wiki would appear in the indexed search result. |
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(This is not the result of a 'search-engine' search, rather |
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a result from using a script on your gentoo system' A file |
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listing somewhat like /var/lib/portage/world could |
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be employed. |
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5. Allow ordinary gentoo-users to maintain the wikis, that |
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is those with reasonable skills and a login/passwd to |
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bugs.gentoo.org as an example of a simple control mechanism. |
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6. Monthly, have a 'higher level' review of the wikis by those |
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with strong skills to ensure the wikis are current, relevant |
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and useful. Just look at all those wikis related to |
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ati/nvidia/xorg and tell me they are all current? Some do |
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depend on the version of xorg you are running, but they |
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do not alway clearly state this. Person with extreme knowledge |
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get too busy to maintain their initial wiki creations, but, |
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folks that use them are more likely to maintain those docs |
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and add extra information. |
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This sort of mechanism would encourage others to participate |
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in creating a gentoo documentation engine that perpetuates |
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itself by attracting new folks. Helping them learn through |
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practical examples and grow, until they start coding and |
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'move up' the gentoo expertise ladder say to creating |
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ebuilds for testing. It certainly would attact more |
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folks to gentoo as users. |
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Also, this sort of structure would enable many more folks |
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to contribute to gentoo, and those persons with deep skills |
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could gently correct those with good intentions via documents/wikis. |
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Who knows if something is created and focused 'on the little |
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people' then google just might fund it via their |
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'summer of coding' program for aspiring young minds.... |
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just a thought, |
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ymmv, |
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hth, |
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and #!world_peace |
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James |
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-- |
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gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |