Creating consensus regarding page types in wiki

[Ben Edwards]

I think we just need to disagree - if I was to continue this
discussion I would want to put up a wiki page so the issues can be
consolidated.

In fact I think having wiki pages for this type of discussion is
useful.  Someone trying to follow this discussion would have to do a
lot of reading - the great thing about using a wiki page is the
arguments can be nicely structured without repetition for all to read.

However I'me not sure anyone else is following this as no-one has chipped-in;)

Ben

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:35:58 +0100, sparkes <sparkes at westmids.biz> wrote:
> another long one guys, bear with me while we sort out what's best for
> the wiki ;-)
> 
> Ben Edwards wrote:
> > On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:09:58 +0100, sparkes <sparkes at westmids.biz> wrote:
> >
> >>Ben Edwards wrote:
> >>
> >>>Thats common sence to me - i've been developing interfaces for 0ver 15 years.
> >>
> >>well why are you prescribing a method that runs totally contry to this idea?
> >
> >
> > well - I think having the wiki look the same as the polished
> > documentation is going to lure the user into a false sence of
> > security.  If I do something off an official page that trashes my
> > system I am going to be upset.  If i know the information was provided
> > by another user and is done at my own risk that is another story.
> 
> GPL documentation offers the same promise that GPL software does.
> 
> Sections 11 and 12 NO WARRANTY
> 
> we should endevour to provide the best possible support but no warranty
> can be provided, YMMV, IANAL etc, etc, etc.
> >
> >
> >>>Not exactly sure what your point is.  My point was that the wiki and
> >>>the official/polished documentation are diferent.  I think the wiki
> >>>should be as easy as posible for new users to edit and the
> >>>documentation use a very flexable standardised markup.
> >>
> >>your point was the wiki and the main site should look and work
> >>differently.  My point was they shouldn't ;-)
> >
> >
> > Look a little different - maybe just a different background colour.
> > and have a 'warning' on it. The only way I think the wiki should work
> > differently is that the editing should be easier.  Anyway if it a wiki
> > it will work differently - i.e. anyone can edit it.
> >
> 
> They should work and look in harmony with each other.
> 
> They aren't used any differently by the average user so they certainly
> shouldn't look/work different.
> >
> >>The normal user is not a wiki editor they are a wiki browser.  The use
> >>case requirements are exactly the same from the end user perspective and
> >>they should therefore be expected to work exactly the same and look
> >>exactly the same.
> >
> >
> > And the information should be of the same quality?
> 
> yes that was my point earlier on.  If the content is not of the required
> quality team members need to get it up to the required quality.
> 
> It's no good having a second class citizen site when you can have
> intergration.
> >
> >
> >>>I think having the wiki looking a little diference is good.  Users on
> >>>the main site who do a search and end up on a wiki page may be
> >>>'suprised' if it is not as polished as the main site.
> >>
> >>well any pages that aren't polished should be clearly marked as work in
> >>progress.  Documents that are growing and evolving in the wiki might not
> >>always have the same polish as the rest of the site but they should
> >>always maintain the same professionalism.
> >
> >
> > The wiki is a work in progress so making it clear visitors are in a
> > wiki will show this.   If it is not obvious the only way to do this
> > would be to mark the page as edited automaticaly and have someone from
> > the doc team check it is OK and 'passing' it.  I however think that
> > having a wiki and doc area gets round this.  Also the whole site is
> > going to look unprofesional with pages sprinkeled all over the place
> > marked as work in progress.
> >
> 
> The whole wiki shouldn't be considered a work in progress it should be
> considered a brainstorming zone on the way to the finished work.  Just
> the other day you where pissed of that docs would be moved away from the
> wiki and now you are conceding that the wiki isn't a place for finished
> docs ;-)
> 
> you would rather have the whole wiki marked work in progress than have
> some odd 'unprofessional' pages ;-) I still don't see your reasoning
> that the wiki should look and feel any different to the main site.
> 
> What you seem to be saying is we should ditch the wiki and work in an
> offline versioning system and only let people join in if they understand
> how to get the source from cvs and submit back to it.  Because the
> picture of the wiki you are painting is not a good one considering that
> you where always one of it's strongest supporters.
> >
> >>If a contributed page isn't up to scratch one or more of the core team
> >>needs to wade in a bring it up to scratch.  I thought that was the main
> >>job of the wiki gardeners, to prune and maintain the flowers that make
> >>life unique ;-)
> >
> >
> > In an ideal world but anyone can edit the wiki and the garderers are
> > not going to have the time to polish all the pages quickly .  Also the
> > gardener would have to check for technical acuracy and all the
> > examples work  - what if the information involves an area the
> > gardeners do not understand?  Of if it would take a houre of so to
> > check something works?
> 
> If a document is written with such techical detail it can be considered
> acurate and solicit bug fixes where it is found not to be in the same
> way that free software does.  See GPL sections 11 and 12 again.  We
> can't go checking that every line of a doc doesn't fry someones computer
> just like the devs can't know in advance it won't.  We have the GPL to
> protect us from this (one more reason why it would be a good choice)
> 
> The type of gardening I am talking about is fixing the spelling a
> grammer of a person whose natural language might not be english.
> Putting the page into a better place on the wiki and maintaining the
> information architecture and later moving more polished how-to's to the
> main site.
> >
> >
> >>>There seems to be a bit of confusion here - there is a big diference
> >>>between the requierments of a wiki and a documentasion CMS.
> >>
> >>not really.  The wiki backend is a tool for document development but the
> >>front end should work exactly the same as the rest of the site.  The
> >>principle of least astonishment again you see ;-)
> >>
> >>Think a little about the requirements you are talking of.  The end user
> >>requirements are exactly the same for the wiki and the plone cms.  I
> >>can't think of any end user requirements that are different for the two
> >>systems (and would therefore potentially justify any differences) but I
> >>stand to be corrected if you can think of one ;-)
> >>
> >>remember end user requirements not editor requirements.  Count the
> >>number of editors on the wiki and compare that to the number of site users.
> >
> >
> > I am not saying the end users requierments are the same as the editors
> > but I think they need to know if the information may be misleading.
> 
> So the whole system should be broken just because you want YMMV added to
> every page? ;-)
> 
> All information may be misleading.  Unless we create a nanny state and
> tell our users *everything* may mislead your worse lead to dragons we
> have to trust they already understand this fact.
> 
> I still think the user will be savvy enough to understand that
> information may not be perfect.  The licences we choose can protect us
> but I agree that that rapidly evolving pages should be marked as such.
> It should be obvious that some pages are being used for brain storming
> and are not the finished article. But the site works better as it is
> than it did before, plus we now have more flexibility and the choice to
> move docs into the docs section and out of the wiki when they mature.
> 
> Isn't this what we are here for?
> 
> 
> 
> sparkes
> --
> <davee> "Sparkes, the Pete Best of LugRadio"
> 
> --
> ubuntu-doc mailing list
> ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-doc
> 


-- 
Ben Edwards - Poole, UK, England
WARNING:This email contained partisan views - dont ever accuse me of
using the veneer of objectivity
If you have a problem emailing me use
http://www.gurtlush.org.uk/profiles.php?uid=4
(email address this email is sent from may be defunct)