[ubuntu-za] Gripes about the wiki

[Morgan Collett]

Jason Norwood-Young wrote:

> Okay, then it's just the links that are wrong. On the edit page,
> HelpOnEditing and SyntaxReference point to
> http://www.ubuntu-za.org/HelpOnEditing and
> http://www.ubuntu-za.org/SyntaxReference respectively.

I'll look into this - it may be a moin configuration option that is now
incorrect on the new server.

>>> 3. All the page template names are in another language.
>> I don't believe that any templates have been created other than the
>> default templates which come as part of MoinMoin. I have not worked with
>> templates on MoinMoin, maybe Morgan can assist here.

Yes, they are just the defaults and maybe we have a misconfiguration
about the defaults here too. There is a lot we can do with moin -
previously we were hosted on the personal server of one of the Ubuntu
developers as a favour, and now we are hosted on some server sponsored
by Canonical for LoCoTeams. http://wiki.ubuntu.com is running the same
software, but has a good theme etc. We need to get a theme going that is
consistent with the ubuntu.com sites and pleasing to the eye.

> I guess I just feel the Wiki isn't really getting enough attention, and
> that might be because of a lack of community involvement. Hence my
> Friday morning bitch-session. There's so much that could happen with the
> Wiki - how-to's, local news, local success stories etc. But the lack of
> community involvement is due in part to the Wiki not being a great
> destination on the web for Ubuntu information, and it being a bit hard
> to use and clunky. I think some more attention to detail and some more
> action on the Wiki would perpetuate a growing cycle of involvement on
> the Wiki.
> 
> I also think that some more info on *how* to interact with the Wiki
> would be helpful. Like the 3G how-to I just posted - I'm not sure I put
> it in the correct place (should it be under FrontPage or Wiki?), and I
> found marking it up to be tricky. An introduction to using the Wiki,
> disseminated on this list, I think would go a long way to lowering the
> barriers.

I'm all for this, and have been tweaking the wiki here and there on an
ongoing basis, but it does need more coherent information, especially
for new visitors.

I've got a GettingInvolved page started but it needs a lot more love.

We need to plan a WikiTeam meeting in the near future, via IRC. We have
people who have put their names down and then disappeared, and others
who are probably interested but don't know how to get involved.

I've seen wikis used very effectively, and it does require people
knowing where to put what. My vision for the WikiTeam is a (small) group
of people who can fix up anything they think has been done wrongly, and
keep information up to date. I hope this will then give others
confidence to contribute, knowing that if they make a mistake, somebody
will help them make it work better.

My starting point at the moment is to go through the minutes of the IRC
meeting from December:
http://www.ubuntu-za.org/Wiki/LoCoMeetings/Summary7Dec

There were points raised there that are worth discussing and some of
them are relatively easy to address.

Regards
Morgan