This has been moved to its own page, to keep it out of the way of real information.
LV 2007 June 19
I was wondering about the "cleared pages" wiki page. What is the intent on that page? The reason I ask is that, to remove a page, one wants to remove all references to the page, then replace any text on the page with one (1) blank/space character.
By a) replacing text by a period and b) putting a reference to the pages on a page, I'm not certain the same effect is accomplished.
EMJ I don't think Cleared Pages is a real page. For the pages that I have cleared recently (all RA madness), I was removing references and leaving a space, and they are in the list (and still have no references). In the past, such pages appeared in Recent Changes but as text, not links. I think separating them completely but leaving visibility of the action is a good idea.
LV Okay - that makes sense. As long as we also have the ability to undo the action in case someone decided to just rampage through the wiki deleting all the pages...
EMJ BTW, your first edit today broke the one UTF-8 character on this page, but I fixed it and your second edit didn't break it - strange.
Add a summary on the top of a page
unperson I entirely agree with WHD's suggestion to add a summary at the top of a page. Add (and not replace).
I believe that anyone who wants to add a summary is welcome to do so but not by deleting what other people have written (and make writers furious along the way) like a few idiots wanted to do on Ward's Wiki. The original text should remain as is like the previous writers have said justly so. I believe that deleting other's people's text and putting a summary instead is tantamount to vandalizing. It's as if you take a classic (Gone with the wind for example), you delete the original text and you summarize it. Silly!.
Mind you, at C2 (Ward's wiki), what they do is they delete a certain writer's text. Usually a pro-Microsoft guy, or an excellent writer the clique got to be jealous of. They all say that refactoring is part of the process, the guy should not complain. If the guy does not complain, fine, they keep on refactoring his stuff and soon enough he won't have a line of his on the wiki. If he complains, they go to whine to Ward that the guy does not want to follow the refactoring rules, supposedly one of wiki's canons, cardinal rules.
Ward (the ever naive guy) contacts the delinquent and asks him to leave because he has bothered his little effeminate gnomes. This is all a game of power and manipulation. What happens in the end? The best writers are chased and a few idiots who certainly know to manipulate but unfortunately can't write one single line that makes sense, are left. Since a problem is never solved (you don't solve a problem by giving power to trouble-makers), problems keep on piling up and Ward's wiki turns more and more into a jungle.
Like a lot of forums, boards and wiki webmasters do, what silly Cunningham wants is docile little wikizens who don't say a word and get manipulated by his clique. I certainly never went along with that and I was 100% right to do so. This is tantamount to what exists in little bamboo dictatorships in Africa: as long as you shut your mouth and get manipulated, everything is fine. As soon as you say: wo! Hold on a sec here your troubles start.
Aggressive refactoring is part of the manipulation game. You don't want refactoring here believe me...
Refactoring is needed
aa: I believe most of "us" do want refactoring. It makes the wiki a better resource for people who looking for information. It might, however, make things less useful for those who are merely looking for attention.
2 opposite positions
unperson Don't get me wrong. They do refactor in good faith sometimes (at C2). But let me ask: who in his right mind would ever delete the original text and put instead a summary?. The very goal of a summary is to read a small condensed version to determine if we'll read the long one.
aa: The goal of refactoring is to remove extraneous, duplicated, and redundant information. Leaving a long discussion in place after it has served its purpose...serves no purpose.
unperson You think so. I don't. I like to read long discussions.
C2.com is no reference
unperson The thing is there are a lot of people who are not in their right mind camping at C2. There is not much normality there.
Now, when I hear Ward's wiki as a reference I get a little upset. Ward's wiki is certainly the most instable and conflictual wiki on the internet and it is far from being a model. It's like a Dutch guy going to some instable country in Africa and returning to Holland, one of the most stable countries in the world says: I have seen this done in Africa, a clique burning a rebel at the stakes; let's do it here.
Ward's wiki is not a model believe me. Well if it is a model, it is model of what not to do.
Let's keep the social peace here
unperson As I said many times, JCW has worked hard to make The Tcler's Wiki a socially stable and peaceful wiki and I certainly won't go along with silly experiments that will end up in a conflict and will destroy his excellent work. When something works well, why change it?
JCW came along a few years ago and deleted all personal stuff. We now see he was 100% to do so. When a wiki starts getting personal, it is the beginning of the end. I still remember silly George Peter Staplin coming on Wiki to tell people I was a crook because the check I was sending him took time to arrive. I answered and it went on and on and on... Such personal pages used to settle accounts should not exist on a wiki and they don't exist anymore (for the record, Staplin never had the grace to tell everone when his check has arrived but that's besides the point)...
The debate continues
aa: Discussion is "personal stuff". It is full of individuals' opinions and arguments. Once consensus is reached on a topic, the only part of the discussion that should be kept is a summary that can be used to justify why that particular consensus came about.
unperson And if anyone wants to know how a discussion came about, he doesn't have the right to know. Tough luck! Terrible suggestion, aa
When you refactor stuff, you become personal. You delete people's stuff. You enter their territory. Problems start.
Moreover, one of the best things about Tcl/Tk (if not the best) are precisely this wiki.
The Tcler's Wiki is the model. C2 is not.
Aggressive refactoring is a nono, a huge problem that will turn this wiki into a jungle like Ward's jungle wiki. If you want to make an excellent contribution to this wiki, leave it as is: it works very well the way it is.
As for the chat mode and thread mode vs the literary mode or whatever they called it, I heard the same debate over and over ad nauseam for many months at Ward's wiki.
I hope you won't import this debate here also.
[Who's the one bringing up the topic?]
Don't forget that at C2 (Ward's wiki) they have all the time in the world to talk nonsense. The Tcler's Wiki does not have that purpose; the goal is to help each other out in Tcl programming and not to discuss silly stuff like they do there.
aa: Right! The goal is not to discuss.
Indexes are needed
unperson However, what is really needed is not a summarization but indexes, road maps. The category system (created by Stan Silver at c2.com) is better than nothing but it is pretty complex for most people. On the contrary, indexes are intuitive and are a concept everyone is familiar with.
One can take a subject ex: Using C functions in Tcl and write an index listing all pages with this subject matter and give comments for each page. The page would be called: Index: Using C functions in Tcl.
Something along the lines of what I did in: "Ask, and it shall be given -Index-".
Indexes can be very very helpful and in my not so humble opinion, this is what should be done instead of summarization.
For a start, we could rename pages that are in fact indexes adding the suffix -Index.
The [Category whatever] system makes available indices of the categorized pages automatically, without anyone having to maintain a separate index page. Adding things like "Ask, and it shall be given -Index-" merely clutters the wiki with redundant information that can easily become stale.
Respect is the master word
unperson The master word is respect. I have never in my entire life on internet (I got on Internet in 2002) changed or deleted a single word written by anyone. I respect everyone's style and variety is the spice of life as the saying goes.
I have fought hard to promote respect on C2.com and I simply lost the battle, although I can be credited for a few improvements.
Some users who are not interested in reading what they feel are long and boring discussions should understand that there are some people who are interested in reading them. To each his own. De gustibus non disputandem. You should not discuss tastes. Do I go to a library and do I burn all journals because I feel they are boring? No. So why do it here?
Those users who want the beef right now should write the summaries themselves and put them on the top of pages that have long, boring discussions.
The moment there will be intense, heavy refactoring here, there will be a lot of conflicts. I think we should continue doing the same type of respectful gnoming Larry and Donal have done for years. .
Refactoring is an aggressive arrogant act by its very nature. The subtle message is: I am changing your words because you don't know how to write and I write better than you.
The sad thing is usually the writer who has supposedly refactored a text has written a worse text!
Wikignomes do a lot of work here
KBK surely didn't mean to ignite a firestorm of controversy. Neverherless, there are wikignomes about here. Perhaps the local gnomes don't refactor as ruthlessly as some places. But you will still see spelling corrected. categories added. spam removed, format blunders rectified, links unbroken, square brackets doubled, and occasional windmills tilted at.
Words on a wiki belong to everyone
DRH thinks that unperson doth complain too much. When one adds words to a wiki, those words cease to become ones own. They enter the public domain and are fair game for anybody else to change (and hopefully improve). I think the rule should be: Thou shalt not become possessive of what one writes on a wiki. If you are looking for a place to display your thoughts and your ideas and you want to make sure everybody understands they are yours then start your own webpage or blog. Wiki is not the place for individualism. Wiki is about the collective. It is about the hive mind. Wiki is about the wisdom of crowds, not of individuals.
unperson Baloney! DRH This is the sort of silly wiki communism that has been the source of 99.99 % of Ward's wiki problems. It is because of such silliness that C2.com is a mess and the worse jungle on the Internet. What you stated is the perfect recipe for disaster, wishful thinking that leads nowhere.
Editing is required
unperson This is a technical site. There is no need for rewriting.
aa speaks out: That opinion seems quite illogical. Technical topics require editing to improve clarity, correct errors, and add necessary background information.
On The Tcler's Wiki you post a question for help; people answer you. No one comes around and deletes your answer because it is the collective.
On The Tcler's Wiki, you post a few lines of code. Other users add a few other lines, they add comment.
On The Tcler's Wiki, you create a page on a technical subject. Other users add to it or they don't. No one comes and deletes your page rudely like they do on C2.
On The Tcler's Wiki, JCW has made it clear that this is a technical site. A few years ago, he deleted personal contributions and everything has been quiet ever since. That was a great move I thought. It was straight, blunt, radical and efficient.
The Tcler's Wiki is about adding, solving problems, getting and giving help. And not about deleting people's edits, not about sending bad vibs.
Also, the decision to keep all versions of a page is excellent.
There is no collective here.. We are a bunch of individual writers writing individually. Everyone respects each other; everyone respects each other's edits.
And that is the way it should be.
And that is why this Wiki works so well.
Wikignomes do a great job on this wiki
unperson KBK, you did not ignite a firestorm of controversy. In my case, you opened an old wound as the expression goes. It's not your fault, it is mine. You only made an honest proposal.
Besides, you are 100% right. I find those you call local gnomes respectful and efficient. They do what needs to be done: they perform the functions they are supposed to perform. We are talking about fellows like Larry Virden who is mature, articulate and tremendously respectful of others. With Larry setting the tone and doing what gnomes are supposed to do, we cannot go wrong.
In C2.com, gnomes want power: they want to own the place and indeed they ended up owning the place with Ward Cunningham's blessing. No such thing here. So let's not repeat C2's problems and let's not import their silliness here.
As for the silly concept of refactoring, you all are familiar with abstracts of university papers. Abstracts are simply summaries intended to guide the student to the right paper. Imagine if one decided to summarize all university papers and afterwards burn the full text! Silly. This is exactly what they are doing at C2. Worse! This is what some people have been fighting for for years! They want to refactor the whole wiki!
Why doesn't Cunningham object? Because he does not care about the contents. As long as his wiki remains on internet, this is what counts for him.
The model of what not to do is C2.com. Therefore I am a little angry when someone goes to C2.com and comes back here saying: I've seen this done at C2.
The models for wikis are: The Tcler's Wiki, WikiPedia and Bookshelved.
Besides, refactoring (vandalizing someone's contribution) would personalize WikiT a lot. And this is precisely what JCW wants to avoid. And justly so. The Tcler's Wiki is a wiki to exchange code, advice on Tcl. It's not a place to fight X or Y, to complain publicly against X or Y, to establish a personal discussion with X or Y, not a place to gang-up against X or Y, not a place to bully anyone not a place to get power of any kind.
Everyone here is equal. No one is more equal than others to paraphrase George Orwell. We all respect each other; we all mind our own business.
unperson finally concludes (alleluya!)
unperson As a conclusion, I propose the following:
1)Anyone who wants to summarize a page is free to so as long as he/she puts the summary on top and does not vandalize anyone's contribution.
2)Anyone who wants to write an index is free to do so. You won't see me writing an index because I am not at all qualified to do so.
As for the rest, JCW's vision is excellent. No personalization of the wiki, no problem.. The Tcler's Wiki is about Tcl programming. Period.
This is sound management.
unperson, please summarize your thoughts
If unperson doesn't like other people summarizing his words, could /he/ please summarize the terrible spam he's put here, in the hopes that it may be short enough for someone to actually read without his irrelevant ranting putting them to sleep?
unperson To anonymous 65.6.136.250.
If my words put you to sleep, do not read them. No one forces you to read anything.
You did not read properly (since I understand you fell asleep long before the end :-)): I am not against anyone summarizing my words; I am against those who delete a contribution and replace it with a silly summary that means nothing. This is called refactoring, one of the silliest concepts I have ever witnessed in my entire life.
I did digress trying to put into words why JCW's concept of a wiki worked so well.
A last thing: a previous writer has said that he was sorry he opened what he called a storm of controversy. He did not. To the contrary; he raised an important question and he got a few good answers.
And, to boot, he gave an insomniac the chance to sleep reading my words. I did better than tranquillizers. Perhaps I should send him a bill!
So all is well in the land of The Tcler's Wiki.
People's words stand best on their own
DKF: The Wikit software doesn't have opinions, though the people who put content in The Tcler's Wiki do. OTOH, the 'gnomes round here aren't ruthless refactorizers (except for splitting stuff off to separate pages sometimes, but never with intentional data loss); too much other work to do, and usually people's words stand best on their own.
Plus we do keep a revision history (with a lag of about a day). :-)
unperson I agree 100% + you said it very well, very elegantly, DKF: words stand best on their own.
Incidently, you wrote an excellent definition of wikignoming on your homepage: If you find your Wiki page has been mysteriously edited to look better (while not losing any of the content) then the chances are I've been at it... :^)
While not losing any of the content.
On this wiki, the Tclers wiki, Larry Virden and yourself, Donal, do precisely what a wikignome should do: you correct mistakes, you add links, you correct links etc. You are not intrusive by nature; you both are discrete, polite, together, balanced. That is wiki gnoming at its best. Thanks for the excellent work, by the way!
Therefore my advice to anyone here who would like to gnome holds in 5 words: Do like Larry and Donald.
As for refactoring, I sincerely believe that only nuts, inter-nuts as I call them, are capable of deleting, vandalizing pages and pages of text replacing them with a silly clinical summary. I know a few teclers and they are just too smart and too normal to buy such a silly idea.
Once is enough
DKF: Robert, please don't repeat yourself over again. Anyone who didn't get it the first time round certainly isn't going to get it the fifth time. Once is enough.
unperson :-) Someone well known has said that the more a message a repeated, the more it's understood.
Donal, I thought I'd get a thanks for the compliments. Well!
Maybe unperson will eventually come to recognize that repeating some messages invites not understanding but irritation on the part of those who understand things based on different goals.
Update the outdated information
Anonymous: I'm tempted to refactor all of unperson's text and replace it with "unperson doesn't like wiki refactoring.", but I won't do that...
FWIW (and that's not much given that I'm anonymous), I think this wiki is a great resource but I find the lack of refactoring/editing on this wiki to be one of it's greatest drawbacks. There's lots of pages that have completely outdated information on them but since the culture here discourages editing, the stale info remains. It makes it difficult (especially for undated posts) to distinguish between valid information and used-to-be valid information, or sometimes just wrong information.
In a past life we used an internal wiki (TWiki) for internal documentation and we ruthlessly refactored. It was the only way to make it work. Nobody cares about the state of the product 2 years ago, only the current state (and history was maintained if someone did care). Now there are some cases where the discussion is the content, but for technical documentation/discussions that's not the common case.
For example: On Tcl Performance, right near the top of the page is a large discussion about not using return in performance critical code because it's not byte-compiled. That's been untrue since when?
Robert, would you consider it an improvement to that page to edit the now incorrect information, or would it be better to leave it so as not to be vandalizing someone else's words?
unperson I believe you may simply add the new information without deleting the old one since it's pretty interesting to see how things evolve. That would surely be an improvement to a page. Of course when deleting an old link and replacing it with a new one no need to keep the old one.
However, since all copies of a page are kept here, if anyone feels bad about any imprecise information and if he/she wants to improve a page, well he/she should go ahead. Again, I am not against improving a page: I am against replacing text with a summary; I am against malicious refactoring; I am against agressive gnoming.
By the way, I don't think that technology evolves so fast that an info is outdated 2 months later!
But a wiki is by definition a work in progress so improving a page, updating it is totally acceptable.
The culture of no-change is dangerous
not unperson (...) And to preempt the counter-argument: In theory you could move that content to an 8.0 performance tips section or something similiar, but in practice you're still altering someone else's words. What strikes one person as being a harmless change and an overall improvement may be taken by another as vandalism. If the community supports the vandalism charge in some cases, it creates an culture where people are reluctant to make any changes. You either accept that content is community-owned and can be editted by any member of the community, or the content is individually owned and can only be altered by the owner. While neither is guaranteed to be up-to-date, the latter is guaranteed not to be.
KBK Since there are still a fair number of dark corners where Tcl 8.0 can be found, I took the liberty of moving that particular obsolete advice to a page by itself, as suggested. (Wikignomes do miss a fair number of things, but certainly refactor when asked!)
Sure, update the information'
unperson You are making one rule for all wikis and that is wrong.
You have to take the following into consideration:
(1) This wiki is strictly technical. Therefore the way ideas are expressed here is not really important. I cannot imagine someone going over someone else's edits and correcting them with nicer words, a better sentence structure. We are very much utilitarian here (and that is the beauty of this wiki!); what is important is to get the point across. One less thing for gnomes to do.
(2) All copies of a page are kept. So there shouldn't be any fights as to what will be kept in the final copy. We always can send the user to an older version; ex: see version # 45. One less headache.
(3) Since JCW has clearly stated that this wiki is strictly technical and no personal messages are allowed, there are no fights. Pretty soon those who came to pick up a fight leave. One less headache for everyone and one less thing for gnomes to do. [Would that were the case.]
(4) I never saw on this a page started by X and deleted by Y. Everyone respects each other. So there are no edit wars. I have seen on C2 edit wars that could last 24 hours, even days! One would write a page; the other one would delete it; the first guy would put it back, the second guy would delete it and so on for days at a time. No such thing here! Here everyone agrees: if a page is on topic it stays. One less headache for everyone and one less thing for gnomes to do.
The only thing to do really is to correct the outdated information, to update links and to insert categories. This is what Larry and Donal do and what anyone interested (and knowledgeable; that excludes yours truly) could do.
The way this wiki is set up, it requires very little maintenance as the experience has shown.
(Other writer) I've seen edit wars on this Wiki. Funnily enough, they all involved unperson. But, anyway.. As he says quite rightly, this is a technical site. That's the reason why things must be edited. There are many pages on this Wiki where there are six screen-fulls of text copied directly from the chat where someone has posed a problem and people have offered solutions (some of which are incorrect or inappropriate for the actual problem). With some editing into a concise technical description of the problem and the solution, it would only need to be a dozen lines long. And someone skimming wiki pages for the answer to a problem will get far more out of a short concise piece of info than a 400-line chat log that has some relevance hidden in it somewhere.
Some people like to read entire pages
unperson Perhaps you would prefer a summary but some people - perhaps more patient than you - would prefer to read a 400 line log. To each his own. Please don't generalize. I have often read summaries that took away the very essence of an information and made a very interesting text a royal bore that would put to sleep the previous reader who complained about my prose putting him to sleep. Well if I put him to sleep, if he read some of the stuff I read, he'd sleep forever like the Sleeping Beauty and it would take him more than a princess to wake him up! :-)
There are in fact two choices:
Since all versions of a page are kept:
1) You can delete the contents of a page replacing it with a summary while sending the user to an old version where the full contents are located.
2) You can put the summary on the top of a page so the reader can see both versions.
As for edit wars, you may have been present when an edit war involving myself was taking place but it's just a coincidence; there have been edit wars at C2 for ages way before I came in June 2002. In fact Ward's wiki is the only wiki I have seen that has edit wars and the technology present may explain it: the older versions of a page are deleted after a few days and pages are deleted forever when they have the message Delete. It is therefore a fight to the finish to keep pages or to keep certain versions.
Here we don't have that problem since all versions of a page are kept. Of course Ward has never thought of such a solution. JCW has.
The most absurd thing about C2.com is that it is the most problematic wiki on the internet and Ward Cunningham thinks it is an example for all! A great many technical changes should be made to his wiki as I pointed out to Ward many times. But Ward moves very very slowly and he is simply not a good manager; this is the reason conflicts there last forever.
Here on the Tcler's wiki, the technology has been organized so that it is a peaceful place. On C2.com, it is the opposite.
In any case, from reading this whole page (WikiGnomes), we can conclude that I don't think anyone objects to any refactoring done in good faith or to any summarization of pages with the summary on top of the page or with the summary deleting the old page while putting a link to an older version.
Again, I believe a wiki is a work in progress and the contents are certainly not fixed forever, frozen in time.
PS: If you refer to edit wars on this wiki (the Tcler's Wiki) involving myself, they certainly were mild and they did not last long; more a disagreement than an edit war really. I have to admit that Colin McCormack, myself and a third person whose name I forget have been the most conflictual persons on this wiki.
But since I am not a conflictual person by nature (and I don't like conflicts), and Colin isn't either, things have cooled off ever since. The format of the Tcler's Wiki simply does not lend itself to edit wars. This is the busy bees wiki as I have always called it. It is not a wiki where a few wackos are camping around Recent Changes looking for a fight because they are super-bored on a Saturday night and they don't have a date to go to a disco... Most people are busy programming. The best things about Tcl/Tk are the great programming language, the wiki and the chat and a few people who are kind enough to provide great help. Nice place if you ask me.
Summaries, discussion pages and putting titles to paragraphs
unperson Since all versions of a page are kept, in regards to adding a summary, I believe there are in fact two choices:
1) You can delete the contents of a page replacing it with a summary while sending the user to an old version where the full contents are located (not the best solution).
2) You can put the summary on the top of a page so the reader can see both versions (best solution). This way, we keep the best of both worlds.
As for the discussion pages added to a page (as DKF wisely suggests) so that short positions are expressed in the first page and the long digressions-á-la-unperson :-) are sent to the discussion page, this is an excellent idea!
Putting titles to paragraphs like I do all the time is also a step in the right direction: it has the advantage of establishing an instant outline so that users don't even have to read a paragraph entirely to get its essence: they only have to read the titles of paragraphs and scroll down until they find what they want.
Respect a person's edit
LV I've seen arguing/waring on this wiki. Sometimes, it was because someone was complaining that someone else had changed their words. Other times, it was because someone started to do some work, and others didn't like that person's idea, so they proceeded to delete it, or at least erase it, from pages. Then I've seen arguments that seemed to stem back from misunderstanding of meanings. And I've seen some technical arguments as well.
I used to be in favor of refactoring. Then I got caught in the middle of a heated discussion and I backed off. This is similar to my work on moving the software catalog to the wiki. Once I was criticized for that, I stopped the general work and just occasionally add some of it to the FAQ. It's easier to use my time for something I enjoy than to do things that cause criticism. The jury is still out on my participation on usenet... I regularly get criticised for expressing my opinion there, and I've not quite, but almost, reached the limit there.
Bryan Oakley (regarding the USENET comment) really? in comp.lang.tcl? There's so little criticism there that it surprised me to hear you feel like you are being criticized there. I'm really sorry you feel that way.
Anyways, it seems to me that there are places where refactoring is possibly useful. But before someone started removing attributable words, it might be polite to touch base with the person who wrote the words and see if they agree.
However, removing someone's words because you don't agree with them should only be done with the vision that the original person may come along and remove your words in retribution... so that should probably be avoided, at least when the discussion is technical in nature. I think of things like TECHNICAL arguments over whether a thread based paradigm is the right approach, or whether OO belongs in the core. Just because you don't like the opinion expressed isn't really a relevant reason to remove the other person's words. Feel free, instead, of writing a counter-argument, or even better, creating a page on your own personal web site (yahoo and google, among others, provide free space for such pages), to argue without fear of censorship...
I reject the original example that the C2 wiki's managed by Ward Cunningham et al. ruthlessly re-factor and remove text. I just checked back and saw that my words on ShuHaRi are still there as originally typed. RFox
Questions that that have been moved around recently during the "big November shuffle"
WHD - 2009-12-02 19:51:50
Many pages on this wiki basically consist of long discussion threads. There's some gold in those threads; but there's also a lot of obsolete and out of date information. Mining those nuggets is tedious and time-consuming. The current standard is to summarize page contents at the top of the page, and leave the discussion threads alone. However, this standard evolved in the Wikit era, when page history wasn't readily available. This is no longer the case; older versions of pages are readily available, and the precise content of an edit is easily determined. In particular, an author can easily tell whether his comments have been deleted.
Is it time to begin more agressive wikignoming? Some discussion threads are important as historical artifacts; others are not. This page, for example, owes most of its contents to an unfortunate interlude some years ago; must this interlude really be enshrined here for ever? And then, there are lots of pages that discuss tricks, techniques, and so forth; surely in this case, the technical details are more important than the discussion that engendered them.
The only real advantage to the current pattern that I can see is that people get attribution for their ideas. But perhaps we could simply include attributions in the summary?
dkf - 2009-12-03 04:50:18
I'm not opposed to distillation of discussions and removal of things that are now outright bogus, but it calls for taste and discretion. For example, a discussion of the lack of core OO is still fairly relevant for the (alas, still significant) community that is stuck using Tcl 8.4, despite it being available in 8.6 (and as an extension for 8.5). Thus whining about it could be removed, but mitigation strategies (such as pointing out itcl, snit and xotcl) need to be retained.
I view the ideal of a wikignome to be doing the basic non-controversial edits that other people would do to their own contributions if they knew about the depth of content and styling tricks/habits of the Wiki.
WHD - 2009-12-03 09:59:00
Exactly. The technical details are more important than the threads that engendered them.
LVwikignome - 2009-12-03 12:21:25
In my opinion, I really would hate to see a heavy handed clean up of discussion threads take place in general. I understand the frustration mentioned by a previous commentor.
If the idea is to streamline the facts and reduce clutter of discussions, perhaps one path to take would be to create a summary for the page, as well as a link to either the last version of the page containing the discussion, or if further discussion is expected, a new page that contains the discussion thread that lead up to the summary.