A Wiki Gnome works behind the scenes to tie up loose ends, correct misspellings, add categories, fix broken formatting and links, and turn ordinary words into Wiki references. The word originated at Ward's Wiki [L1 ]. On some wikis, Wiki Gnomes also replace long threads of a dialog with a summary of the conclusions. Most people here at the Tcler's Wiki favor the practice of summarizing dialog, but such changes can be controversial as a few vocal individuals strongly object to having their words edited. A less controversial approach is to put a summary of the page at the top, followed by a Discussion section. Some (Many?) users would prefer that the discussion be moved to a separate page, perhaps with the name "Talk" in its title.
Did you know that more than 1500 pages on the wiki have no Category specified? There's plenty of room for contributors to help out! Also, there are nearly 9700 pages with content on the wiki. Around 360 of those pages have no reference link (no other pages points to them), so they might be a bit tougher for someone to find. Also, almost 250 of the pages make no reference to any other page on the wiki. Reading pages and creating appropriate links helps people find the content that has been written and is a great way for people to help maintain the wiki. Then there are around 300 pages which use a reference like https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/1234 rather than affine transforms on a canvas. Nothing illegal or necessarily wrong there. However, having the title sometimes makes the point a little clearer to the reader .
See Cleaning up pages on this wiki and Wikignoming: what is to be done for related information.
How to clean?
LV How to clean what? Be more specific, and perhaps we can help you.
Someone want to write more about the meaning of this term?
escargo 1 Feb 2006 - I think the page creator was thinking that the cleaning up of wiki pages would be done by some gnomes who took it upon themselves to keep things tidy (behind the scenes). Conjoining the terms "wiki" and "gnomes" creates the new term "wikignomes."
AK: See also Cleaning up pages on this wiki.
LV Ah, so we are cleaning up vandalism as well as dark corners, etc.
KBK I used the term on the chat, together with a reference to Ward's Wiki [L2 ] where I first saw the term. From that site:
A Wiki Gnome works behind the scenes to tie up little loose ends, adding ISBNs of books that people mention, tracking down the authorship of "someone once said" quotes, correcting broken links, fixing broken whitespace, answering Ask, and it shall be given., tirelessly replacing chat mode with content, fixing misspellings, and, when appropriate, making ordinary words into Wiki references.
A very diligent Wiki Gnome regularly searches for EditHints (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?search=EditHint ) left behind by MetaWikiGnomes and cleans them up or even takes on major projects, such as breaking down the barriers around Walled Gardens.
Wiki Gnomes love to work in the shadows making what some would call Stupid Little Edits. Look at Recent Changes[L3 ] and you may even spot one!
Summarized discussion (details in this page's history):
WHD Remarks that wikignomes of other wikis "tirelessly replace chat mode with content", but that does not happen here. He seems to be in favor of such practice.
LES is totally in favor of content rewriting, but is afraid to do it himself and tread on toes.
DKF also sounds favorable to content rewriting, only conceding that it's too much work for him to undertake.
unperson has had very negative experience in aggressive refactoring in other wikis and opposes aggressive content rewriting quite strongly. Since all versions of a page are kept anyway, he does not mind refactoring done in good faith and suggests summaries should be kept on the top of a page.
Another writer believes that Robert Abotbol's message is weakened by repeated errors in terminology which cry out for correction, e.g. confusing the terms refactor and summarize. I'd suggest he visit http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ReFactor and see that it's about removing redundancy, not removing details.
This summary is experimental.
Experimental Summary
WHD Cute! However, rather than simply summarizing everyone's views, I had something more like the following in mind:
Begin Experimental Summary
A Wiki Gnome works behind the scenes to tie up loose ends, correct misspellings, add categories, fix broken formatting and links, and turn ordinary words into Wiki references. The word originated at Ward's Wiki [L4 ]. On some wikis, Wiki Gnomes also replace long threads of a dialog with a summary of the conclusions; here at the Tcler's Wiki, such changes can be controversial as some users object to having their words edited. Others are generally in favor of the practice, but do not have time or energy to do so.
End Experimental Summary
Summaries belong to the top of a page
This is WHD commenting again. I'd argue that summarized content belongs at the top of the page; discussion should take place at the bottom, following a heading like "Discussion". One can then edit the content at the top to reflect the discussion at the bottom, while leaving the discussion alone. (MediaWiki even has a separate "Talk" page associated with each content page, to make separating these easier.)
Add a discussion page
DKF: If people want to add a discussion page to a particular page, they're free to do so. Discuss: wikignomes, for example, holds the extended discussion which used to fill this page.