Version 165 of Ask and it shall be given Discussion

Updated 2004-10-31 21:05:38

Survey by MAK

Robert Abitbol Any suggestions?

  • 2) Is what's currently being done the right approach? (Yes - ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, GPS, SS, RS, MC, Robert Abitbol Great approach per se but not in harmony with the rest of the wiki, ...)

Robert Abitbol Any suggestions?

  • 3) Should changes be made willy-nilly on the live wiki until a reasonable consensus on the approach is reached? (Yes -- Robert Abitbol This is called trial and error; a tentative approach submitted to the Community for approval, ...) (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, GPS, SS, RS, MC, ...) /

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  • 4) Should we keep the current format of one problem per page even for the answered questions and not put many questions on the same page? (Yes - Robert Abitbol ...) / (No - ...)

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  • 5) Should answered questions coming from Ask and you shall be given bear a different title than pages on wikiT? (Yes - ...) (No - Robert Abitbol Why complicate? They will have a regular title like the rest...) /

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  • 7) Should links provided by Wikit (to edit, recent changes, etc.) be put in the editable portion of pages? (Yes - Robert Abitbol Very useful for edits!, ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, MC, ...)

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  • 8) Should Wikit provide duplicate links at the top of the page for some of these things that are provided at the bottom of the page? (Yes - MAK Robert Abitbol They are very useful besides we don't all have fast machines and wait forever to get to the bottom of the page, ...) / (No - CMcC, SS, RS, MC, ...) / (Yes-optional - A/AK)

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  • 9) Should the person actually answering a question be responsible for determing the appropriate place for it? (Yes - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, RS, MC, Robert Abitbol And a question could be in another place by someone else if he does not agree with its location) / (No - ...)

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  • 10) Should Wikit support subpages, automatically-generated heirarchical indexes, etc. like other wikis? (Yes - MAK, Robert Abitbol ...) / (No - MC ...) / (Yes-optional - CMcC, A/AK, SS ...)

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  • 11) In lieu of such support, should they be manually implemented in the editable portion of pages? (Yes - Robert Abitbol This is very useful stuff for navigation, ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, MC ...)

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  • 12) Should the Wiki be used like a message board? (Yes - ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, RS, MC, Robert Abitbol but I agree with GPS's suggestion below to create a message board companion...)

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  • 13) Should the Wiki software have a feature to add commentary to a page (separate from the page contents, but tacked onto the end when viewed, like you see in the php online manual, etc.)? (Yes - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, RS, Robert Abitbol Very useful considering the diffs don't work too well, ...) / (No - ...)

LES: I don't understand the question. The absolute majority of wikit's pages are but a long series of comments. Does this proposal mean comments on the comments??! Or a "read-only" section segregated from an editable section?!! Or what?

Robert Abitbol See http:usemod.org . It has a similar feature. Check it out on the Recent Changes.

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  • Anything else?

Presentation

MAK - ENOUGH TROLLING. This is not productive, and the signal to noise ratio is zero. Look, it's very simple: stop pooing all over the wiki, list alleged issues and options, and put it to a vote. So far, I haven't seen anyone besides RA and Peter Newman, if they're actually different people, who like what's being done.

Comments

Robert Abitbol Your idea of a survey is excellent, MAK. Bravo! This is the best way to get somewhere and to get consensus.

Thanks for thinking I am Peter Newman and for thinking I am as brilliant as him. Unfortunately we are two different persons! I obviously don't have one tenth of his knowledge when it comes to programming. If I had, I would work on my programming trilogy all by myself and I wouldn't go through the motions of working with someone else! But thanks for the compliment anyway!

The idea of jumping into a solution like Peter Newman did was excellent. It woke the community up and it saved us from hours and hours of silly discussions going nowhere. Now we're talking business! Peter Newman is to be warmly thanked for he was the catalyst. And it's not relevant to know whether his system is to be used. What's relevant is to be aware that Peter in fact got things organized by jumping into a possible solution to the problem, He played the role of a pioneer, of the inventor.. Thanks Peter!

Thanks also to Colin McCormack whose barrage of objections expressed very articulately and elegantly helped raise awareness here and got a lot of people going.

You can't go wrong when you work and when you do things. This has always been my motto. We have a proof if it. Peter has worked countless hours on the system, Colin has worked countless hours on criticizing it (and I countless hours defending it) and today, thanks to MAK everyone is involved.

This is called showing the good example I believe... Once a person starts doing things, every one else is awakened and all get involved! People like to monkee each other I know this for a fact. :-) So one has to start, to show the good example and everone else will follow...

I've added a few questions to your list.

Thanks again for cutting the crap quickly, for raising the real issues and for aiming to get a real consensus!

I appreciate this great collective effort by Teclers.

GPS: A message board might be useful as a companion to the Tcl'ers Wiki and the Tcl'ers Chat. The *golden nuggets* of information could be preserved on the wiki, in a hopefully easier format to navigate. Tracking many conversations is just too painful without a more structured display. As an alternative we could have a standard response of "use news://comp.lang.tcl instead," and pull in the good posts from there (as CL and others already do).

Robert Abitbol I agree,. This is an excellent idea.

RS The recent rush in low-info page creation disappointed me. We had a tradition for years that, for instance, people having a question about grid just put it at bottom of that page, and some or more helpful souls answered it right there. Seems better to me than adding a hierarchy of not-always-obvious concepts on top of precise questions.

http://www.gulfcoasttechnology.org/images/explosion.jpg

One should not rush to solutions before understanding the problem

Robert Abitbol Indeed! And one should not find solutions before finding problems! :-)