Version 169 of Ask and it shall be given Discussion

Updated 2004-10-31 21:22:09 by MAK

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.

  1. Could the Ask, and it shall be given. organization stand some improvement? (Yes - MAK, A/AK, GPS, SS, RS, MC, RA ...) / (No - ...)
  2. Is what's currently being done the right approach? (Yes - ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, GPS, SS, RS, MC, RA Great approach per se but not in harmony with the rest of the wiki, ...)
  3. Should changes be made willy-nilly on the live wiki until a reasonable consensus on the approach is reached? (Yes -- RA This is called trial and error; a tentative approach submitted to the Community for approval, ...) (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, GPS, SS, RS, MC, ...) /
  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 - RA, ...) / (No - MAK, ...)
  5. Should answered questions coming from Ask and you shall be given bear a different title than pages on wikiT? (Yes - ...) (No - RA Why complicate? They will have a regular title like the rest...) /
  6. Should experimentation and "proof of concept" work be done on a separate throwaway wiki? (Yes - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, GPS, SS, MC, RA / (No - ...)
  7. Should links provided by Wikit (to edit, recent changes, etc.) be put in the editable portion of pages? (Yes - RA, ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, MC, ...)
  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 - RA, ...) / (No - CMcC, SS, RS, MC, ...) / (Yes-optional - A/AK, MAK)
  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, RA / (No - ...)
  10. Should Wikit support subpages, automatically-generated heirarchical indexes, etc. like other wikis? (Yes - RA ...) / (No - MC ...) / (Yes-optional - CMcC, A/AK, SS, MAK, ...)
  11. In lieu of such support, should they be manually implemented in the editable portion of pages? (Yes - RA, ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, MC ...)
  12. Should the Wiki be used like a message board? (Yes - ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, RS, MC, RA, ...)
  13. Should the Wiki have a companion message board, or is news://comp.lang.tcl enough? (Yes - ...) / (No/comp.lang.tcl - MAK, ...)
  14. 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, RA ...) / (No - ...)
  15. Should Wikit allow you to preview a page before committing changes? (Yes - MAK, A/AK, SS, MC, ...) / (No - CMcC, RA ...)
  16. Anything else?

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).

RA 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.

LES: I don't understand the [comments] 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? (Yes - MAK)

RA See http:usemod.org . It has a similar feature.

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

One should not rush to solutions before understanding the problem

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