Version 175 of Ask and it shall be given Discussion

Updated 2004-10-31 21:44:17 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. For comments see other revisions.

  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, ...)
  3. Should changes be made willy-nilly on the live wiki until a reasonable consensus on the approach is reached? (Yes -- RA, ...) / (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 experimentation and "proof of concept" work be done on a separate throwaway wiki? (Yes - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, GPS, SS, MC, RA, ...) / (No - ...)
  6. 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, ...)
  7. 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)
  8. 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 - ...)
  9. Should Wikit support subpages, automatically-generated heirarchical indexes, etc. like other wikis? (Yes - RA ...) / (No - MC ...) / (Yes-optional - CMcC, A/AK, SS, MAK, ...)
  10. 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 ...)
  11. Should the Wiki be used like a message board? (Yes - ...) / (No - MAK, CMcC, A/AK, SS, RS, MC, RA, ...)
  12. 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 - ...)
  13. Should Wikit allow you to preview a page before committing changes? (Yes - MAK, A/AK, SS, MC, ...) / (No - CMcC, RA ...)
  14. Should the Wiki have a companion message board, or is news://comp.lang.tcl enough? (Yes - ...) / (No/comp.lang.tcl - MAK, ...)
  15. Should answered questions coming from Ask and it shall be given bear a different title than pages on the wiki? Like for example a prefix such as "Q&A" or "Answered Questions on ..." as Peter Newman has done in his system? (Yes - ...) / (No - RA, ...)
  16. Should we keep the current categorization system: a category name at the bottom of the page and the reverse search executed when we click on the title of a page? (Yes - RA, MAK, ...) / (No - ...)
  17. 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! :-)