----- See also [Ask and it shall be given Survey] ----- [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! About Peter's system, it's very well-designed, very well-articulated and per se it is a model of how to present information. I realized yesterday that it's only drawback (and very serious drawback) is that it does not blend in with the rest of the wiki. Why create two sections inside a wiki? My initial idea was to have one question per page with a regular title and I think it is the best solution for it is in harmony with the rest of the wiki. Thanks also to [Colin McCormack] whose barrage of objections expressed very '''articulately''' and at times elegantly helped raise awareness here and got a lot of people up and going. You can't go wrong when you work and when you '''do things'''. This has always been my motto. We have a proof of its efficiency today also. Peter has worked countless hours on the system, Colin has worked countless hours on criticizing it (and I worked countless hours defending it) and today, thanks to MAK's timely intervention, 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 MAK's list. Thanks again MAK for cutting the crap quickly, for raising the real issues and for aiming to get a real consensus! Heartfelt thanks also to Peter Newman and to Colin MacCormack! '''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). [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. [LES]: [MAK], but if part of every page is read-only, it's not a wiki anymore, is it? IMVHO, segregated comments look a lot more suitable to help files, exactly like [PHP]'s CHM (PHP was mentioned in the original comment that raised my question). I am very glad to say that because I come from PHP, missed the CHM comments for quite some time, but now it is dead clear to me that we don't need any commented help files because [wikit] is better in many more ways than I feel inclined to spend time writing about. In '''very''' brief words, that's what we already have here, except everything is editable, which is no worse and no better. ... ... ... Actually, I think it's better. Making part of every page read-only brings several new issues: who gets to write/create a page? Who can edit the non-editable part? If someone creates a page, do they get to be the "owner" of the page, with exclusive editing privileges???!!! Supposing anyone can create pages, at exactly what moment a certain part becomes non-editable and who (and how) decides which portions should be marked as non-editable??!! Clearly, the concept is all but clear to me. [RA], there is no "usemod.org" domain. You must have mistyped it. BTW, speaking very frankly, [wikit] was doing just '''fine''' before you found it and tried so eagerly to "improve" it. I think you are making a huge unwarranted mess. [RA2] I entirely disagree. I get stuff done, discussions going. I am a '''catalyst of sorts'''. It is thanks to (in order) [Peter Newman], myself, [Colin MacCormack] that there is now a discussion on the "Ask and it shall be given" problem and thanks to us if things are now moving. MAK, you should stop being negative all the time. You say I am being arrogant? Well you're the one who writes nasty stuff; I don't. I have been very polite so far so don't push me to my limits. As for your incapacity to understand the catalyst process, it will come with time, experience and maturity I am sure. Right now there are things you cannot see for you don't have the vision that comes with time and age (yes Colin! I know it's a fallacy; by the way how do you call this fallacy?). '''What ultimately counts is to get people going.''' If you call this creating a mess, I don't'''. It is thanks to me that finally there was a semblance of diffs on this wiki. You MAK don't get anything accomplished by your sleeping and playing the wait and see game. It is with people like Peter, Colin and myself that things get done. Colin went full-tilt in his criticism and he was right to do so. Now today's survey is a step in the right direction indeed. But the way you presented it was self-serving, silly and arrogant. Kind of saying: well you guys don't know how things should be done; I'll show you. If I had been you I would have first given credit to all those who paved the way to make this survey possible and popular: [Peter Newman], [Colin MacCormack] and myself. [CMcC] RA, I don't think anything at all is achieved by personalising things. It's been a cultural practice, you might say a 'system', to avoid personalising issues on this Wiki. I suggest, in view of the kinds of personal scrutiny to which you have been subject, you might benefit by not seeking to change that practice. Capice? I, for one, do not need stroking or personal acknowledgement for these things, and [MAK] neither needs nor deserves personal criticism, nor is this the appropriate venue for it. [RA] Colin has '''single-handedly''' and courageously disapproved of the system. He devoted many hours to this task. His comments were timely except when he went too far by calling Peter, system '''shit'''. Peter's system is far from being shit! Apart from this little slip, Colin's remarks were very appropriate and were conveyed in an excellent English (I even learned a few new words in the process!). Now, your paragraph above re: the help. I have no clue as to what you are describing. Can you elaborate? Also can you divide into paragraphs? Your way of putting everything in one paragraph makes your prose very hard to read. Finally, what is going to happen ultimately is everyone will accept [Peter Newman]'s system minus the trails on top. Much ado about nothing if you ask me... [MAK] I believe you have good intentions, but allow me to suggest that in the next time you feel like improving something, perhaps you should simply post your ideas at [Suggestions for Wikit] and wait for comments, '''then''' give some more feedback, etc. [Robert Abitbol] I also believe you have good intentions but you don't seem to have a capacity to grasp the real issues and you end up blowing in the wind. I can't wait 10 years for stuff to be done. I am not like you. I don't have this kind of patience. Things have to move man! Projects have to be tackled head on. ---- [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! :-)