Version 222 of Ask and it shall be given Discussion

Presentation

RA2 Those are comments related to the survey (in fact the vote as CMcC judiciouly points out).

---> See Ask and it shall be given Survey

Please do not be too personal or too aggressive and stick to the issues. It's not that we don't like humour, cynicism or wisecracks (we do! :-)) but the problem is that such comments make us deviate from discussing the real matters and they create a lot of raucus and turmoil and unnecessary bad feelings.

If a comment directed to you is personal and aggressive, please do not answer it in kind. We won't consider you a coward. We'll call you a diplomat and a wise man.

From GPS re: the message board

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).

From LV re: prefix in the titles and multiple questions per page

LV I prefer NOT to have prefixs in the titles - makes the titles far too long and wordy. I also prefer multiple questions on a wiki page rather than one question per page. However, I do also prefer that the questions be related to a common topic. Finally, I highly prefer seeing the questions moved to relevant existing pages, when possible - for instance, if the question is about foreach, then that's where the question and answer should go; not, in my opinion, to some new page. New pages should be reserved for new topics .

From RS re: putting questions at the bottom of a page

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.

From LES re: the add comment feature

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?

From RA2 re: the vote deadline

RA2 Everyone, please put a date you choose to end our vote and to move to the second step: discussing possible solutions to our "Ask and it shall be given" problem. Thanks to yall.

---> When do you think we should close the survey and move to the next step?

- RA2 Sunday November the 14th 2004

- Your turn...

Until the date of the closing of the survey, there is no point in wasting time in providing comments and suggestions since we have no clue what the consensus will be.

In the meantime, we can all use our brains (or in my case what's left of it :-)) and think of a good system for the Ask and it shall be given questions. We'll provide comments and suggestions when the time comes. Now we can all go trick or treat for it's Halloween! :-) Thanks!

MAK - Date is not nearly as important as figuring out what the majority of wiki users want and thus pissing off the fewest people.

CMcC Yeah, the vote finishes when it finishes. It should be fairly obvious to any reasonable observer when that occurs.

RA2 OK Sounds good! We all agree? 2. What part of Peter Newman's system do you like/don't you like? (See: ...) -

From RA2 re: Peter Newman's system

---> I like: RA2 (1) I like the prefix "Answered Questions on" in the beginning of each title. But this title idea would only make sense if all the titles on wikit had such prefixes; (2) I like the trails and the recent changes at the beginning of each page. ...

---> I don't like: RA2 The many questions per page approach. All of the other pages on Wikit have one question per page therefore this system is not in harmony with the rest of the wiki. .... But on this one I am not at all convinced and I'll go with the flow. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to have two systems here. When I'm unconvinced about something it usually means that either way is fine.

Re: Structured comments

RA2 Another similar concept was also designed by Clifford Adams programmer of Usemod. On the edit box there is a line for comments. You enter in this line what your edit is about, a brief summary and the comments will be showed at Recent Changes.

Let me give you a precise URL: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RecentChanges

MAK No, this is not the same thing at all. That is used as a note of what has been changed on the page, like with a CVS checkin comment, not to add notes to the page its self.

RA2 OK! Sounds interesting! Can you give a URL leading to a site that implements this function? I think LES gave a link yesterday. I'll try to find it...

About the sub-pages concept

RA2 Another example of subpages:

Silly, inappropriate and aggressive comment by whoever removed. No time for retaliatory comments and escalation of war. See: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?HowToReactToaFlame

On a page called "My favourite animals" you write a link called: "/Dogs". Notice the "/". By indicating "/" you actually tell the program that "Dogs" will be considered a root page and all pages written on "/Dogs" will be sub-pages of dogs.

What this means is that everytime you will write a link on "Dogs" the name of the link will appear on "Recent Changes" and in the list of all pages preceded with the name of the root page "Dogs".

Example: let's say you write on "Dogs" a link called: "Why I think dogs are cool". On "Recent Changes" and on "All pages", the page will appear as "Dogs/Why I think dogs are cool". The name of the root page does not appear on top of the page title (it's a mistake!)

Also, another advantage of the function: everytime you access [a subpage of] "Dogs" the link back to Dogs will appear on the menu so that you can back to the function quickly.

Note that Usemod has that feature but to my knowledge it was never used on any public wiki.

 (See http://wiki.atitd.net/tale2/Atlas - [MAK])

I have prepared a small demonstration of this root-page/sub-pages concept on the mother Usemod wiki itself. Click here: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Demonstrating_Clifford_Adams'_Great_Root-Page_Sub-Pages_Concept

I'll say this function won't be easy to program!

And finally: an explosive picture and a little wisdom

One should not rush ... to solutions before understanding the problem

RA2 Indeed! And one should not ... find solutions before finding problems! :-)