Re: [HACKERS] Developer's Wiki

Gregory Stark wrote:
> Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> writes:
>
>> The other lesson of Wikipedia is that maintaining wiki quality for a generally
>> editable wiki requires a full-time dedicated staff. We don't even have any
>> volunteers who have 4 hours/week to commit to cleaning up the wiki, unless
>> you're volunteering.
>
> Bullshit. Most pages on wikipedia don't require any attention from such staff.

This does not help your argument.

> The wiki has been sitting there for two weeks and hasn't had any problems.
> It's already getting more attention and updates than the techdocs wiki which
> still has articles up from 2001 that are no longer relevant and in some cases
> are actively misleading.

Techdocs is a different problem all together. Josh has already mentioned
some problems with it. I can mention more.

1. It isn't easy to login
2. It is even harder to create a login
3. There is no creation of login for most people because they don't know
they have to go to the community portion of the www site to get to it.

I am sure their are other problems on the inside, I haven't actually
ever logged in ;)

>
> Putting barriers up blocking people trying to help isn't any guarantee of
> quality. What it does guarantee is irrelevance.

Again you argue without actual evidence. Wikipedia is a success it is
however it does have quite a bit of problems as well. A simple but very
straightforward signup mechanism isn't going to stop most people.

>
> Frankly that's what we have today and that's why it's useless. Things only get
> put on the list when everyone who cares already knows what has to be done and
> then nobody looks at it because there's nothing there they don't already know
> about.

Anytime I have asked for something to be put on the TODO list, it is. As
long as I can provide a practical reason as to what it is and why it
would be good.

That part of the TODO works just fine.

Now, do I think there is improvement to be made? Of course but the
current TODO is far from useless.

>
> A TODO list people can freely add stuff to is precisely what would make it
> useful. It would have things we don't already know.
>

I am just going to hope that you are kidding about this one.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

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