[opensuse-wiki] "Wiki Overhaul Weekend" suggestion for accelerated wiki cleanup
I have brought this to a few different areas of the openSuSE community and was directed here. I have thought that maybe OpenSuSE should propose a "Wiki Overhaul Weekend" or two to accelerate the cleanup of the wiki. This event would be similar to the KDE bug smashing weekends. Volunteers could get together on IRC and discuss the needs and the future of the wiki. Of course this will require proper organization and announcements to get the word out. My original idea was that everyone would decide on category conventions and categorizing pages but I was pointed to the OpenSuSE portal which is a project to replace the categories. So this overhaul weekend could support the portal movement and get more users volunteered. The wiki is very important for everyone seeking information about OpenSuSE, trying troubleshoot problems, or learn how to perform new tasks. The wiki should be accessible and easy to browse and search. This is not a task one person can do on their own, which is why I bring this here. The users need to be aware of the wiki's dependency on volunteers. Maybe having such an event will raise awareness and result in a much better wiki experience. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 20 February 2008 05:36:42 pm Joshua Levesque wrote:
I have brought this to a few different areas of the openSuSE community and was directed here.
I have thought that maybe OpenSuSE should propose a "Wiki Overhaul Weekend" or two to accelerate the cleanup of the wiki. This event would be similar to the KDE bug smashing weekends. Volunteers could get together on IRC and discuss the needs and the future of the wiki. Of course this will require proper organization and announcements to get the word out. My original idea was that everyone would decide on category conventions and categorizing pages but I was pointed to the OpenSuSE portal which is a project to replace the categories.
So this overhaul weekend could support the portal movement and get more users volunteered. The wiki is very important for everyone seeking information about OpenSuSE, trying troubleshoot problems, or learn how to perform new tasks. The wiki should be accessible and easy to browse and search.
This is not a task one person can do on their own, which is why I bring this here. The users need to be aware of the wiki's dependency on volunteers. Maybe having such an event will raise awareness and result in a much better wiki experience.
Hi Joshua, Good idea. I was thinking about that, but I'm not really IRC type. Besides, I don't know much about channel setup, I wasn't able to attend any meeting on work days. I guess that setting initial meeting on next weekend with single agenda to identify problem areas would be good, or we can start discussussion right here. The Portal can't completely replace categories, but it should be the place where is easier to control page layout than wiki categories. To change wiki categories layout one has to be familiar with Mediawiki software, while Portal is just normal page. We had few discussions and attempts to start organization from top to bottom, ie. from top categories to lower level categories and finally to articles, but it seems that approach doesn't work well as it is not possible to predict in what areas will openSUSE cotributors add articles. This time we can go the other way around, take what we have and assign names to groups of articles (categories). I agree that we need to advertise wiki need for copy editors (I guess that is the right name) and to form a group of editors that will take care of wiki organization in areas that are not yet covered. -- Regards, Rajko. See http://en.opensuse.org/Portal --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 20 February 2008 09:25:26 pm Rajko M. wrote:
On Wednesday 20 February 2008 05:36:42 pm Joshua Levesque wrote: ...
I have thought that maybe OpenSuSE should propose a "Wiki Overhaul Weekend" or two to accelerate the cleanup of the wiki. ...... I guess that setting initial meeting on next weekend with single agenda to identify problem areas would be good, or we can start discussussion right here.
I'll add items as I run over them on wiki. The http://en.opensuse.org/HCL has now tables, but it looks clumsy. We can consdier to use overview table without details and paragraphs or articles for additional information. -- Regards, Rajko. See http://en.opensuse.org/Portal --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 21 February 2008 00:36:42 Joshua Levesque wrote:
I have brought this to a few different areas of the openSuSE community and was directed here.
Can you please explain why you are throwing categories like KDE away!? Bye, Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
Stephan Binner wrote:
On Saturday 23 February 2008 17:24:07 Josh wrote:
the page that I'm thinking of, it was some small little page that had about 4 useless links. The articles can be found in the Applications category.
You can also find them on "all pages" list, so why have categories at all? ;-(
Previously you could list all pages (or list of applications) which had some. thing to do with KDE - I don't see how that is possible now after your category removal and page deletion race.
Ok yes, I see a point there. I'm not going to be doing much more editing this weekend, but it will be fixed so you don't have to worry. What we could do is maybe have categories that are meant as tags and not necessarily part of that hierarchy idea. This way we can have all pages related to x or all pages related to y. So maybe we can recreate this KDE category by means of a category called KDE-tag. Then all categories under of this type can be under Tags. Then you can view all pages that pertain to certain tags like KDE-tag, GNOME-tag, Wiki-tag, 10.3-tag,10.2-tag, etc. So you can view all pages related to very broad topics. Just an idea. Either way, this functionality will be manifested in someway. I don't have much more time this weekend to discuss or work on it. Please don't worry, I apologize for the confusion and I'll work slower and discuss more from this point on. Promise! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 23 February 2008 11:08:39 am Josh wrote:
Stephan Binner wrote:
On Saturday 23 February 2008 17:24:07 Josh wrote:
the page that I'm thinking of, it was some small little page that had about 4 useless links. The articles can be found in the Applications category.
You can also find them on "all pages" list, so why have categories at all?
;-(
Previously you could list all pages (or list of applications) which had some. thing to do with KDE - I don't see how that is possible now after your category removal and page deletion race.
Ok yes, I see a point there. I'm not going to be doing much more editing this weekend, but it will be fixed so you don't have to worry.
What we could do is maybe have categories that are meant as tags and not necessarily part of that hierarchy idea. This way we can have all pages related to x or all pages related to y. So maybe we can recreate this KDE category by means of a category called KDE-tag. Then all categories under of this type can be under Tags. Then you can view all pages that pertain to certain tags like KDE-tag, GNOME-tag, Wiki-tag, 10.3-tag,10.2-tag, etc. So you can view all pages related to very broad topics.
I would consider not to create 'KDE-tag', but to leave 'KDE' alone when it is used as tag category, it is anyway in Tags category, and also add suffix for subcategories of KDE category: - KDE_Applications, for all applications written for KDE that are not part of core desktop and then subcategories (tree) like in Root Category Tree. - KDE_Desktop, for the core; configuration programs, services etc. - KDE_Meetings This way we would have: KDE -- KDE_Desktop -- KDE_Applications -- KDE_Meetings -- KDE_Development GNOME -- GNOME_Desktop -- GNOME_Applications -- GNOME_Meetings -- GNOME_Development and cross references in Applications -- KDE_Applications -- GNOME_Applications -- Other_GUI_Applications Community -- Meetings -- KDE_Meetings -- GNOME_Meetings -- Project_Meetings Development -- KDE_Development -- GNOME_Development -- Other_GUI_Applications To get one article about KDE listed in the tree it should have either of KDE_Desktop, KDE_Applications, KDE_Meetings, KDE_Development and each of those categories should be listed in KDE category. Problem with Mediawiki software is that it has no way to tell for instance: Category:Application:KDE:Internet or any permutation of it and article will be filled in proper place in the tree.
Just an idea.
Either way, this functionality will be manifested in someway. I don't have much more time this weekend to discuss or work on it. Please don't worry, I apologize for the confusion and I'll work slower and discuss more from this point on. Promise!
Just don't give up. I guess, it is not that easy, as there is some kind of system in place, and we have to go from that to the better one, that you initiated, without much hickups. -- Regards, Rajko. See http://en.opensuse.org/Portal --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday, 21. February 2008 00:36, Joshua Levesque wrote: Hi, sorry for not having answered earlier...
I have thought that maybe OpenSuSE should propose a "Wiki Overhaul Weekend" or two to accelerate the cleanup of the wiki.
I really like that idea. I think a force of ten or more people working for two days on the wiki will be able to accomplish a lot. However, before undertaking such a task we should first identify and prioritise areas we need to work on. From my point of view the primary task would be merging existing articles on even topics - unfortunately this is also the most time consuming task.
My original idea was that everyone would decide on category conventions and categorizing pages
I have spent quite a few days in the last months categorizing uncategorized pages and the more time I spent on it the more I doubted the usefulness of categories. Let me explain why: * John Doe will never dig so deep into the wiki that he will ever see a category page * There is no way to limit the search to certain categories * There is no way to assure that a KDE article will end up in the category KDE * Every editor can invent a new category by just typing {{Category:My new shiny category}}, therefore the list of categories will constantly grow * Reorganizing categories requires to _edit_ almost every article on the wiki and that takes ages and is a _very_ unsatisfying work So my idea of how to overhaul the structure of the wiki would be to first try to determine the 5 to 10 most important areas of interest of the site's users. Once we know these areas, we should try to set up reasonable overview pages for these areas of interest, just like Rajko and Josh have done with the portal or category overview page. Nothing new so far ;-). But - after having done so, we should form small teams of at least two people that will take care of a special area of interest. These teams will regularly scan the new pages list and determine which articles fall to their area of interest. having found these articles they will either incoroporate it to one of the overview pages or merge it with an existing page. The 5-10 areas of interest should, of course be linked from the homepage And, last but not least, we should try to improve the search. It works pretty well for wikipedia, but it is not really helpful for a project like openSUSE. Perhaps we should consider using Google (this would also allow us to search all openSUSE servers). -- Regards Frank Frank Sundermeyer, Technical Writer, Documentation SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg Tel: +49-911-74053-0, Fax: +49-911-7417755; http://www.opensuse.org/ SUSE Linux Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) "Reality is always controlled by the people who are most insane" Dogbert --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 24 February 2008 09:15:36 am Frank Sundermeyer wrote:
On Thursday, 21. February 2008 00:36, Joshua Levesque wrote:
Hi,
sorry for not having answered earlier...
I have thought that maybe OpenSuSE should propose a "Wiki Overhaul Weekend" or two to accelerate the cleanup of the wiki.
I really like that idea. I think a force of ten or more people working for two days on the wiki will be able to accomplish a lot.
However, before undertaking such a task we should first identify and prioritise areas we need to work on.
I took http://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Special:Popularpages&limit=500&offset=0 and put that on separate page http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Popular Topics so that we can sort that by topics. We can create section titles and list articles by topic. Many articles has to be dropped, and I'll do that part later.
From my point of view the primary task would be merging existing articles on even topics - unfortunately this is also the most time consuming task.
Sure. I guess that I have to update Portal/All (and get rid of / , but that is another story about subpages usage) in order to make task easier.
My original idea was that everyone would decide on category conventions and categorizing pages
I have spent quite a few days in the last months categorizing uncategorized pages and the more time I spent on it the more I doubted the usefulness of categories. Let me explain why:
* John Doe will never dig so deep into the wiki that he will ever see a category page * There is no way to limit the search to certain categories * There is no way to assure that a KDE article will end up in the category KDE * Every editor can invent a new category by just typing {{Category:My new shiny category}}, therefore the list of categories will constantly grow
With everyday work that can be kept in limits by changing Shiny Names to Listed Names keeping Browse page intact, but I agree that:
* Reorganizing categories requires to _edit_ almost every article on the wiki and that takes ages and is a _very_ unsatisfying work
That was the reason to propose Portal. If I have to sort pages manually it is easier without editing or adding category to article.
So my idea of how to overhaul the structure of the wiki would be to first try to determine the 5 to 10 most important areas of interest of the site's users. Once we know these areas, we should try to set up reasonable overview pages for these areas of interest, just like Rajko and Josh have done with the portal or category overview page. Nothing new so far ;-). But - after having done so, we should form small teams of at least two people that will take care of a special area of interest.
How to do recruting? Should we use announce, project and opensuse@opensuse.org lists to make everything more visible. Any experience with independent SUSE forums? It would be nice to see opinion of their operators. The good openSUSE wiki is advantage for everybody. The wiki main page can be used to advertise "jobs" on wiki. The Wiki Team page say that wiki team is loose group of people, I guess it shoud be changed. One of us has to redefine what is Wiki team.
These teams will regularly scan the new pages list and determine which articles fall to their area of interest. having found these articles they will either incoroporate it to one of the overview pages or merge it with an existing page.
The 5-10 areas of interest should, of course be linked from the homepage
And, last but not least, we should try to improve the search. It works pretty well for wikipedia, but it is not really helpful for a project like openSUSE. Perhaps we should consider using Google (this would also allow us to search all openSUSE servers).
There are 2 links that private users made available. I'll locate them later and post links. -- Regards, Rajko. See http://en.opensuse.org/Portal --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
Rajko, Based on your last few edits, are we now keeping the Documentation category for all articles that are about documentation. The category hierarchy page still says that it is marked for removal. Will this category still be a top level category? Also, the categories that were previously subcategories of documentation still need a top level category. Are we going to use "Help"? I'm not so sure if wishlists fits under help that well. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
On Monday 25 February 2008 06:32:08 am Josh wrote:
Rajko, Based on your last few edits, are we now keeping the Documentation category for all articles that are about documentation. The category hierarchy page still says that it is marked for removal. Will this category still be a top level category?
Also, the categories that were previously subcategories of documentation still need a top level category. Are we going to use "Help"? I'm not so sure if wishlists fits under help that well.
Hi Josh, the problem is that I would keep Documentation for now. You have seen that I changed comment in Documentation category. We could keep it for now. There is few articles in translation and few articles about documentation that can use this category, although better name for second would be "About Documentation". This can be about existing sources like article "Linux Documentation", about writing articles on certain topics, like "openSUSE Style Guide" etc. The problem with categories, that are hanging now, should be solved by reasigning them to other categories or leaving them as top level. In Frank's answer to you there is nice explanation why Portal pages look as a lesser problem to maintain than categories. Though, I would finish what we started as Portal can use the same naming tree. -- Regards, Rajko. See http://en.opensuse.org/Portal --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
Frank Sundermeyer a écrit :
* John Doe will never dig so deep into the wiki that he will ever see a category page
nor will he need this... I don't want to stop working good people like you all, and if *you* think your work is worth it, you probably are right, as many people can share your feeling and not mine. but I must say, I quite never use the categories on a so large wiki. I always use the search engine. and if the wiki search engine don't works, I use google. so, the main problem may not be that of categories, but that of index words, and may be we can make of the two one... for example, when I searched for wifi informations, I didn't find them because there where under "wlan"... so we should make sure that any page have inside a list of relevant words. better then if the page title is cautiously choosen, as the first choice is often bad and the wiki search engine first look at titles. for example each wlan page should have a "wifi" word in it, (why not be in the wifi category) but first we should know a little more about the way the wiki search works (to better choose words), for example, do the wiki search engine look in the category tag? it should use this first as index. jdd -- http://www.dodin.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-wiki+help@opensuse.org
participants (6)
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Frank Sundermeyer -
jdd -
Josh -
Joshua Levesque
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Rajko M. -
Stephan Binner