Concur with Frank. The power of a wiki is the ability to allow large
collaborative, synchronous participation on the dataset, similar to the
use of CVS (concurrent versions systems) for software. Perhaps we might
"copy" the software model here making the wiki and then creating
"freeze" points where large changes are held and only minor fixes are
allowed up to the "release point" where we publish a version. The wiki
is then "unfrozen" to allow all changes until the next "freeze" point.
The wiki will always contain the most "up-to-date" / bleeding edge
information, but the information has not yet been vetted / approved for
publishing. This should make maintaining the overall body of knowledge
easier over time and allow for even easier (and hopefully therefore
greater) participation by the community.
Thoughts?
Doug
Frank Peters wrote:
Michele Zarri wrote:
On 7/31/07, Jean Hollis Weber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[Snip!]
One possibility is to continue to *produce* our new material in
ODT as we have been doing, but *maintain* it on the wiki after
initial publication. Of course, that still leaves the problem of
generating updated ODTs from the wiki.
The ODT should still be the master. I would also add that the update of the
wiki should only take place when a major revision takes place and there
should be a pointer to the OOoAuthors web site for those who may prefer to
read the user guide offline or print some selected parts.
The only advantage of the Wiki is probably the possibility to search for
keywords however, if we continue to provide pdfs, they are normally indexed
by search engines so the same can be done on OOoAuthors (it just requires a
bit more effort).
Let me jump in here. The most compelling advantage of a wiki as opposed
to "offline" formats or a classical website is easy collaboration
and contribution. So ultimately, using the wiki "just" to publish
documentation would IMO be the wrong approach.
I agree that the wiki currently is not set up for allowing to edit
and publish documentation in book format. So I understand the
reservations.
However, I would like to work on the wiki and functionality around
it to enable just that - work on files on the wiki and release them
as a book through export to ODF/PDF/HTML. Maybe I'll fail miserably ;-)
In any case, I would like to invite you to observe what's going on
and see if we can come up with something that would fulfill the
requirements.
Thanks
Frank
