The initial problem that needs addressing and what I am tackling right now
prior to the 2.0 RTM is to perform some measure of weeding in the overgrowth
that is flexwiki.com
The intent here is to get rid of the many play pages that are just a named
topic with no real value. It is also to validate the integrity of the
information presented. It is relatively easy to remove the references to CVS
as no longer being relevant, fortunately most of the information relating to
SVN has been created.
More problematic are the discussions especially about the development of
WikiTalk, where some topics state something is not possible, but the
functionality has been added at a later date, without correcting the
statements that it can't be done. This is complicated by examples of doing
something to get around a deficiency that no longer exists. A new user may
not easily find the current methods (due to Murphy's influence). Even worse
are pages where multiple issues are discussed, and solutions provided for
some of those issues, but not all.
A number of the very early documentation topics, did not use the summary
property and were probably referenced on an early version of the HomePage,
but are no longer connected (see LostAndFound), but have value. These topics
need to be reconnected in some way.
There is a minor issue of vandalism where neglect has allow certain
important topics to become totally lost, WikiNewsletter was an example,
where I had to get a backup from Craig and relink it.
Finally I am trying to add some metadata that adds value by having new
topics that reference the metadata to create those pages. It appears that
metadata used in flexwiki.com for dynamic topic generation is maintained
better than irrelevant metadata. To that end I have added a new topic
KeywordsList that contains a listing of metadata for the Keywords property.
All of this needs to be returned to flexwiki.com at 2.0 RTM. How that is
done and what happens subsequent to RTM does require discussion. I agree
with Craig that it would be good if we could distribute some documentation
with a download. (The frequent flexwiki.com errors are frustrating for users
when it is the only information source - even though the system recycles and
clears the error after about 5 minutes.) The problem here as David points
out, is that of allowing new input and how to incorporate that into the
collected 'truth'.
John Davidson
On 9/13/07, David Ornstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Two suggestions/comments:
>
> 1) First, after thinking about it over night, I think the property should
> only have one value and that's the (minimum) build number to which the
> documentation applies. This would make things very simple and easier to
> maintain.
>
> 2) Second, I think Craig raises a much more fundamental question which is
> where the "truth" for "developer" documentation should live, on
> flexwiki.com or under version control. I have to admin that I have a
> strong initial reaction to the idea that the source of truth should be the
> version control system. That would mean, as Craig said, that the
> documentation could only be changed by developers on the project. Maybe we
> haven't defined what types of pages we're actually talking about here, but
> that seems like a big problem because it excludes people who are not
> developers on the project improving the documentation with examples, better
> explanations, links to related topics, etc. Even worse, the side effect of
> that is to increase the responsibilities of our very strapped dev team of
> today ;-) I'll admit that this is just my first knee-jerk, so perhaps
> someone can help me think about this differently. What the problem that
> keeping the "documentation" pages in SVN would solv
> e? And what do we mean by "documentation" pages?
>
>
>
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