Thanks for the link Alan. I can personally attest to being intimidated by GHC's wiki when I started contributing. I think having a review mechanism in place would have helped, because then you at least know that one or two other people think your content is clear.
On a more minor note, I know the trac wiki has a history feature, but for some reason I find it much less useful than a git history. Perhaps this is just an issue of familiarity. On Tue, Sep 27, 2016, at 07:54, Alan & Kim Zimmerman wrote: > I think this is relevant to the dicussion: > http://www.yesodweb.com/blog/2015/08/thoughts-on-documentation > > Alan > > On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Simon Peyton Jones via ghc-devs < > ghc-devs@haskell.org> wrote: > > > We currently have *3* wikis: > > > > > > > > https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.haskell.org%2FHaskell&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=fxYacdt9XklXJaGetQABBI%2BG3IgnlJmB2r1EL54I1HU%3D&reserved=0> > > > > https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc > > > > https://phabricator.haskell.org/w/ > > > > > > > > I didn’t even know about the third of these, but the first two have > > clearly differentiated goals: > > > > · https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.haskell.org%2FHaskell&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=fxYacdt9XklXJaGetQABBI%2BG3IgnlJmB2r1EL54I1HU%3D&reserved=0> > > is about user-facing, and often user-generated, documentation. Guidance > > about improving performance, programming idioms, tutorials etc. > > > > · https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc is about GHC’s implementation, > > oriented to people who want to understand how GHC works, and how to modify > > it. > > > > > > > > I think this separation is actually quite helpful. > > > > > > > > I agree with what you and others say about the difficulty of keeping wikis > > organised. But that’s not primarily a technology issue: there is a > > genuinely difficult challenge here. How do you build and maintain > > up-to-date, navigable, well-organised information about a large, complex, > > and rapidly changing artefact like GHC? A wiki is one approach that has > > the merit that anyone can improve it; control is not centralised. But I’d > > love there to be other, better solutions. > > > > > > > > Simon > > > > > > > > *From:* ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-boun...@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of *Sven > > Panne > > *Sent:* 27 September 2016 08:46 > > *To:* ghc-devs <ghc-devs@haskell.org> > > *Subject:* Re: How, precisely, can we improve? > > > > > > > > Just a remark from my side: The documentation/tooling landscape is a bit > > more fragmented than it needs to be IMHO. More concretely: > > > > > > > > * We currently have *3* wikis: > > > > > > > > https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.haskell.org%2FHaskell&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=fxYacdt9XklXJaGetQABBI%2BG3IgnlJmB2r1EL54I1HU%3D&reserved=0> > > > > https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc > > > > https://phabricator.haskell.org/w/ > > > > > > > > > > > > It's clear to me that they have different emphases and different > > origins, but in the end this results in valuable information being > > scattered around. Wikis in general are already quite hard to navigate (due > > to their inherent chaotic "structure"), so having 3 of them makes things > > even worse. It would be great to have *the* single Haskell Wiki directly on > > haskell.org > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaskell.org&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=%2F8JlCXTwn%2FB8EyrW4BkY0QTS57X%2BFvs4BSXijqCbiNA%3D&reserved=0> > > in an easily reachable place. > > > > > > > > * To be an active Haskell community member, you need quite a few > > different logins: Some for the Wikis mentioned above, one for Hackage, > > another one for Phabricator, perhaps an SSH key here and there... > > Phabricator is a notable exception: It accepts your GitHub/Google+/... > > logins. It would be great if the other parts of the Haskell ecosystem > > accepted those kinds of logins, too. > > > > > > > > * https://haskell-lang.org/ > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhaskell-lang.org%2F&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=9ndNQVeDQy7lPb4qmn13k%2BAtztK8F9Hq%2B2jeXKm9YFU%3D&reserved=0> > > has great stuff on it, but its relationship to haskell.org > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaskell.org&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=%2F8JlCXTwn%2FB8EyrW4BkY0QTS57X%2BFvs4BSXijqCbiNA%3D&reserved=0> > > is unclear to me. Their "documentation" sub-pages look extremely similar, > > but haskell-lang.org > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaskell-lang.org&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=G9e%2BVDuPTtZHZl%2BGd2fFShUznQjDa158JENjoMiD0VY%3D&reserved=0> > > has various (great!) tutorials and a nice overview of common libraries on > > it. From an external POV it seems to me that haskell-lang.org > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaskell-lang.org&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=G9e%2BVDuPTtZHZl%2BGd2fFShUznQjDa158JENjoMiD0VY%3D&reserved=0> > > should be seamlessly integrated into haskell.org > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaskell.org&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=%2F8JlCXTwn%2FB8EyrW4BkY0QTS57X%2BFvs4BSXijqCbiNA%3D&reserved=0>, > > i.e. merged into it. Having an endless sea of links on haskell.org > > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaskell.org&data=01%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7C28109c89abb14244f87908d3e6aa6198%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1&sdata=%2F8JlCXTwn%2FB8EyrW4BkY0QTS57X%2BFvs4BSXijqCbiNA%3D&reserved=0> > > is not the same as having content nicely integrated into it, sorted by > > topic, etc. > > > > > > > > All those points are not show-stoppers for people trying to be more active > > in the Haskell community, but nevertheless they make things harder than > > they need to be, so I fear we lose people quite early. To draw an analogy: > > As probably everybody who actively monitors their web shop/customer site > > knows, even seemlingy small things moves customers totally away from your > > site. One unclear payment form? The vast majority of your potential > > customers aborts the purchase immediately and forever. One confusing > > interstitial web page? Say goodbye to lots of people. One hard-to-find > > button/link? A forced login/new account? => Commercial disaster, etc. etc. > > > > > > > > Furthermore, I'm quite aware of the technical/social difficulties of my > > proposals, but that shouldn't let us stop trying to improve... > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > S. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > ghc-devs mailing list > > ghc-devs@haskell.org > > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs > > > > > _______________________________________________ > ghc-devs mailing list > ghc-devs@haskell.org > http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs