On Thursday 01 March 2007 16:28:20 Frank Sundermeyer wrote:
> Here are my 2 cents. I will try to structure this mail, because I think
> we are facing several different problems.

A very clear analysis of all the problems, I think; a lot better than I could 
hope to. ;-)

> Namespaces:

I'm not sure namespaces are the solution, mainly because of all the cons 
mentioned.

> Categories:
> * Pro
>   - everybody can invent new categories
>   - it's easy to assign a document to a category
>   - a document can belong to several categories
>   - standard Wiki tool
> * Contra
>   - search cannot be limited to categories
>   - since everybody can invent new categories, their number is
>     constantly growing

Categories are something that have to be adopted IMO, but they're not, on 
their own, the solution. I think it also has to be a case of presentation, 
otherwise categorisation just turns into an indexing portal project.

> Portal pages:
> * Pro
>   - everybody can invent new portal pages
>   - can target different audiences
>   - no layout / content restrictions
> * Contra
>   - since everybody can invent new portal pages, their number is
>     constantly growing
>   - it's difficult to get an overview of all portal pages

A portal is an index. On its own, again, it's not going to be all a user 
needs.

Most successful open source project-related wikis I know end up being so 
because they really crack down on what can actually go on there. The pages 
that are frequented become popular, and it becomes *the* location for finding 
out particular bits of information, and hence encourages the centralisation.

This is the case for a few articles on the openSUSE wiki, but it is by no 
means the case for all openSUSE related information.

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 3. Different target groups
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Especially when creating portal pages we need to know which target
> groups we would like to address. This will not only affect the content
> of the portal pages, but probably the way it is presented to the user
> as well (e.g. procedure vs. list vs. table, ...).

This is going to go into my last point as well, but I really think we should 
get feedback from a lot of users on the wiki, how they use it, and why it 
might fail specifically for their purpose, and get in suggestions.

> ==> Conclusions / Action Items:
>
> - discuss target groups topic

Why don't we arrange an IRC meeting to discuss these topics? They've proven to 
be pretty useful/productive in the past, and it would be a great way of 
getting a lot of people (who I know as well) care quite a bit about this 
issue; this includes some admins from susewiki.org, several people on the 
forums, and quite a few people I know on IRC. In fact, I'd probably say a 
very large chunk of the community. A lot of people complaining, but not doing 
anything; this way we can give them something quite precisely on what to 
do :). 

This way we can all brainstorm together and then have quite a few people who 
will be ready to get involved with executing whatever we conclude. 

Kind thoughts,
-- 
Francis Giannaros
Website: http://francis.giannaros.org
IRC: apokryphos on irc.freenode.net
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