Hello Robert,
Robert Osfield wrote:
I tend towards maintaining a single source for management, be it for
source code, documentation or wiki website. For collaborative I think
this becomes key in making sure that not too many disparate branches
build up.
However, having single source can lead to collisions when lots of
people are trying to modify the same file at once, so... the solution
to this is be modular, so that one has a collection of files that are
grouped logically and centrally indexed. In the case of the FAQ, this
is probably the way to go - break it down in to categories, and then
have an index to these categories.
The specific instance here (restructuring the FAQ) was something I did
not want to do on the version being publicly available, as it was a work
in progress. I also did not intend to finish it in one go, as I wanted
some feedback before moving it to be "the" FAQ. Those are the reason for
creating a "branched" version. For newly created pages (that may not
even be linked to yet) I don't have any problem with having a single
version. As long as it is clear who created the page and that that
person is still working on it.
For collaboration on the wiki to work there needs to be some way in
which you can see who is editing (or planning to edit) what. This can be
done via the mailing list, but I think that is not the place. The list
is already cluttered in my mind, as it is used for all kinds of purposes
(newby questions, development discussions, discussion of test results),
but I'm probably singular in liking to see more structure there. And for
somebody wanting to edit some wiki page having to search the list for a
post by somebody else that says "I'm current editing page such-and-such"
is horrible. The synchronization of the wiki work needs to be done on
the wiki or on a separate wiki mailing-list, period. One method is
through the use of user accounts, as they will show who is doing what,
allowing you to contact somebody if needed. The second would be to tag a
page as being "in edit". This could be a simple as putting a header on
the page being editing saying "This page is currently being edited by
...., please don't make changes yourself without consulting me at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]". You would only do this for large edits that take some time,
of course, not for correction of typos and such. Adding such a tag could
probably be done by creating a Trac macro (small piece of Python),
allowing somebody only having to add "[PageBeingEdited(user,e-mail)]" at
the top. But I'm getting into too much detail here.
The argument by Roland that editing of the wiki should be kept as simple
as possible is a valid one, but I don't agree that account creation
would hurt there. I believe that if somebody gets to the point of
wanting to edit the OSG wiki he will already have spent some time on the
mailing list. Registering yourself on the wiki then takes almost the
same steps as subscribing to the list: go to the wiki, fill in
registration details, submit, wait for confirmation mail, reply. As you
periodically mention that the OSG community has grown yet again, it
might be useful to be somewhat prepared for a more active community
w.r.t. the wiki.
Phew, long post :)
Paul
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