Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
1. Email-address verification of the user automatically adds the user to the project 2. First few contributions by the user are modified by the admin, once they prove themselves genuine and worthy, they can be moved to non-moderated status and their future contributions are automatically committed which speeds up the process (I've seen this work for many mailing lists too). If Google Code wiki provides these features, I think it would be ideal. If not, can we configure Wikia to do this? Sorry for not responding sooner. I've been having e-mail problems all weekend. I think the answers are no and no. I do however think that both sites have pretty decent spam-fighting features that may work for us. Thanks! Tom Purl
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
I imagine these sites work from the frantic effort of very large numbers of contributors (much larger than we should expect). Twenty-four hours per day, there is someone monitoring edits to their favourite wikipedia page. From complaints I've seen from burnt-out contributors, the spam and junk is removed by shear physical effort (with clever tools). I agree that it will be a decent amount of work to keep the proposed vim tips wiki somewhat spam-free. On the plus side, I imagine that the tip authors will be very willing to help keep their tips free of spam and vandalism. Also, we should expect spam to get much worse. I agree here too somewhat, but we can also expect anti-spam tools to improve, especially in the Wikipedia community. So, I think that requiring vimtip admins to suffer a bit of pain in managing the entry of tips and changes would probably be less effort than what would be required to clean up vandalism. The people who don't want to use the Google Wiki (or some other equally cumbersome solution) aren't trying to avoid work. We're not worried about the work load; we're worried about usability for tip editors. I'm sure that if we all put our head together, we could come up with a iron-clad tips site that is very easy to administer and virtually spam-free. The only problem is that it would be so cumbersome to use that very few people would actually add any tips. This seems counter-productive to me since easier access is one of the main reasons that so many people want to move the tips to a wiki. How often are tips added or changed? Look at the effort that people put into this mailing list ... I would have thought that manually tweaking tips would be manageable. Yes, we could just manage everything via the mailing list, and it wouldn't be much work for the admins. I just don't think that 80% of potential tip editors would go through the hassle, and that's saying a lot when you consider how technically proficient most Vim users are. Would someone please check how the Google wiki would work if a malicious admin were accidentally added. Is there a super-admin? There are two types of users in a Google project, members and owners. Members have access to *everything* except the project administration tab. If a malicious user were added as a member, he/she could very easily wreck the wiki because it's stored in an SVN repository, to which he/she has full write access.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Am Dienstag 27 Februar 2007 schrieb Tom Purl: I don't think that anyone is rejecting Wikibooks outright. I think that they should be on our non-Google top 5 list personally. I just think that people are cautious because very few people have experience with it. No one for sure knows whether it will actually work for our needs. It therefore pays to be cautious and deliberative. Actually you have a wikibooks administrator and on of them main authors of the award winning Ada Programming wikibook on the list ;-). Martin -- Martin Krischik mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] pgpInHqB6qVfv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Tom Purl wrote: [...] There are two types of users in a Google project, members and owners. Members have access to *everything* except the project administration tab. If a malicious user were added as a member, he/she could very easily wreck the wiki because it's stored in an SVN repository, to which he/she has full write access. Does the Google project offer administrators an easy way to reverse edits? If it doesn't, then the above risk seems to me to be a redhibitory defect. The Wikibook project, which has the advantage of already hosting many Vim pages, does have a powerful history function, with a rollback tool for admins, and even a possibility for plain logged-in users to go back to the latest version before the act of vandalism. Best regards, Tony. -- With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half. -- Otto von Bismark
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Paul Irofti write: I don't understand why Google Wiki is being discussed here as the main solution. As I see it there are a few _major_ disadvantages of using it: I can understand that you may have something against using Google, but there is no reason to be paranoid about it. - it has software limitations that a large community, such as ours, can't cope with What limitations? Google code has only just started and it's quickly expanding the features offered. Not only is it for free, it's also way more reliable than SourceForge (the shell server was recently out for more than a week :-(). - it's managed and offered by a third party organization I'm not going to own a Vim webserver and pay for it, thus this will always be so. - we don't have controls of what features we want in and/or out or the way the layout/code/roadmap goes There are a few limitations, yes. Reasonable limitations though. - it's a commercial product and Vim will be asociated with it in the long run It's not commercial, it's free. - Google is as corporate as you can get, corporations and OpenSource don't mix well together (there are tons of examples) There are lots of open source people working for Google, probably more than in any other company. We feel quite happy about that. - from what I've read in this thread it doesn't even have all the features needed for a working Vim-tips wiki That might indeed be the bottleneck. And that's why we were trying it out, to see if it would work well enough. On the other hand mediawiki seems the best solution for something like this: - it's *OpenSource* - it offers an easy management environment - it can support high loads of traffic (see wikipedia) - it has multi-language support - it's easy to customize and improve - it's not chown()-ed by any corporation And requires your own webserver, maintenance, etc. Main problem here is to avoid spamming, this has destroyed many wikis already and will only get worse. It's so much easier to join a service that is well maintained than to run your own. I know I'm not a regular here, but I read most of the mail I get from vim@ and don't quite get why you people are seriously considering this. So I thought I'd drop my two cents and hope that someone can shed some light. Main reason is that all self-made solutions fail eventually. The tips on SourceForge are now closed because of the spamming problems. We need something else. Keep in mind that both Scott Johnston and myself are working for Google, that helps for getting things done. SourceForge is a dead end, it takes them forever to fix problems. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 204. You're being audited because you mailed your tax return to the IRC. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Tom Purl wrote: Ok, so the majority of people seem to be saying that the Google wiki isn't very well-suited for our needs. Most notably, it's very likely that it will severely inhibit contributions. I agree with this whole-heartedly. Also, a lot of people are discussing third-party wiki hosting sites and the possibility of running our wiki on donated server space. I think this is a useful exercise in case we do end up not using the Google wiki. However, there are still people, including Bram, who seem to feel pretty strongly about using the Google wiki. Bram, are we going down the wrong track by planning for a non-Google wiki? For this site, I think it's very important that we get as close to a consensus as possible regarding who will do the hosting. No, I don't feel strongly about using the Google wiki. It was just an idea that came up. Being able to use the large server base and cleverness of Google would be an advanage. But there are also disadvantages, mainly that it's not simple to let everybody edit the wiki. Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. Besides that, transferring all existing tips to the wiki needs to be tried out. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 206. You religiously respond immediately to e-mail, while ignoring your growing pile of snail mail. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
RE: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Steve Hall wrote:
From: Yakov Lerner, Mon, February 26, 2007 5:38 am
On 2/26/07, A.J.Mechelynck wrote:
If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm
all in favour.
From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki
I started one here ages ago here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vim_Tipbook
Someone else started adding syntax coloring and the overly complicated
{{Vi/Ex|set}} stuff, but I have no problem stripping this off to get
back to the simpler format I proposed:
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Learning_the_vi_editor/Vim/Tips_and_Tricksoldid=561585
Of the free wiki's available wikibooks looks quite attractive. No
people adding advertisements or one-man efforts.
I do wonder how they avoid spamming. It seems anyone can edit a page.
--
hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict:
205. You're constantly yelling at your spouse, family, roommate, whatever,
for using the phone for stupid things...like talking.
/// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\
///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\
\\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org///
\\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Denis Perelyubskiy wrote: On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:29:32 -0600 (CST), Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Ok, so the majority of people seem to be saying that the Google wiki isn't very well-suited for our needs. Most notably, it's very likely that it will severely inhibit contributions. I agree with this whole-heartedly. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page I don't know what freemind is, but the project is hosting a wiki on sourceforge. Our vim.sf.net is on sourceforge. Can't we just stick a wiki there and be done with it? SourceForge has become less reliable. For example, the shell server was offline for more than a week. Fortunately the website kept working, but I was unable to edit files there. I don't expect this to improve, I would rather move away from SourceForge. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 207. You're given one phone call in prison and you ask them for a laptop. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On 2/27/07, Bram Moolenaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Purl wrote: Ok, so the majority of people seem to be saying that the Google wiki isn't very well-suited for our needs. Most notably, it's very likely that it will severely inhibit contributions. I agree with this whole-heartedly. Also, a lot of people are discussing third-party wiki hosting sites and the possibility of running our wiki on donated server space. I think this is a useful exercise in case we do end up not using the Google wiki. However, there are still people, including Bram, who seem to feel pretty strongly about using the Google wiki. Bram, are we going down the wrong track by planning for a non-Google wiki? For this site, I think it's very important that we get as close to a consensus as possible regarding who will do the hosting. No, I don't feel strongly about using the Google wiki. It was just an idea that came up. Being able to use the large server base and cleverness of Google would be an advanage. But there are also disadvantages, mainly that it's not simple to let everybody edit the wiki. Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. Indeed wikiboots.org seems to allow anonymous editing without registration. I think we need some wikimedia-based free service that requires user registration and supports the group-based comuunities. For us, that site is better which requires the user registered per group/community for editing, rather than any user registered for the site. This is fine line, even if site requires user registration for editing. I think we need some free-wiki-site that provides for group-based communities explicitly. Yakov
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Hi! --- Bram Moolenaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. WikiMedia, which is the software of WikiPedia and WikiBooks and one of the most flexible and most feature-rich software for wikis, offers the following protection against spamming: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Spam http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-spam_Features http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_Filter Or just see the contents of the whole category: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Anti_Spam Hope, that helps. Best wishes, Georg ___ All New Yahoo! Mail Tired of unwanted email come-ons? Let our SpamGuard protect you. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Samuel Wright wrote: On 27/02/07, Bram Moolenaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. The difference is that people can correct the spam on a public wiki, whereas in the vim tips you can add spam, but not fix it unless you are an admin. The problem with the spam was that it became so much that manually removing it no longer worked, even though there were many people willing to do this. There needs to be an automatic mechanism. Or require logging in. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 210. When you get a divorce, you don't care about who gets the children, but discuss endlessly who can use the email address. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Georg Dahn wrote: --- Bram Moolenaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. WikiMedia, which is the software of WikiPedia and WikiBooks and one of the most flexible and most feature-rich software for wikis, offers the following protection against spamming: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Spam http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Anti-spam_Features http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_Filter Or just see the contents of the whole category: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Anti_Spam Hope, that helps. This only mentions what would be possible, not what wikibooks.org is using. It doesn't sound like they are using some automatic mechanism. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 209. Your house stinks because you haven't cleaned it in a week. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Tom Purl wrote: However, there are still people, including Bram, who seem to feel pretty strongly about using the Google wiki. Bram, are we going down the wrong track by planning for a non-Google wiki? For this site, I think it's very important that we get as close to a consensus as possible regarding who will do the hosting. No, I don't feel strongly about using the Google wiki. It was just an idea that came up. Being able to use the large server base and cleverness of Google would be an advanage. But there are also disadvantages, mainly that it's not simple to let everybody edit the wiki. Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. I agree that spam protection should be our top priority. Besides that, transferring all existing tips to the wiki needs to be tried out. I don't understand what you mean here. Are you saying that we should move forward with a Google wiki conversion, irrespective of whether or not we end up using the Google wiki? Converting all of the files getting sign-off from the Vim community would probably takes more than a couple of weeks. This seems like a lot of time to spend for on a solution that looks like it may not pan out. I too am in favor of making steady progress with the conversion, but converting the tips before we pick a wiki seems to be the wrong order of operations to me. Thanks! Tom Purl
RE: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
The automated mail account would: - Drop any message where subject does not start with vimtip. - Forward vimtip messages to a Vim mailing list. Ideally there would also be some logic to switch off if a burst of messages occurs (abuse defence). I realise that an automatic way of spamming a mailing list is dangerous ... any ideas? I was thinking something along the lines of 'vim' itself as far as wikiing changes, etc. Ie, the user makes some changes and submits it to the automated mailing list. The page itself isn't changed until the submission is approved. The equivalent of a 'vimdiff' between old and new would point out typo-corrections, additions, deletions, etc., in a nice viewable way. If the submission is approved, the changes are passed along to the official wiki page, and if not, the change is discarded (sort of a reverse-undo). All the admin (one of many, I'd imagine) would have to do is look at the diffs, see if the changes make sense (ie, no added-ads, etc.), then approve it, eg, forwarding email to the wiki engine that'd make the change (I'm assuming/presuming that can all be automated somehow). Naturally, have a history as to be able to undo/rollback any changes if a spambot *does* make its way through even a password-protected email account. Very wikiish as far as anyone being able to make changes, minimal burden on the admins by simply approving/rejecting edits (it, not requiring them to actually enter said changes), in short, all the niceties of a wiki but with some protection via manual intervention.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Tom Purl wrote: Besides that, transferring all existing tips to the wiki needs to be tried out. I don't understand what you mean here. Are you saying that we should move forward with a Google wiki conversion, irrespective of whether or not we end up using the Google wiki? No, I meant that the conversion should be tried out for whatever wiki we may want to use. If we can't automatically add all the existing tips then that's a big disadvantage. A CAPTSCHA mechanism would cause trouble, for example, if there is no other way to add pages. -- hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict: 216. Your pet rock leaves home. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 27-Feb-07, at 10:35 AM, Tom Purl wrote: Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. I agree that spam protection should be our top priority. Why ? We already have the spam problem and while annoying it doesn't negate the value of the tips themselves. Sure it's important, but the quality and quantity of content should be top priority shouldn't it? That aside - if wikibooks doesn't seem to have the spam problem now I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss them just because we don't _think_ it will work. Proof is in the pudding - wikipedia and wikibooks seem to prove it _does_ work. Brian -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (Darwin) Comment: Verify this email or encrypt your email for free - see gnupg.org iD8DBQFF5GR1GnOmb9xIQHQRAuBFAJ9zQO1LbgFjjad4tgx6uB0EjcMR1QCeKiH/ KGMIh3PeLBOgJjfHxAI4Lqs= =9GoK -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Am Dienstag 27 Februar 2007 schrieb Bram Moolenaar: I do wonder how they avoid spamming. It seems anyone can edit a page. The combinations of several options: 1) Recent Changes can be monitored by RSS feed. 2) Very many users. 3) Administrators have a rollback option and can hunt down edit by the same users. 4) IP and User blocking. Martin -- Martin Krischik mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] pgpkugXACaXwM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Am Montag 26 Februar 2007 schrieb Steve Hall:
From: Yakov Lerner, Mon, February 26, 2007 5:38 am
On 2/26/07, A.J.Mechelynck wrote:
If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm
all in favour.
From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki
I started one here ages ago here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vim_Tipbook
Someone else started adding syntax coloring and the overly complicated
{{Vi/Ex|set}} stuff, but I have no problem stripping this off to get
back to the simpler format I proposed:
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Learning_the_vi_editor/Vim/Tips_a
nd_Tricksoldid=561585
It is suggested to add chapters to existing books until there is enough
content and then split into one own book. That's why I merged it. And there
are advantages to using an matured:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_editor/Print_version
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Image:Learning_the_vi_editor.pdf
Martin
--
Martin Krischik
mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED]
pgpW1Yev4OpzY.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Am Freitag 23 Februar 2007 schrieb Yakov Lerner: My opinion is that that wikipedia-style wiki is the best. It's scalable, it proved itself, i think it's easy on admins, afaik it's used not only by wikipedia. Of course not! There is Wikibooks which is often underestimated: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_editor Martin -- Martin Krischik mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] pgp2AsRfd8L02.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Using wikibooks.org sounds attractive, but I don't see any protection against spamming. And that is exactly what happens to the Vim tips. It's just a matter of time before this happens on wikibooks.org too. I agree that spam protection should be our top priority. Why ? We already have the spam problem and while annoying it doesn't negate the value of the tips themselves. Sure it's important, but the quality and quantity of content should be top priority shouldn't it? I guess I should have said the following: I agree that we should balance accessibility with good spam protection. That aside - if wikibooks doesn't seem to have the spam problem now I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss them just because we don't _think_ it will work. Proof is in the pudding - wikipedia and wikibooks seem to prove it _does_ work. I don't think that anyone is rejecting Wikibooks outright. I think that they should be on our non-Google top 5 list personally. I just think that people are cautious because very few people have experience with it. No one for sure knows whether it will actually work for our needs. It therefore pays to be cautious and deliberative.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On 2/25/07, Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. That should also filter out the spammers. There is only a delay between wanting to edit the wiki and being able to do it the first time. Not perfect, but it's something that we can setup right now and try out. Ok, so here's the proposed workflow: 1. Potential tip editer/adder (Veronica Vimlover) visits the Google vimtips project. On the front page, she sees a message that tells her to post a message to 'vimtips-general' Google group if she wants to post or edit a tip. * Please note that if Veronica visits the wiki page first instead of the Project Home page, she won't know how to gain the proper access to edit wiki pages since for the following reasons: 1. The wiki page itself doesn't tell you how to gain the necessary access to edit pages. 2. I don's see how you can define a default FrontPage for the wiki, so we can't specify how to gain edit access on any sort of wiki front page. 2. Veronica joins the vimtips Google group and posts a message asking someone to please give her the necessary access to edit the wiki page. * Please note that if she doesn't have a Google id at this point, she'll need to acquire one. 3. The admins will monitor the Google group. When Veronica requests access, one of us will take ownership of the request by responding to the Google group message. 4. When the project admin has the time, he/she will add give Veronica a Project Member user status, and notify her via the group that she has the proper access. * Please note that if Veronica only obtained a Google id so that she could post to the wiki (like I did), she probably won't check either the vimtips group or her Gmail very often. It is therefore possible that Veronica will not know in a timely fashion that she has be given the proper access to update the wiki. * One probable solution to this problem is that we could have Veronica post her wiki access request the vim mailing list. This certainly has its advantages, but it might clutter the vim mailing list, and it would make it more difficult for the admins to spot access requests. * Another option would be to have Veronica directly e-mail one of the project admins listed on the Project Home page, but I think that the disadvantages of this solution are pretty obvious (problems with admins checking Gmail, vacations, etc). Ok, I know that was long, but I just wanted everyone to know what was necessary to implement the process of manually adding wiki editors to the vimtips project. This is definitely more labor-intensive and error-proned than any web app registration process that I've ever seen. I still think that the process listed sets the registration bar too high, and it is not conducive to a vibrant, robust wiki. Also, I know that spam is an issue, but there are tradeoffs. The process listed above may eliminate 98% of all spam, but what percentage of possible wiki editors will it also deter? Also, we need to compare the amount of work we would put into deleting spam from a different member-only wiki each week with the amount of time it takes to add dozens of wiki users to the Google wiki using the process above. What do you guys think? Should we still move ahead with the Google wiki? How about this free wiki hosting that allows to create wiki-based communitites: http://www.wikidot.com FAQ: http://www.wikidot.com/features Yakov
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Hello vimmers, I don't understand why Google Wiki is being discussed here as the main solution. As I see it there are a few _major_ disadvantages of using it: - it has software limitations that a large community, such as ours, can't cope with - it's managed and offered by a third party organization - we don't have controls of what features we want in and/or out or the way the layout/code/roadmap goes - it's a commercial product and Vim will be asociated with it in the long run - Google is as corporate as you can get, corporations and OpenSource don't mix well together (there are tons of examples) - from what I've read in this thread it doesn't even have all the features needed for a working Vim-tips wiki On the other hand mediawiki seems the best solution for something like this: - it's *OpenSource* - it offers an easy management environment - it can support high loads of traffic (see wikipedia) - it has multi-language support - it's easy to customize and improve - it's not chown()-ed by any corporation I know I'm not a regular here, but I read most of the mail I get from vim@ and don't quite get why you people are seriously considering this. So I thought I'd drop my two cents and hope that someone can shed some light. Thanks, Paul.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On 26/02/07, Denis Perelyubskiy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:57:00 -0800, Suresh Govindachar [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: What is wrong with just having a visual image based manual check as the last step of editing a wiki page? (I hope you know what I mean by visual image based manual check -- it is the scheme in which the user is shown an slightly distorted image of an alpha numeric string and is required to enter that string in a text input box. A robot cannot read the image and so is unable to do the entry, but a human can do read the image and do the entry so manually.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha :) http://www.kittenauth.com is so much nicer though! Al
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Paul Irofti wrote: Hello vimmers, I don't understand why Google Wiki is being discussed here as the main solution. As I see it there are a few _major_ disadvantages of using it: - it has software limitations that a large community, such as ours, can't cope with - it's managed and offered by a third party organization - we don't have controls of what features we want in and/or out or the way the layout/code/roadmap goes - it's a commercial product and Vim will be asociated with it in the long run - Google is as corporate as you can get, corporations and OpenSource don't mix well together (there are tons of examples) - from what I've read in this thread it doesn't even have all the features needed for a working Vim-tips wiki On the other hand mediawiki seems the best solution for something like this: - it's *OpenSource* - it offers an easy management environment - it can support high loads of traffic (see wikipedia) - it has multi-language support - it's easy to customize and improve - it's not chown()-ed by any corporation I know I'm not a regular here, but I read most of the mail I get from vim@ and don't quite get why you people are seriously considering this. So I thought I'd drop my two cents and hope that someone can shed some light. Thanks, Paul. Not a regular, maybe, yet your name isn't unfamiliar to me. Thanks for passing by. If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm all in favour. Best regards, Tony. -- There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. -- Henry Kissinger
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On 2/26/07, A.J.Mechelynck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul Irofti wrote: Hello vimmers, I don't understand why Google Wiki is being discussed here as the main solution. As I see it there are a few _major_ disadvantages of using it: - it has software limitations that a large community, such as ours, can't cope with - it's managed and offered by a third party organization - we don't have controls of what features we want in and/or out or the way the layout/code/roadmap goes - it's a commercial product and Vim will be asociated with it in the long run - Google is as corporate as you can get, corporations and OpenSource don't mix well together (there are tons of examples) - from what I've read in this thread it doesn't even have all the features needed for a working Vim-tips wiki On the other hand mediawiki seems the best solution for something like this: - it's *OpenSource* - it offers an easy management environment - it can support high loads of traffic (see wikipedia) - it has multi-language support - it's easy to customize and improve - it's not chown()-ed by any corporation I know I'm not a regular here, but I read most of the mail I get from vim@ and don't quite get why you people are seriously considering this. So I thought I'd drop my two cents and hope that someone can shed some light. Thanks, Paul. Not a regular, maybe, yet your name isn't unfamiliar to me. Thanks for passing by. If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm all in favour. ElWiki.com Free MediaWiki hosting with fast setup. A free .com/net/org domain is offered for wikis which reach 10 pages of content. Google AdSense text-ads may be added to the right sidebar to cover hosting expenses. From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki Yakov
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Not sure this got through, resending. - Forwarded message from Paul Irofti [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Paul Irofti [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: A.J.Mechelynck [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bram Moolenaar [EMAIL PROTECTED], vim@vim.org Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:42:34 +0200 Subject: Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 11:24:10AM +0100, A.J.Mechelynck wrote: If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm all in favour. I'm not sure what the hosting deal is with vim.org or how much traffic it generates, but if we can't add a wiki there and no one volunteers to offer hosting, I guess a global call for contributions would solve the issue (I think a lot of people would chip-in and hosting isn't that expensive nowadays). Of course then the wiki will have to sustain itself from monthly donations (and that might be a bit hard if people aren't contributing, so the person in charge will have a bit of a hassle) but I think in the end all will be fine and it will be worth it. As an optional extra funding source, ads might come in handy. - End forwarded message -
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 05:38:42AM -0500, Yakov Lerner wrote: ElWiki.com Free MediaWiki hosting with fast setup. A free .com/net/org domain is offered for wikis which reach 10 pages of content. Google AdSense text-ads may be added to the right sidebar to cover hosting expenses. From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki Yakov That looks like just the kind of home Vim-tips has been looking for, although it seems too good to be true (-: I think further investigations (conditions, server access and management) should be conducted if this is to be chosen.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Yakov Lerner ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On 2/26/07, A.J.Mechelynck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul Irofti wrote: Hello vimmers, I don't understand why Google Wiki is being discussed here as the main solution. As I see it there are a few _major_ disadvantages of using it: - it has software limitations that a large community, such as ours, can't cope with - it's managed and offered by a third party organization - we don't have controls of what features we want in and/or out or the way the layout/code/roadmap goes - it's a commercial product and Vim will be asociated with it in the long run - Google is as corporate as you can get, corporations and OpenSource don't mix well together (there are tons of examples) - from what I've read in this thread it doesn't even have all the features needed for a working Vim-tips wiki On the other hand mediawiki seems the best solution for something like this: - it's *OpenSource* - it offers an easy management environment - it can support high loads of traffic (see wikipedia) - it has multi-language support - it's easy to customize and improve - it's not chown()-ed by any corporation I know I'm not a regular here, but I read most of the mail I get from vim@ and don't quite get why you people are seriously considering this. So I thought I'd drop my two cents and hope that someone can shed some light. Thanks, Paul. Not a regular, maybe, yet your name isn't unfamiliar to me. Thanks for passing by. If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm all in favour. ElWiki.com Free MediaWiki hosting with fast setup. A free .com/net/org domain is offered for wikis which reach 10 pages of content. Google AdSense text-ads may be added to the right sidebar to cover hosting expenses. From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki Yakov I just checked the ElWiki.com. It sound really nice in the sense that it's completely free. However, checking the terms, some made me think if it is what a Vim community should agree with (I quote from http://elwiki.com/register.php): Terms and Conditions Privacy # We won't spam you - your email address will only be used for notifications related to your account, and will not be disclosed to 3rd parties. Domain # Once your site reaches 10 pages of content, we will contact you via email and you will be offered a free .com/.net/.org address of your own choosing. # If you already own a domain which you would like to use, email domains[at]elwiki.com after you sign up and we will be happy to assist. # ElWiki will cover all costs associated with domain registration. Ownership # The site URL (domain or subdomain) will remain property of ElWiki. # Your site content will be licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Advertising # We reserve the right to display contextually-targeted text-based sponsored links in the right sidebar of your paes. # When using our free service, you may not add advertising to your Wiki without our prior consent. Obligations # The service is provided free-of-charge, as-is, and without any guarantees or obligations. # We reserve the right to cancel or alter the service at any time. Acceptable Use Policy # Use of this service for harrassing, obscene, or illegal activities is strictly prohibited. # Use of this service for hosting pornographic images is prohibited. Control and Approval # ElWiki reserves the right to reject creation of a Wiki, or delete a Wiki at it's sole discretion. # ElWiki may make ammendments to the site title, URL, or description. # You will be given non-exclusive administrative control over any site you choose to host with us. So this means that they can stop the wiki without further question or make it not free anymore, and therefore, what would become of the contents of the wiki? I also believe that mediawiki would be a good solution but I agree with Antoine when he says: the problem would be a free hosting. KR, Gregory
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Hi! On Mon, 26 Feb 2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ElWiki.com Free MediaWiki hosting with fast setup. A free .com/net/org domain is offered for wikis which reach 10 pages of content. Google AdSense text-ads may be added to the right sidebar to cover hosting expenses. From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki Yakov I just checked the ElWiki.com. It sound really nice in the sense that it's completely free. However, checking the terms, some made me think if it is what a Vim community should agree with (I quote from http://elwiki.com/register.php): [...] So this means that they can stop the wiki without further question or make it not free anymore, and therefore, what would become of the contents of the wiki? I also believe that mediawiki would be a good solution but I agree with Antoine when he says: the problem would be a free hosting. I'd say having a dedicated machine at a co-lo would be best. If need be, I can ask around if our company would be willing to host for free. Regards, Tobias -- Never touch a burning system.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yakov Lerner ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On 2/26/07, A.J.Mechelynck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul Irofti wrote: Hello vimmers, I don't understand why Google Wiki is being discussed here as the main solution. As I see it there are a few _major_ disadvantages of using it: - it has software limitations that a large community, such as ours, can't cope with - it's managed and offered by a third party organization - we don't have controls of what features we want in and/or out or the way the layout/code/roadmap goes - it's a commercial product and Vim will be asociated with it in the long run - Google is as corporate as you can get, corporations and OpenSource don't mix well together (there are tons of examples) - from what I've read in this thread it doesn't even have all the features needed for a working Vim-tips wiki On the other hand mediawiki seems the best solution for something like this: - it's *OpenSource* - it offers an easy management environment - it can support high loads of traffic (see wikipedia) - it has multi-language support - it's easy to customize and improve - it's not chown()-ed by any corporation I know I'm not a regular here, but I read most of the mail I get from vim@ and don't quite get why you people are seriously considering this. So I thought I'd drop my two cents and hope that someone can shed some light. Thanks, Paul. Not a regular, maybe, yet your name isn't unfamiliar to me. Thanks for passing by. If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm all in favour. ElWiki.com Free MediaWiki hosting with fast setup. A free .com/net/org domain is offered for wikis which reach 10 pages of content. Google AdSense text-ads may be added to the right sidebar to cover hosting expenses. From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki Yakov I just checked the ElWiki.com. It sound really nice in the sense that it's completely free. However, checking the terms, some made me think if it is what a Vim community should agree with (I quote from http://elwiki.com/register.php): Terms and Conditions Privacy # We won't spam you - your email address will only be used for notifications related to your account, and will not be disclosed to 3rd parties. Domain # Once your site reaches 10 pages of content, we will contact you via email and you will be offered a free .com/.net/.org address of your own choosing. # If you already own a domain which you would like to use, email domains[at]elwiki.com after you sign up and we will be happy to assist. # ElWiki will cover all costs associated with domain registration. Ownership # The site URL (domain or subdomain) will remain property of ElWiki. # Your site content will be licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Advertising # We reserve the right to display contextually-targeted text-based sponsored links in the right sidebar of your paes. # When using our free service, you may not add advertising to your Wiki without our prior consent. ! Obligations # The service is provided free-of-charge, as-is, and without any guarantees or obligations. # We reserve the right to cancel or alter the service at any time. ! Acceptable Use Policy # Use of this service for harrassing, obscene, or illegal activities is strictly prohibited. # Use of this service for hosting pornographic images is prohibited. ! Control and Approval # ElWiki reserves the right to reject creation of a Wiki, or delete a Wiki at it's sole discretion. # ElWiki may make ammendments to the site title, URL, or description. # You will be given non-exclusive administrative control over any site you choose to host with us. ! So this means that they can stop the wiki without further question or make it not free anymore, and therefore, what would become of the contents of the wiki? I also believe that mediawiki would be a good solution but I agree with Antoine when he says: the problem would be a free hosting. KR, Gregory It may be legalese -- some lawyers add that kind of talktalk just to stay on the safe side... for them -- yet these (marked out with !) are the kind of clauses I would hesitate long and hard (perhaps forever ;-) ) before signing. Short of a benevolent sponsor, I seriously wonder what we should do. Best regards, Tony. -- You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. -- Hepler, Systems Design 182
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 12:55:58PM +0100, A.J.Mechelynck wrote: ! Obligations # The service is provided free-of-charge, as-is, and without any guarantees or obligations. # We reserve the right to cancel or alter the service at any time. ! [-snip-] ! Control and Approval # ElWiki reserves the right to reject creation of a Wiki, or delete a Wiki at it's sole discretion. # ElWiki may make ammendments to the site title, URL, or description. # You will be given non-exclusive administrative control over any site you choose to host with us. ! [--snip-snip--] It may be legalese -- some lawyers add that kind of talktalk just to stay on the safe side... for them -- yet these (marked out with !) are the kind of clauses I would hesitate long and hard (perhaps forever ;-) ) before signing. Short of a benevolent sponsor, I seriously wonder what we should do. This does sound risky and we should probably stay out of it. But it would've been nice. Someone mentioned a co-lo...maybe we'll find a home there.
RE: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
From: Yakov Lerner, Mon, February 26, 2007 5:38 am
On 2/26/07, A.J.Mechelynck wrote:
If we gan get hosting space somewhere for a mediawiki server, I'm
all in favour.
From: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wiki_Science:How_to_start_a_Wiki
I started one here ages ago here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vim_Tipbook
Someone else started adding syntax coloring and the overly complicated
{{Vi/Ex|set}} stuff, but I have no problem stripping this off to get
back to the simpler format I proposed:
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Learning_the_vi_editor/Vim/Tips_and_Tricksoldid=561585
--
Steve Hall [ digitect dancingpaper com ]
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Ok, so the majority of people seem to be saying that the Google wiki isn't very well-suited for our needs. Most notably, it's very likely that it will severely inhibit contributions. I agree with this whole-heartedly. Also, a lot of people are discussing third-party wiki hosting sites and the possibility of running our wiki on donated server space. I think this is a useful exercise in case we do end up not using the Google wiki. However, there are still people, including Bram, who seem to feel pretty strongly about using the Google wiki. Bram, are we going down the wrong track by planning for a non-Google wiki? For this site, I think it's very important that we get as close to a consensus as possible regarding who will do the hosting. Thanks again to everyone! Tom Purl
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:29:32 -0600 (CST), Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Ok, so the majority of people seem to be saying that the Google wiki isn't very well-suited for our needs. Most notably, it's very likely that it will severely inhibit contributions. I agree with this whole-heartedly. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page I don't know what freemind is, but the project is hosting a wiki on sourceforge. Our vim.sf.net is on sourceforge. Can't we just stick a wiki there and be done with it?
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. That should also filter out the spammers. There is only a delay between wanting to edit the wiki and being able to do it the first time. Not perfect, but it's something that we can setup right now and try out. Ok, so here's the proposed workflow: 1. Potential tip editer/adder (Veronica Vimlover) visits the Google vimtips project. On the front page, she sees a message that tells her to post a message to 'vimtips-general' Google group if she wants to post or edit a tip. * Please note that if Veronica visits the wiki page first instead of the Project Home page, she won't know how to gain the proper access to edit wiki pages since for the following reasons: 1. The wiki page itself doesn't tell you how to gain the necessary access to edit pages. 2. I don's see how you can define a default FrontPage for the wiki, so we can't specify how to gain edit access on any sort of wiki front page. 2. Veronica joins the vimtips Google group and posts a message asking someone to please give her the necessary access to edit the wiki page. * Please note that if she doesn't have a Google id at this point, she'll need to acquire one. 3. The admins will monitor the Google group. When Veronica requests access, one of us will take ownership of the request by responding to the Google group message. 4. When the project admin has the time, he/she will add give Veronica a Project Member user status, and notify her via the group that she has the proper access. * Please note that if Veronica only obtained a Google id so that she could post to the wiki (like I did), she probably won't check either the vimtips group or her Gmail very often. It is therefore possible that Veronica will not know in a timely fashion that she has be given the proper access to update the wiki. * One probable solution to this problem is that we could have Veronica post her wiki access request the vim mailing list. This certainly has its advantages, but it might clutter the vim mailing list, and it would make it more difficult for the admins to spot access requests. * Another option would be to have Veronica directly e-mail one of the project admins listed on the Project Home page, but I think that the disadvantages of this solution are pretty obvious (problems with admins checking Gmail, vacations, etc). Ok, I know that was long, but I just wanted everyone to know what was necessary to implement the process of manually adding wiki editors to the vimtips project. This is definitely more labor-intensive and error-proned than any web app registration process that I've ever seen. I still think that the process listed sets the registration bar too high, and it is not conducive to a vibrant, robust wiki. Also, I know that spam is an issue, but there are tradeoffs. The process listed above may eliminate 98% of all spam, but what percentage of possible wiki editors will it also deter? Also, we need to compare the amount of work we would put into deleting spam from a different member-only wiki each week with the amount of time it takes to add dozens of wiki users to the Google wiki using the process above. What do you guys think? Should we still move ahead with the Google wiki? Thanks! Tom Purl
RE: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Tom Purl I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. That should also filter out the spammers. There is only a delay between wanting to edit the wiki and being able to do it the first time. Not perfect, but it's something that we can setup right now and try out. Ok, so here's the proposed workflow: 1. Potential tip editer/adder (Veronica Vimlover) visits the Google vimtips project. On the front page, she sees a message that tells her to post a message to 'vimtips-general' Google group if she wants to post or edit a tip. * Please note that if Veronica visits the wiki page first instead of the Project Home page, she won't know how to gain the proper access to edit wiki pages since for the following reasons: 1. The wiki page itself doesn't tell you how to gain the necessary access to edit pages. 2. I don's see how you can define a default FrontPage for the wiki, so we can't specify how to gain edit access on any sort of wiki front page. 2. Veronica joins the vimtips Google group and posts a message asking someone to please give her the necessary access to edit the wiki page. * Please note that if she doesn't have a Google id at this point, she'll need to acquire one. 3. The admins will monitor the Google group. When Veronica requests access, one of us will take ownership of the request by responding to the Google group message. 4. When the project admin has the time, he/she will add give Veronica a Project Member user status, and notify her via the group that she has the proper access. * Please note that if Veronica only obtained a Google id so that she could post to the wiki (like I did), she probably won't check either the vimtips group or her Gmail very often. It is therefore possible that Veronica will not know in a timely fashion that she has be given the proper access to update the wiki. * One probable solution to this problem is that we could have Veronica post her wiki access request the vim mailing list. This certainly has its advantages, but it might clutter the vim mailing list, and it would make it more difficult for the admins to spot access requests. * Another option would be to have Veronica directly e-mail one of the project admins listed on the Project Home page, but I think that the disadvantages of this solution are pretty obvious (problems with admins checking Gmail, vacations, etc). Ok, I know that was long, but I just wanted everyone to know what was necessary to implement the process of manually adding wiki editors to the vimtips project. This is definitely more labor- intensive and error-proned than any web app registration process that I've ever seen. I still think that the process listed sets the registration bar too high, and it is not conducive to a vibrant, robust wiki. Also, I know that spam is an issue, but there are tradeoffs. The process listed above may eliminate 98% of all spam, but what percentage of possible wiki editors will it also deter? Also, we need to compare the amount of work we would put into deleting spam from a different member-only wiki each week with the amount of time it takes to add dozens of wiki users to the Google wiki using the process above. What do you guys think? Should we still move ahead with the Google wiki? Thanks! Tom Purl I don't see how this process can prevent the Bad Boss from manually acquiring permission and then letting loose his robots to add spam-tips. And he can do this once a week. What is wrong with just having a visual image based manual check as the last step of editing a wiki page? (I hope you know what I mean by visual image based manual check -- it is the scheme in which the user is shown an slightly distorted image of an alpha numeric string and is required to enter that string in a text input box. A robot cannot read the image and so is unable to do the entry, but a human can do read the image and do the entry so manually.) --Suresh
RE: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:57:00 -0800, Suresh Govindachar [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: What is wrong with just having a visual image based manual check as the last step of editing a wiki page? (I hope you know what I mean by visual image based manual check -- it is the scheme in which the user is shown an slightly distorted image of an alpha numeric string and is required to enter that string in a text input box. A robot cannot read the image and so is unable to do the entry, but a human can do read the image and do the entry so manually.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha :) But Google Wiki does not seem to provide it. On top of it, i could not quite figure out how to track editing history with google wiki. Maybe this is available through svn, much like any revision control? If so, it would not be very user-friendly. It seems that a wikipedia model is needed, with discussion pages and change history. Otherwise, the idea seems to be a very good one. -d
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:43:06 -0600 (CST), Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. That should also filter out the spammers. There is only a delay between wanting to edit the wiki and being able to do it the first time. Not perfect, but it's something that we can setup right now and try out. Ok, so here's the proposed workflow: I think the whole registration thing is a nightmare. I think given enough people who are willing to monitor submissions, manual labor should not be a problem. But google does not seem to be a good place for tips. While i don't have an alternative at the moment, google is not it. -d
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:06:54 -0800, Denis Perelyubskiy [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:43:06 -0600 (CST), Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. That should also filter out the spammers. There is only a delay between wanting to edit the wiki and being able to do it the first time. Not perfect, but it's something that we can setup right now and try out. Ok, so here's the proposed workflow: I think the whole registration thing is a nightmare. I think given enough people who are willing to monitor submissions, manual labor should not be a problem. But google does not seem to be a good place for tips. While i don't have an alternative at the moment, google is not it. it's bad to reply to one's own post, yes? sorry! Anyway, I think that a _very_ likely scenario is something like this: i am reading a tip which i found; i notice that either something is wrong or incomplete, or a better way of doing something, or a duplicate. I want to add a quick note. Ugh. I need to log in, get account if I don't have one, etc, etc. I just won't do it. It seems that a lot of this type of activity is very right now, as opposed to deliberate tip editing. This type of activity would be seriously hindered. -d
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On 2/24/07, Bram Moolenaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. Your manual binds here to the addition, correct ? Not to the edit the wiki, correct, Bram ? Did you mean here we can do manual addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki, Bram ? Yakov
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Bram Moolenaar wrote: I think this puts too much burdon the volunteers that become an admin. And it defeats the easy of use of a wiki. I was suggesting that people who have a tip, or a change, would email it to a Vim mailing list, where it would be massaged by the community, then posted to the wiki by an admin. Yes, that would burden the admins, and is against the spirit of a wiki. However, as I understand the Google wiki, a person wanting to post a tip would need to have a Google ID, and would have to mail an admin, and the admin would have to add the new person as an admin, then reply to the mail. That's also a pain for an admin, and is not really easy use of a wiki either. And which admin would be emailed? John
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
John Beckett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Bram Moolenaar wrote: I think this puts too much burdon the volunteers that become an admin. And it defeats the easy of use of a wiki. I was suggesting that people who have a tip, or a change, would email it to a Vim mailing list, where it would be massaged by the community, then posted to the wiki by an admin. Yes, that would burden the admins, and is against the spirit of a wiki. However, as I understand the Google wiki, a person wanting to post a tip would need to have a Google ID, and would have to mail an admin, and the admin would have to add the new person as an admin, then reply to the mail. That's also a pain for an admin, and is not really easy use of a wiki either. And which admin would be emailed? John Hello all, I just want to give you some ideas that you could maybe be useful for the Wiki (which I think is a great idea) or its administration. Concerning the registration, a reply mail for a confirmation of the activation of the membership is a great idea, and would prevent some bots to automatically post on the Wiki. Moreover, as an upper security level, the registering candidate could be asked to write down the numbers/letters that he/she would see on a picture representing those numbers/letters. That would prevent the registering candidate to be a bot or at least reduce it ever more (I've seen this in a couple of forums around). I believe that all the members, asking for a registration, should be able to post tips. In order to make it possible, I think that 3 levels of members should be there: 1. Admins : they manage the users and the wiki (they would have all the rights the reviewers have. See below) 2. Reviewers: the can review, edit and delete any post written in the wiki (it would facilitate the admins burden) and also manage the sections (create, move tips from a section to another, ...) 3. Members : they can post tips and modify their own post. They become sort of the owner of their post but where reviewers and admins can overlook it In this way, the responsability is a bit more spread and the admins are not only responsible for the Wiki contents. Regarding the type of wiki, I just checked out Mediawiki for work and it seems pretty nice but I don't know if it would meet what I proposed but if you think my ideas could be used, I could check it out. I hope it helped. Gregory SACRE
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John Beckett ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Bram Moolenaar wrote: I think this puts too much burdon the volunteers that become an admin. And it defeats the easy of use of a wiki. I was suggesting that people who have a tip, or a change, would email it to a Vim mailing list, where it would be massaged by the community, then posted to the wiki by an admin. Yes, that would burden the admins, and is against the spirit of a wiki. However, as I understand the Google wiki, a person wanting to post a tip would need to have a Google ID, and would have to mail an admin, and the admin would have to add the new person as an admin, then reply to the mail. That's also a pain for an admin, and is not really easy use of a wiki either. And which admin would be emailed? John Hello all, I just want to give you some ideas that you could maybe be useful for the Wiki (which I think is a great idea) or its administration. Concerning the registration, a reply mail for a confirmation of the activation of the membership is a great idea, and would prevent some bots to automatically post on the Wiki. Moreover, as an upper security level, the registering candidate could be asked to write down the numbers/letters that he/she would see on a picture representing those numbers/letters. That would prevent the registering candidate to be a bot or at least reduce it ever more (I've seen this in a couple of forums around). I believe that all the members, asking for a registration, should be able to post tips. In order to make it possible, I think that 3 levels of members should be there: 1. Admins : they manage the users and the wiki (they would have all the rights the reviewers have. See below) 2. Reviewers: the can review, edit and delete any post written in the wiki (it would facilitate the admins burden) and also manage the sections (create, move tips from a section to another, ...) 3. Members : they can post tips and modify their own post. They become sort of the owner of their post but where reviewers and admins can overlook it also comment on other people's tips and move other people's comments into the main text of their own posts. This implies the ability to remove other people's comments to the member's posts. Or does it? If possible, the wiki should include a history feature to allow reviewers to reverse malicious postings more easily. If possible, it would be well (IMO) if users could enable a mail me feature so they would get an email if any page of their choice gets modified, or if one of their own pages get a new comment. In this way, the responsability is a bit more spread and the admins are not only responsible for the Wiki contents. Regarding the type of wiki, I just checked out Mediawiki for work and it seems pretty nice but I don't know if it would meet what I proposed but if you think my ideas could be used, I could check it out. I hope it helped. Gregory SACRE Best regards, Tony. -- Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
On 2/23/07, Tom Purl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've done a bit of work on the vimtips wiki at Google the last few days, and it's come to my attention that it isn't really designed to do what we want it to do. The Google wiki is designed to be used by a small number of people working on a particular open source project. It is not designed to be editable by hundreds (or possibly thousands) of users to exchange tips on using an application. The basic bottleneck is that only project members can edit the wiki, meaning that these will be the only people who can add or edit tips. The only way to become a project member is to have a project admin (so far, me) visit the project's admin interface and add him or her. There is no web interface or other functionality in place to do this in a more automated way. This awkward user-registration process will most certainly keep people from contributing or updating tips. It will also create a lot of tedious and error-proned work for the project's admins, even if I were to add a dozen more. So as I see it, we have two things we need to do if we want to keep the wiki conversion project moving: 1. Define our wiki requirements * Do we want anonymous users to be able to contribute at all like they can on vim.org/tips today? * Does the wiki have to be hosted by Google, or is it ok if we move to another wiki host if they match all of our requirements? * This question is probably mostly for Bram, since he first suggested the Google wiki. * I personally really like Google in general. They just don't have the apps that we need today. * Cost? * I'm assuming that the ideal number if free :) * Embedded WYSIWYG editor, etc. 2. Choose the wiki host that best suits our needs * I see two options: * Wait for Google to meet all of our requirements? * Google recently acquired JotSpot, so maybe that wiki will be functional enough to meet all of our requirements some day. * Find a different wiki host that does meet all of our requirements, and should be able to do so for at least 3 years or so. So what do you guys think? My opinion is that that wikipedia-style wiki is the best. It's scalable, it proved itself, i think it's easy on admins, afaik it's used not only by wikipedia. Regarding anonymous contributions, they proved problematic on vim.org/tips. Anonymous contrib was what created uneditable tips in the first place on vim.org/tips. The idea was only the author can edit the post, but since anonymous tips have no registered authors, they are totally uneditable, which is hardly an advantage. I question the value of anonymous posts. First. Are we exchanging the rootkits or pirated software ? We are not. What is the value of anonymous in the opensource community ? Second. If someone can remain anonymous, he can register as [EMAIL PROTECTED] and remain anonymous but still having registration. Yakov
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
On 23-Feb-07, at 3:00 PM, Brian McKee wrote:
On 23-Feb-07, at 2:32 PM, Tom Purl wrote:
I've done a bit of work on the vimtips wiki at Google the last few
days,
and it's come to my attention that it isn't really designed to do
what
we want it to do.
{snippage}
So what do you guys think?
I think the whole point behind using a wiki is to make it easy for
people to contribute.
Forcing a manual registration process defeats the whole purpose of
the thing in my mind.
Brian
Whoops - wrong reply button... Redirected above to list and added
below.
On 23-Feb-07, at 3:04 PM, Yakov Lerner wrote:
Regarding anonymous contributions, they proved problematic on
vim.org/tips.
Anonymous contrib was what created uneditable tips in the first place
on vim.org/tips. The idea was only the author can edit the post, but
since anonymous tips have no registered authors, they are totally
uneditable,
which is hardly an advantage.
I question the value of anonymous posts. First. Are we exchanging
the rootkits
or pirated software ? We are not. What is the value of anonymous in
the opensource community ?
Second. If someone can remain anonymous, he can register as
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and remain anonymous but still having registration.
I think the point is not 'anonymous' per se - obviously identity
can't easily be proved anyway.
A very simple registration process that doesn't require 3rd party
intervention or waiting on email is best I think.
Enough to slow down the spammers without slowing down the users.
As Yakov points out, if people could easily edit things now, the spam
would long since have been removed.
Make sure the wiki has an easy 'rollback' feature to remove spam and
RSS feeds and I'm happy.
Brian
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (Darwin)
Comment: Verify this email or encrypt your email for free - see gnupg.org
iD8DBQFF30wqGnOmb9xIQHQRAiEsAJ4i1jJ1k3wRTZ38V3CVB4evqfHj+ACg0P1J
mTf+V/p33jWAxI+/SK1upLg=
=4FWR
-END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Tom Purl wrote: I've done a bit of work on the vimtips wiki at Google the last few days, and it's come to my attention that it isn't really designed to do what we want it to do. The Google wiki is designed to be used by a small number of people working on a particular open source project. It is not designed to be editable by hundreds (or possibly thousands) of users to exchange tips on using an application. I guess we need (if possible) something along the lines of the wiki, language.wikipedia.org The basic bottleneck is that only project members can edit the wiki, meaning that these will be the only people who can add or edit tips. The only way to become a project member is to have a project admin (so far, me) visit the project's admin interface and add him or her. There is no web interface or other functionality in place to do this in a more automated way. This awkward user-registration process will most certainly keep people from contributing or updating tips. It will also create a lot of tedious and error-proned work for the project's admins, even if I were to add a dozen more. Or give every member admin privileges, but I suppose that isn't wise either. IMHO every wiki needs admins even if everyone can get an account and edit any page. So as I see it, we have two things we need to do if we want to keep the wiki conversion project moving: 1. Define our wiki requirements * Do we want anonymous users to be able to contribute at all like they can on vim.org/tips today? * Does the wiki have to be hosted by Google, or is it ok if we move to another wiki host if they match all of our requirements? * This question is probably mostly for Bram, since he first suggested the Google wiki. * I personally really like Google in general. They just don't have the apps that we need today. Google, Schmoogle, I don't care. Ideally an alias DNS record should be set up, so that wiki.vim.org will bring us to the wiki frontpage, wherever it's hosted. Or is that impossible due to the way vim.org is entangled with sourceforge? * Cost? * I'm assuming that the ideal number if free :) * Embedded WYSIWYG editor, etc. Embedded WYSIWIG editor is a cherry on the cake: en.wikipedia.org has no WYSIWIG editing but if we could lay hands on something working that way (and at that price, i.e., free as in beer), IMHO we shouldn't think twice about it. For complex editing we have Vim anyway ;-). Some browsers can use it directly to edit textareas, and for others we can shuttle back and forth via the clipboard. 2. Choose the wiki host that best suits our needs * I see two options: * Wait for Google to meet all of our requirements? * Google recently acquired JotSpot, so maybe that wiki will be functional enough to meet all of our requirements some day. * Find a different wiki host that does meet all of our requirements, and should be able to do so for at least 3 years or so. Only three years? For how long have the tips scripts been hosted by sourceforge? I imagine that three years from now the project may be barely up to speed; the longer the better, and I'd say 5 years minimum. So what do you guys think? Tom Purl A last-minute thought: would it be possible to name the project vim.wikipedia.org or something (and set it up in Wikipedia space)? Hm, I guess not: there might already be some obscure language with the ISO code vim... Best regards, Tony. -- Beware of low-flying butterflies.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Yakov Lerner wrote: [...] My opinion is that that wikipedia-style wiki is the best. It's scalable, it proved itself, i think it's easy on admins, afaik it's used not only by wikipedia. Regarding anonymous contributions, they proved problematic on vim.org/tips. Anonymous contrib was what created uneditable tips in the first place on vim.org/tips. The idea was only the author can edit the post, but since anonymous tips have no registered authors, they are totally uneditable, which is hardly an advantage. I question the value of anonymous posts. First. Are we exchanging the rootkits or pirated software ? We are not. What is the value of anonymous in the opensource community ? Second. If someone can remain anonymous, he can register as [EMAIL PROTECTED] and remain anonymous but still having registration. Yakov *.wikipedia.org allows anonymous users (shown as a dotted-quad) to edit anything; but their edits, if seen as malicious, will be reversed with less qualms that those of any username-password user. Also, 123.45.67.89 is not a proof-of-identity (I'd say most people today are, like me, on dynamically-addressed connections) but at least it gives you an idea of which country and ISP the culprit is from. Best regards, Tony. -- If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Brian McKee wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
On 23-Feb-07, at 3:00 PM, Brian McKee wrote:
On 23-Feb-07, at 2:32 PM, Tom Purl wrote:
I've done a bit of work on the vimtips wiki at Google the last few days,
and it's come to my attention that it isn't really designed to do what
we want it to do.
{snippage}
So what do you guys think?
I think the whole point behind using a wiki is to make it easy for
people to contribute.
Forcing a manual registration process defeats the whole purpose of the
thing in my mind.
Brian
Whoops - wrong reply button... Redirected above to list and added below.
On 23-Feb-07, at 3:04 PM, Yakov Lerner wrote:
Regarding anonymous contributions, they proved problematic on
vim.org/tips.
Anonymous contrib was what created uneditable tips in the first place
on vim.org/tips. The idea was only the author can edit the post, but
since anonymous tips have no registered authors, they are totally
uneditable,
which is hardly an advantage.
I question the value of anonymous posts. First. Are we exchanging the
rootkits
or pirated software ? We are not. What is the value of anonymous in
the opensource community ?
Second. If someone can remain anonymous, he can register as
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and remain anonymous but still having registration.
I think the point is not 'anonymous' per se - obviously identity can't
easily be proved anyway.
A very simple registration process that doesn't require 3rd party
intervention or waiting on email is best I think.
Waiting for email (with a pseudorandom confirmation code) proves that the
registration wasn't requested in your name by someone else. It requires no
human intervention server-side and only a few minutes' wait client-side while
greatly improving security. It also proves that your email-address-of-record
with the wiki is really yours. I'm for it.
Enough to slow down the spammers without slowing down the users.
As Yakov points out, if people could easily edit things now, the spam
would long since have been removed.
Make sure the wiki has an easy 'rollback' feature to remove spam and RSS
feeds and I'm happy.
Indeed, with a history diff feature as on the Wiki.
Brian
Best regards,
Tony.
--
This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,
you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where
to go.
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 23-Feb-07, at 3:55 PM, A.J.Mechelynck wrote: Waiting for email (with a pseudorandom confirmation code) proves that the registration wasn't requested in your name by someone else. It requires no human intervention server-side and only a few minutes' wait client-side while greatly improving security. It also proves that your email-address-of-record with the wiki is really yours. I'm for it. I recently watched a video demoing software that automates the entire registration by email process to various brands of online forums - including grabbing a random account from a free email provider, filling out the forum registration and captcha, receiving the confirmation email and responding to it, then posting it's 'message' to the forum Wish I had the link handy.I suspect the days of register by email as spam defence are numbered. It does prove your email address of record though - I hadn't considered that. Brian -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (Darwin) Comment: Verify this email or encrypt your email for free - see gnupg.org iD8DBQFF31oDGnOmb9xIQHQRAkV6AKDW/AcSmm5nGrLItre2b/2+7O75BgCguMxM NlmkOUCqj8LA6SrZMGrm4l4= =83Aa -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
Brian McKee wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 23-Feb-07, at 3:55 PM, A.J.Mechelynck wrote: Waiting for email (with a pseudorandom confirmation code) proves that the registration wasn't requested in your name by someone else. It requires no human intervention server-side and only a few minutes' wait client-side while greatly improving security. It also proves that your email-address-of-record with the wiki is really yours. I'm for it. I recently watched a video demoing software that automates the entire registration by email process to various brands of online forums - including grabbing a random account from a free email provider, filling out the forum registration and captcha, receiving the confirmation email and responding to it, then posting it's 'message' to the forum Wish I had the link handy.I suspect the days of register by email as spam defence are numbered. It does prove your email address of record though - I hadn't considered that. Brian Yes: so if the account is set to get email in some circumstances, the email will go to the owner of the account: confirmed registration prevents joe-jobs. Best regards, Tony. -- I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -- William F. Buckley
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
I like the concept of using the Google wiki. In addition to the Google is Good factor, there is the likelihood of very high reliability and zero cost. Also, it seems appropriate due to Bram's work. As has been pointed out, spam is a really big threat, and will get worse (more automated) every year. I don't see why we should ask anyone here to take on the job of manually removing junk. The problems of using the Google wiki may be a benefit in the future. How about this concept: Use the Google wiki with a dozen admins. Those admins are likely to be here, and either have a Google ID or would be willing to get one. Create a new mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), or use an existing list with a convention that the subject should start with vimtip. On the wiki, explain how to post a tip by emailing the tip to the agreed mail account. That would require the user to join the list. Alternative: Have an automated account that forwards any mail including vimtip to the agreed mailing list. A discussion here would then massage the tip and decide its fate. Perhaps it is too similar to an existing tip, or perhaps it should be incorporated into an existing tip. After a week, a kind wiki admin would post the final tip to the wiki. ---Benefits--- No spam on wiki. Each posted tip will be massaged and worthwhile. Tips on similar topics could be arranged together. Someone with a tip doesn't have to worry if it's good (it will only be posted if the community likes it). That might encourage tippers. ---Problems--- No WYSIWYG editing (might be a benefit - uniform style). Burden on community to edit tip within a few days (and likelihood of unresolved arguments). Burden on admins to post tip. Some tippers will be offended when their work is edited or rejected. That might discourage tippers. John
Re: VimTips - Google Wiki Usefulness
John Beckett wrote: I like the concept of using the Google wiki. In addition to the Google is Good factor, there is the likelihood of very high reliability and zero cost. Also, it seems appropriate due to Bram's work. As has been pointed out, spam is a really big threat, and will get worse (more automated) every year. I don't see why we should ask anyone here to take on the job of manually removing junk. The problems of using the Google wiki may be a benefit in the future. How about this concept: Use the Google wiki with a dozen admins. Those admins are likely to be here, and either have a Google ID or would be willing to get one. Create a new mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), or use an existing list with a convention that the subject should start with vimtip. On the wiki, explain how to post a tip by emailing the tip to the agreed mail account. That would require the user to join the list. Alternative: Have an automated account that forwards any mail including vimtip to the agreed mailing list. A discussion here would then massage the tip and decide its fate. Perhaps it is too similar to an existing tip, or perhaps it should be incorporated into an existing tip. After a week, a kind wiki admin would post the final tip to the wiki. ---Benefits--- No spam on wiki. Each posted tip will be massaged and worthwhile. Tips on similar topics could be arranged together. Someone with a tip doesn't have to worry if it's good (it will only be posted if the community likes it). That might encourage tippers. ---Problems--- No WYSIWYG editing (might be a benefit - uniform style). Burden on community to edit tip within a few days (and likelihood of unresolved arguments). Burden on admins to post tip. Some tippers will be offended when their work is edited or rejected. That might discourage tippers. I think this puts too much burdon the volunteers that become an admin. And it defeats the easy of use of a wiki. I do think that we can do the addition of new people who want to be able to edit the wiki manually. That should also filter out the spammers. There is only a delay between wanting to edit the wiki and being able to do it the first time. Not perfect, but it's something that we can setup right now and try out. -- A bad peace is better than a good war. - Yiddish Proverb /// Bram Moolenaar -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ ///sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org/// \\\help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org///
