On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 11:54:10AM -0700, tosmaillist.neophyte_...@ordinaryamerican.net wrote: > I seek the advice of anyone who has definite opinions concerning the > use of Wikis. > > I've have been carefully planning the implementation of version > control of the wiki pages for the textbook(s) we create, > http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/User:NeoPhyte_Rep/ToDoLists/Textbook_move > and have noticed several pages that contain information that might be > a textbook chapter. Some are and some are not. > > I would like to propose that we signal an official inclusion or offer > of inclusion in the Textbook Project by prefixing the page file name > with "P_OSS_E:". > > Like wise, it might also be useful to prefix all the articles germane > to the Professors' Open Source Summer Experience effort with "POSSE:". > > Would an expert Wiki editor use some other technique to signal such an > association?
That technique is used in some wiki engines. It's a form of using name spaces to categorize. MediaWiki is built on the idea of using descriptive, non-ambiguous titles of what an article *is*. For what it is related to, there are two ways to organize. First, the site itself sets one relation -- this is why we use [[Mailing lists]] instead of [[Teaching Open Source mailing lists]] ... when the page is on teachingopensource.org. Second, we use categories. So, any pages that are P_OSS_E chapters could be in [[Category:Practical OSS Exploration chapters]], while P_OSS_E plans are in [[Category:Practical OSS Exploration plans]]. There are a few additional tricks. One is to use a Category: page as the actual landing page. This lets you have page content as well as instantly see what is in the category. As an example from another wiki: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_Architecture redirects to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:Community_Architecture Another example is http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fonts . Typically, in MediaWiki the usage of a word followed by a colon in a page name, e.g. [[User:Username]], indicates the page is in a different "namespace". A namespace in MediaWiki refers to one of the default or an added Prefix:, such as [[Talk:]] and even [[User_talk:]]. All pages that you see without prefixes are in the [[Main:]] namespace, but it is somehow a hidden prefix. Most namespaces are in *not* in the default search -- on teachingopensource.org, only the Main namespace is searched: http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Special:Search?search=&fulltext=Search Fedora Project's wiki has additional namespaces, with many more in the default search: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=&fulltext=Search So, using a prefix for a page name confuses it with namespaces. There is some value, in my experience, in putting some content in a separate namespace. It turns out that doing so increases maintenance complexity, so we've tried to keep it to to being needed. For example from the Fedora Project: * [[Legal:]] has a very tight access list, we don't allow just any person with wiki editing permissions to change those pages. Putting them in a separate namespace allows for fine-grained permission control (i.e., specific individuals or small groups.) [[Licensing:]] and [[Packaging:]] exist for similar reasons, to limit page editing to a group smaller than "all account holders." * [[FUDCon:]] is the opposite, it is open to anonymous edits. This is a set of pages that are related to special Fedora events, the Fedora Users and Developers Conference. We need people to be able to sign up to attend the event, and to edit pages about the event, who are not Fedora contributors. Normally, to edit the Fedora wiki, you need to approve a contributor agreement. We don't want that as a barrier for folks to sign up for FUDCon. Those pages are carefully watched, and after each event, the set of pages are moved out of the easy-to-deface FUDCon: namespace. Sorry about the overly thorough reply, but this is the sort of "reason why" that isn't written down very clearly anywhere -- it's part culture and part tool/technology. I wanted to make a clear write-up, maybe it's worth copying some of it to a wiki page. :) - Karsten -- name: Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener team: Red Hat Community Architecture uri: http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki gpg: AD0E0C41
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