Metacosm wrote: > The reason I am writing this little-post (I was advised to > by John Beckett http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User:JohnBeckett) > is a plea to change the front-page (and to a lesser degree, > the focus) of the wiki.
Some big ideas have been raised and I will need time to digest them. I'll probably write a lot of stuff here, but the bottom line is that I welcome Metacosm's arrival, and I would be very happy to experiment with his ideas. If they work, great. If not, we can revert. For me, the attraction of the wiki is the potential to polish previously given advice. In a forum or mailing list (or the old static Vim Tips web site), person A says something, then B points out a deficiency, and C contradicts them both. Later, D says that the new version makes all previous advice obsolete. The result is confusion and bad advice. The wiki holds the promise that at least the core features of Vim can be helpfully explained in a how-to manner. I fully accept that we will never polish everything, but I don't see why, for example, there should be any new pages on copy/paste or searching! Just fix the pages we've got! Fully documenting everything would be pointless and unhelpful (too large to digest). We should concentrate on how-to advice with an overview and examples. I don't understand Metacosm's distinction between "tip focused" and "vim focused". Call it what you will, our pages should help people use Vim. > It doesn't address the primary reason people come to the site, > to get help. You would need to explain exactly what you have in mind. Let's say I can't get copy/paste working nicely, so I visit your optimum wiki. What do I do? Ask a question in a forum? View a FAQ? Browse a category tree that hopefully includes my topic? I like browsing tips, and if more of them were fixed, I would get more out of it! Reading the Vim docs can be a bit hard, but browsing the wiki to get an overview of features I mightn't be familiar with is very helpful. Like Fritzophrenic's "For help with...", I think we need a static list of links, with descriptive text, showing Vim features. It would be like an expanded category tree. It should not attempt to be exhaustive, but should guide newcomers to find info they want. > I mean let grow naturally -- let people add questions, the > common questions will be answered, Is there any example of a web site where this is done and the result is worthwhile? Sure, we could experiment with a page that invites questions. However, I don't think it should be left to grow to become the normal archive of confused advice that frequents the web. > It [main page] doesn't encourage anyone to contribute. > It is overwhelming, and intimidating. Really? But if most people come to get help or to browse, the main page should oblige. I would have thought that anyone using a modal text editor would be capable of quickly identifying which of the six boxes on the current main page was of interest. Anyway, a theoretical discussion of the ideal main page is pretty pointless. Let's just see some alternative designs. Then we can try something else, and revert later if wanted. Is your proposal finished? (If so, I'll post to vim_use and try to get more interest.) http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User:Metacosm/Proposed_Main_Page I agree that it is more inviting, although presumably you would want to provide a little more advice (on a linked page) about just how a newcomer would create a user page, and their own Vim tips and help. However, your proposal offers very little for people wanting to browse (I suspect there's quite a few of us). > you create a tip in an anonymous fashion, no ego stroking Yes, this is a problem. I have had a few long discussions with Bram where I've tried to get him to encourage users who contribute to the wiki, but he doesn't see the point. I'm not sure how your alternative world would work out, but we can try it. I do think that encouraging development of user pages would be worthwhile. However, the ultimate aim should be that the wiki has *one* helpful tip on copy/paste (for example). I realise that we will need several pages on most topics, because it's too complex to make just one. But I would oppose developing significant general content in user pages - we don't need the individual thoughts of 100 users on how to copy/paste. Sure, a user page can have significant stuff (like the Ipkiss page Fritzophrenic mentioned), and a user page can be a place to experiment. But it should be made clear that the aim is for general Vim how-to advice to be merged into the main wiki. John _______________________________________________ Vim-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/vim-l
