Re: Getting involved

[Barton C Massey <bart@cs.pdx.edu>]

I'm hardly a guru, but as somebody who has run or helped to
run a lot of Wikis and other web frontpages
(e.g. http://nickle.org) for a long time, including a fairly
comprehensive mostly-scratch-built Wiki farm
(http://wiki.cs.pdx.edu), here's a few thoughts.  Take them
for what they're worth. :-)

For an IMHO highly successful example of what an
organizational Wiki can be, see http://psas.pdx.edu .  Some
attributes that IMHO make this one work well for us are:
    * TWiki, for all its manifold faults (and believe me,
      I have a long list), scales well, and supports most
      of the features that are must-haves for an
      organizational Wiki.
    * We have a designated webmaster, who does a lot of
      refactoring, media management etc.
    * We have a designated team of sysadmins, who are good
      at supporting TWiki and the underlying machinery.
    * We also have a deliberate program of Wiki
      acculturation for project newbies, since their
      successful use of the Wiki is critical to their (and
      our) success.
    * We don't try to make the Wiki do things that it can't
      do well.  We make extensive use of email lists, etc.

However, I can point to a *lot* of other examples where
Wikis I've run haven't succeeded---sometimes spectacularly.
A nice compromise I'm using more these days is a
decent-quality CMS.  Some of the flexibility of Wikis, but
some enforcement of presentation, and a bit of imposed
structure that can be helpful.  I'm kind of fond of Drupal
right now, though again I definitely have a wishlist.  See
e.g. http://fob.po8.org or http://summer.cs.pdx.edu for
examples of what a CMS can do.

My current thinking is CMS frontpage, with a prominent link
to a Wiki for more freeform stuff.  But I need to figure out
how to script all that and get hosting set up to really
"farm" it properly.

Hope this is useful as you work on this kind of issue.

	Bart Massey
	bart@cs.pdx.edu
 
In message <[🔎] 20050611004950.GE11453@double-helix.org> you wrote:
> 
> --GZVR6ND4mMseVXL/
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Disposition: inline
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> 
> * fabienne s <fabienne@fabienne.us> [2005:06:07 11:54 +0200]:=20
> > So it took me (and maybe a first time user) FIVE webhops (minimum) to=20
> > find that AMD is in fact one of the architectures supported by Debian=20
> > and incidentally only ONE to see that sparc and arm are supported. =20
> > Maybe I'm the only one to find this a little weird?  And maybe this=20
> > whole _rant_ should be posted elsewhere, but it only scratches the=20
> > surface of what could be a very large debian frontpage and debian wiki=20
> > collaborative effort.  In closing, yes I agree wholeheartedly with=20
> > Erinn, the debian wiki and the debian.org webpages in general are in=20
> > need of some serious love.
> 
> Yeah, I'm just not inclined to believe that it's really easy to
> contribute to them. I mean, the whole 'send a patch to this mailing
> list, possibly have to argue about whether the information is suitable,
> maybe eventually get commit access, who knows how long it will all take'
> approach to documentation is sort of ... inconvenient? I'm certainly not
> inclined to submit changes because it's too much of a hassle.
> 
> But yeah, if things suck, it's technically our fault because we
> recognize it as such and don't change it. :)
> 
> The unfortunate thing about wikis is there lack of structure and the
> problems involved with extracting information out of them into a more
> normal format suitable for "real" documentation. They also tend to
> become a total mess without some kind of enforcement.
> 
> --=20
> off the chain like a rebellious guanine nucleotide
> 
> --GZVR6ND4mMseVXL/
> Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
> Content-Description: Digital signature
> Content-Disposition: inline
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
> 
> iQEVAwUBQqo1LkFvBhBj/uZZAQLwGQf7Be7RAkFkZtn26c6PMLaqbnkuBo0jKDH4
> Qxw1pclmTWgI+O9fphJ3+I4Akga5ncZb+5gBlfn2yG01h2WimCOR6SJBDdLf7yZk
> YHdaVJHpMoNvBTNytexiKjRIrsW79SlqqOJ5n49/LTt4DoiS3/fWkGr7pTwLlvDD
> 7/yW/3CxyqjLyS4EoLl+83LZyw1TkvwRshoTyYMLdPgvccV2Oy3fXsTgKGQncaMk
> 5JoH8J4VlOcwWWDC/8Ywdjr3eiSApqIpl2aXt37c3xgkwJ32qf+axdbk2w1CXUBZ
> +3mFJpZP2Y7+W3bZgSo2ZhtqIMPJ9ncOV2IAjfNz4kdeRTJINAXE9A==
> =UMWb
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> --GZVR6ND4mMseVXL/--
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-women-request@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org