:murb: [maarten brouwers] wrote:
Hi Martin,

Interesting subject...
We are dealing with two different interpretations of a project:

a static project like API, Wordprocessor, Impress, Base, etc.

The IMHO more interesting interpretation of a project is the project management point of view: a project is a clearly described effort to achieve something in a certain timeframe.
Is that what you refer to as 'Teams'?
No, that's what listed in the category Projects, such as the Implementation of new Extension like the MediaWiki, PDF-Import one or the MacOSX port.

Have a list of active project would point to the area where the current development effort are. That's why I introduced also the Category Projects to allow listing also of such Projects.

I'm unsure if we really need project in the sense of a static project:
That is, we don't need projects on the wiki, or in general? I like projects because they are giving some context to what is happening there. A place to start. And having defined projects doesn't stop people from collaborating... look at e.g. art/marketing and the website project.
Yes, but we actually have the problem that in most static project described on the website only the big dynamic projects are listed. In the best case there is a link into the wiki, where more projects may be listed.

My proposal for a new wiki home page <http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Main_Page_tryout_mh>
may explain why
To me, this page seems like a bit of awkward attempt to create a new homepage of the general website. I'm not so happy with this proposal myself.
It is just a demo on how I would like the Entry page of the be structured. It is not meant as an parallel homepage of the general website. Of course there are overlaps since the structure of the wiki and the main website are similar. The current main page of the wiki <http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Main_Page> looks more than a collection of might be interesting bookmarks.

Information in general can be categorized into three types:

static documentation: such information get published at a time and is intended to be one way communication (such as plain documentation, FAQ, HowTo etc.).
Do you think such information should be published on a wiki? A wiki is all about dynamic... I see though, that e.g. the FAQ at the wiki is a semi-static project... If it is really static, I'd say, publish it as HTML.
No, the preparation for the publication should be done in the wiki, static content I'd like to move to the website where better performance can be expected.

dynamic documentation: this documents are usually worked on in project (project management pov) and often have the status draft. they may be published in the finish of a project and became then the status of static information (see above). This kind of communication of often bidirectional but asynchron.
Got that, so maybe a FAQ is more like this? There is a draft, that communicates, but also is finetuned every now and then?

plus the introduction of a defined set of additional categories like API, Wordprocessor, Base, Porting , Minutes, Development, Build System, Tuturials, MacOSX, QA this allow us to implement additional structures within the wiki. Assigning all the pages to a category of that scheme would also reduce the amount of orphant pages (<http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Special:Lonelypages>) currently we have more than 500 of such Lonely pages, that means that a significant amount of pages is not accessible by random users.
Promoting a limited set of categories is a good idea to add structure.
Right now I would not consider our wiki as an success, I'm impressed how many good pages have been created in the last few years, but I'm also disappointed about how difficult it is to get to new useful information.
It is a culture change... most of these efforts are powered by a mere 1% of the users. I don't know about the OpenOffice.org wiki, but I have no reason to suspect this is different here at OOo. I'm trying to push usage of the wiki more within the website project, and hope that it is being picked up...
The current audience of the ooo-wiki are developers. Only users which are interested to participate in project should reach the ooo-wiki

I think the value of a wiki is partly in the allowed chaos. Allowing people to create quick drafts... without thinking too much about structure yet. Allowing for structure is ok, but should imho not refrain a beginning user from starting to use the wiki, because it seems so regulated.
allowing chaos seems also ok for me, but:

I enjoy that more and more teams are using the wiki for their development work and there is many useful information for new developers to step in. Without providing a structure and then also using that structure these page will stay as is: A private worksheet. Even worse: If potential new developers will get to wiki and search for information, he might have the chance to find some via the wiki search function but he don't know what he will get: Is that what he is reading a brain dump from whatever person some time ago, is that information still valid, is it complete, is it correct ? He will not have any chance to find this out without a structure.

please see also in http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Information_Sharing the problem statement: http://ux.openoffice.org/reports/2007/website/InfoSharing.odp

 I was less hesitated in starting a website project page,
simply because the wiki was in a relatively shabby state :) ... it makes things accessible... low entry. That is not something one should neglect.

That's why I also don't hesitate to do that "awkward" draft of a new homepage for the wiki, you seem to get the idea ;-)

Martin

g.,


Maarten

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