On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 6:16 AM, Hannes Magnusson
<hannes.magnus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It isn't scaling, but we do have crapload of people with php.net
> karma, and all of them have the ability to edit/reject notes.. Most
> simply don't know it.
> I think we should try to reach out the individual extension
> maintainers and get them to review their own pages.
That's a really good idea, Hannes. I vastly reduced my moderation
activity this spring in hopes others would think I was killed by a
bear and would join in. Having each extension's author look through
periodically, though, would be a great help. Derick used to prune the
time sections every few months, but I think he's just gotten so busy
that he really just doesn't have the.... well.... time.
Unfortunately, though, I'm not sure how many people would actually
want to be bothered, and without using firearms, there's little we can
do to force them. Those that would might not have the time or
interest in doing so regularly or diligently.
In general, the user notes are used pretty significantly,
particularly for the code snippets, "gotchas," and workarounds to
upgrades or BC issues. I get emails several times per month with
people referring directly to a note here or there. Outsourcing it, in
my opinion, is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, which would go
beyond the scope of this email. And, Adam, while that's really quite
impressive that you'd taken the time and effort to put stats together
(and, in many cases, I'd be inclined to agree with your rating), it's
all subjective.
That said, things I've done to try to reduce the "fluff" (read:
crap) in the notes have failed miserably --- and that's putting it
lightly. I mean that it's been met with such catastrophic failure
that the Hindenburg looks like a roller coaster for small children by
comparison. I've followed up with contributors who left a valid email
address to discuss ways to improve their note and resubmit it for
acceptance. I added explicit "what not to enter" information. I even
tried placing an XKCD comic as a masthead on the note submission page
to grab attention. In all, it seems we can't prevent the milk from
spilling, we can only clean up the mess after.
I don't know exactly what the solution is, but I do believe it is
best managed in-house.
--
</Daniel P. Brown>
Network Infrastructure Manager
http://www.php.net/
