Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 at 18:54, Kevin Kofler via devel < devel@lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote: > Matthew Miller wrote: > > I don't think "documentation is harder to keep up to date there" is > right, > > Well, I guess it does not apply that much to the pages which were already > in > an ACL-locked namespace, in particular, the packaging guidelines that can > only be edited by FPC. I cannot speak for the FPC whether it is easier, > harder, or the same difficulty to do the edits now vs. on the wiki. > > But as far as I can tell, the move also affects wiki contents that were > not > previously ACL-locked, and for those, it makes a big difference whether > anyone with a FAS account can just edit them on the wiki or whether one > has > to dig up the source code in some Git repository and send a pull request > (and not get any instant feedback whether the changes even compile without > also installing some documentation processing toolchain). I guess most > people can only try to get someone else to do the editing work, or will > just > shrug it off as "it's wrong and I cannot edit it". > > Actually the wiki is ACL locked where you need more than a FAS account to edit it (and has been for several years). That is because we spent too much time cleaning up neo-nazi scribbles, various pill scams, and get-rich ads from continual organized groups who look for low barrier of entry wikis to use for this. We have several tens of thousand fas accounts all opened by these groups continually even after we stopped allowing the wiki edits to anyone with a FAS account. The groups are still there, still opening accounts and every now and then find some group to get added to where they start up again. [Some of the groups are robots doing this, but a large number are people paid to do the 'pose as a real person' so our robot can take over and spam edit. Most of them are very intelligent people who see it as more of a continual puzzle to solve with the sites as the puzzle-master.] Using the 'needs to be viewed before accepted' causes problems because the malware that all these things use can just look at the edit tag and display the crap on people's screens and websites anyway. And the general website goes down regularly because millions of browsers from other websites are tricked into getting stuff from our servers. The second problem that 'needs to be accepted before published' plugins is that it requires active people to check their sections. Almost no one is doing that for the wiki and that has been the case for over a decade. A well structured wiki requires active work from people wanting to do this in and out. The people who did this initially in Fedora left years ago, and no one has ever stepped up to replace them. Most people seem to assume that instead someone else will do that work for them later. New people who have been interested usually look at the mess and say 'I would say nuke it and start over' or 'you know moving this to a newer technology is better'. Then they deal with the community for a while and realize that as much as people complain about how horrible it is, they will fight any change because it would mean learning something new. The wiki has been a 'trashcan' since before we moved from moin to mediawiki. This is in part because many groups expected the wiki to be 'their' wiki and they got to do whatever was inside their section. It then became an afterthought where you stick some things up so you can checkmark 'documentation done' in whatever checklist. In the end, the wiki is most useful when people care for it and you have people who are either paid (even in the mediawiki) or volunteer to be 'librarians' and curate and clean up things. No one has done that in Fedora since at least 2010, and without an empowered community to clean things up and keep litter down.. the wiki turns into what it is. [This isn't the only wiki like this.. most ones end up this way because people think they magically take care of themselves without realizing the army of people that sit at the Mediawiki wikipedias to do that work.] -- Stephen J Smoogen. ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
Kevin Kofler via devel wrote: >> I don't think "documentation is harder to keep up to date there" is right, > Well, I guess it does not apply that much to the pages which were already in > an ACL-locked namespace, in particular, the packaging guidelines that can > only be edited by FPC. I cannot speak for the FPC whether it is easier, > harder, or the same difficulty to do the edits now vs. on the wiki. > But as far as I can tell, the move also affects wiki contents that were not > previously ACL-locked, and for those, it makes a big difference whether > anyone with a FAS account can just edit them on the wiki or whether one has > to dig up the source code in some Git repository and send a pull request > (and not get any instant feedback whether the changes even compile without > also installing some documentation processing toolchain). I guess most > people can only try to get someone else to do the editing work, or will just > shrug it off as "it's wrong and I cannot edit it". > Wikis have a much lower barrier to entry than setups of the > docs.fedoraproject.org type. > […] Personally, I cannot edit the wiki, but can submit pull re- quests for the docs (and have done so). Maybe due to my GNU socialization, I also really like good, single-truth documentation. Where wikis are curated to a degree that makes them usable, the effort spent seems com- parable to a Git forge (except that as a user, one cannot discern a wiki edit by someone who knows what they are doing from one that was overlooked or one that someone wants to fix in the future, but has not gotten around to it). Tim ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
Matthew Miller wrote: > I don't think "documentation is harder to keep up to date there" is right, Well, I guess it does not apply that much to the pages which were already in an ACL-locked namespace, in particular, the packaging guidelines that can only be edited by FPC. I cannot speak for the FPC whether it is easier, harder, or the same difficulty to do the edits now vs. on the wiki. But as far as I can tell, the move also affects wiki contents that were not previously ACL-locked, and for those, it makes a big difference whether anyone with a FAS account can just edit them on the wiki or whether one has to dig up the source code in some Git repository and send a pull request (and not get any instant feedback whether the changes even compile without also installing some documentation processing toolchain). I guess most people can only try to get someone else to do the editing work, or will just shrug it off as "it's wrong and I cannot edit it". Wikis have a much lower barrier to entry than setups of the docs.fedoraproject.org type. > or necessarily harder to find (although I hoped we would have a decent > search solution by now!). The lack of a search solution makes it very much harder to find anything on docs.fedoraproject.org than on the wiki. That said, finding content on the wiki was also unnecessarily hard, but that was not a result of the wiki technology, but of how it was (mis)used in Fedora: In particular, a few years ago, the wiki's front page was redesigned to no longer be a table of contents for the various wiki contents, but instead mainly link to non-wiki content, making it much harder to find the actual wiki contents. You actually have to click on Subprojects / All Projects in the menu on the top to get something vaguely resembling a table of contents. In a well-structured wiki, all content must be reachable from the front page, only following wiki links (no menus, no search, etc.). > But the value is in having a curated space, because the wiki serves too > many different purposes to ever be that -- it's _always_ doomed to be a > documentation trap. I disagree. The wiki has become a documentation trap because most useful documentation was actively moved out of the wiki and because central wiki pages (and especially the front page) were filled with external links instead of wiki links. That has destroyed the entire essence of the wiki. Of course, if the wiki is not used as designed and if all useful content gets immediately transfered out as soon as it becomes useful, the wiki becomes redundant and the remaining documentation on it becomes undiscoverable, unmaintained, and useless. But the wiki is *not* "doomed" to be like that, it is the (ab)use made of it in Fedora that made it that way. And I also object to the claim that that "the wiki serves too many different purposes" is the issue, quite the opposite: the wiki serves too *few* purposes now. It has become only the trashcan for anything not fitting on some other medium. Of course, if you treat it as a trashcan, it becomes one. The wiki is most useful if *all* documentation actually resides on it, and if as few ACL protections as possible are used. (And where ACLs are needed, edits by non-ACL-members should preferably be held for sighting rather than rejected outright. Mediawiki actually supports that: it is used, e.g., on the German Wikipedia.) Having all documentation reside on the wiki would bring several advantages at once: * Users would always know where to find documentation: "It's on the wiki." (This is actually the exact same argument that was made for moving to docs.fedoraproject.org. The problem is: not all documentation is actually there. Some is still on the wiki, some is on other fedoraproject.org pages, etc.) * Developers would always know where to not only find, but also edit documentation, and they would be able to edit it without lots of red tape. * The external links on the front page would automatically become internal links. * The Mediawiki search functionality would automatically search all documentation. Kevin Kofler ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
On Tue, Feb 23, 2021 at 11:06:50PM +0200, Otto Urpelainen wrote: > >It would be nice if the wiki page could be updated to avoid > >luring packagers into using these templates, perhaps with a > >hatnote that the content is historical (?) and only the tem- > >plates in the packaging guidelines should be used. > > Unfortunately, the Fedora wiki is a documentation trap, full of outdated > or obsolete pages whose advice should not be followed. Mixed with other > pages that have useful content that cannot be found elsewhere, so you > cannot simply disregard the wiki either. Let's identify content that is useful and can't be found elsewhere, and either migrate it or find some way to mark its status on the wiki itself. -- Matthew Miller Fedora Project Leader ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 02:48:31AM +0100, Kevin Kofler via devel wrote: > Otto Urpelainen wrote: > > Unfortunately, the Fedora wiki is a documentation trap, full of outdated > > or obsolete pages whose advice should not be followed. Mixed with other > > pages that have useful content that cannot be found elsewhere, so you > > cannot simply disregard the wiki either. > > The move to docs.fedoraproject.org was really a mistake. Documentation is > harder to keep up to date there, also harder for readers to find there, the > duplication between old wiki pages and new docs.fedoraproject.org pages is a > common issue, and some information is not on docs.fedoraproject.org at all > (but in some old wiki page that is harder to find now that most > documentation was moved off the wiki). > > I really fail to see what value that move has brought us. I don't think "documentation is harder to keep up to date there" is right, or necessarily harder to find (although I hoped we would have a decent search solution by now!). But the value is in having a curated space, because the wiki serves too many different purposes to ever be that -- it's _always_ doomed to be a documentation trap. -- Matthew Miller Fedora Project Leader ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
Otto Urpelainen wrote: > […] > Like I said, I am not expert in forge macros, so if anybody thinks that > my edit removal was a bad idea, wiki has an undo button. Thanks! Tim ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
Otto Urpelainen wrote: > Unfortunately, the Fedora wiki is a documentation trap, full of outdated > or obsolete pages whose advice should not be followed. Mixed with other > pages that have useful content that cannot be found elsewhere, so you > cannot simply disregard the wiki either. The move to docs.fedoraproject.org was really a mistake. Documentation is harder to keep up to date there, also harder for readers to find there, the duplication between old wiki pages and new docs.fedoraproject.org pages is a common issue, and some information is not on docs.fedoraproject.org at all (but in some old wiki page that is harder to find now that most documentation was moved off the wiki). I really fail to see what value that move has brought us. Kevin Kofler ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
Re: Please remove "-i" from "%forgemeta" templates on wiki
Tim Landscheidt kirjoitti 23.2.2021 klo 18.16: Hi, using "%forgemeta" with the "-i" option causes debug infor- mation to be output which leads to %changelog entries being garbled: (snip) Therefore, the templates at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/SourceURL/#_using_forges_hosted_revision_control use "%forgemeta" without options and note: | # – remove “-i” and “-v” before commit However, the templates on the wiki page at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Forge-hosted_projects_packaging_automation#Packaging_examples use "%forgemeta -i" and do not clarify that this needs to be amended before committing. It would be nice if the wiki page could be updated to avoid luring packagers into using these templates, perhaps with a hatnote that the content is historical (?) and only the tem- plates in the packaging guidelines should be used. Hi Tim, Unfortunately, the Fedora wiki is a documentation trap, full of outdated or obsolete pages whose advice should not be followed. Mixed with other pages that have useful content that cannot be found elsewhere, so you cannot simply disregard the wiki either. In this case, the wiki page contains a draft whose final version is in the packaging guidelines. Even though I am not very familiar with the forge macros, I took the liberty to add an easy to spot link from the wiki page to the guidelines and removed the examples that misled you. As far as I can tell, the examples did not have anything that cannot be read from the examples in the guidelines. It could be that the whole page could be removed, but since it contains a collection of links, some parameters that are not mentioned in the guidelines and discussion on how to extend the macros, I left it there. Like I said, I am not expert in forge macros, so if anybody thinks that my edit removal was a bad idea, wiki has an undo button. Otto ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
