Re: The old wiki.netbsd.se

[Swift Griggs]

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016, matthew sporleder wrote:
I imported things I thought were useful into wiki.netbsd.org, mostly 
here: http://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/


Whoa there it is! I see lots of stuff I wrote way-back-when in there. 
Thanks a bunch! There is a ton of good stuff there.


-Swift

Re: The old wiki.netbsd.se

[matthew sporleder]

On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 1:48 PM, Swift Griggs  wrote:
>
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20100527034652/http://wiki.netbsd.se/Main_Page
>
> "Dear Users, Thank you for your patience and your contributions over the
> last 4 years. The time has come to shut down this wiki. Please refer to the
> official NetBSD wiki in the future."
>
> I'm just being nosy. Anyone remember what happened that made the site
> operator ditch the site? "The time has come" Why did it come ?
>
> Personally, I found it far more useful and rewarding than the TNF wiki (not
> knocking TNF). Plus, I had an account and could edit pages etc..
>
> I'm considering snarfing all my content back outta the wayback machine and
> resurrecting my own version of it. However, I'd first like to understand the
> original story if anyone knows it. Was it hackers beating on the site?
> Spammers take over the mail relay? Did the guy just get a divorce and his
> ex-wife's alimony take away the bandwidth fees?
>
> The answer I'd dread to hear is "It was too open and not dryly clinical or
> academically pedantic enough. So, we shut it down. Too many people had
> access." Unfortunately, due to the meta-refresh to wiki.netbsd.org appearing
> right afterward, it's an open question in my mind. Thus, I don't want to end
> up fussing with TNF if I stood something like it back up. That's the main
> reason why I'm so curious.
>
> Please don't take my speculation the wrong way, it's just guessing/fear.
>
> Maybe I was the only one who liked it and I'm just wasting my time.
>
> Thanks,
>   Swift


I imported things I thought were useful into wiki.netbsd.org, mostly
here: http://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/

Re: The old wiki.netbsd.se

[Swift Griggs]

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016, Jan Danielsson wrote:
There was a thread about this a long while back, I believe the argument 
was that it would be better for the community to have one authoritative 
wiki so all useful information could be centrally managed.


Ah, okay. I seem to remember some talk about it, but I think it was before 
I was on as many of the ML's as I am nowadays.


I also seem to recall that there were some voices saying that the 
official NetBSD wiki broke the spirit of a wiki


Well, like you, I can see both sides of that argument. Oh, and also, thank 
you for responding and taking the time to catch me up.


-- but in the end some consensus was reached.  If you search around in 
the mailing list archives I'm sure you'll be able to find the thread I'm 
referring to.


Yes, I think I did find it after some digging, thanks. I also found this 
page:


https://wiki.netbsd.org/users/asau/

"What happened to wiki.NetBSD.SE Simply put, it was shut down.
Stop complaining. Just stop. Better help saving useful information."

I guess there was a bit of drama around the discussion. He sounds a bit 
miffed. Sorry for going over old ground. I never got into the original 
discussion and I'm not going to get all butthurt about it.


The deal is that I have some infrastructure at home and a domain etc... 
Hosting anything useful for NetBSD sounds like something I'd like, but I 
don't want to get involved with TNF politics either by re-creating a site 
that some folks deemed harmful or by trying to rule-follow my way through 
contributing to the official wiki.


  I can see both sides of the argument (having a de facto standard 
unofficial wiki vs not having one); I had some experience with "the" 
Gentoo unofficial wiki which I think is illustrative:


That does indeed sound like a rough time. Sorry that happened to you. As a 
value-system thing, I guess it's a judgment call between the 
impact/danger of getting and using bad unofficial information versus the 
not having the useful bits available at all.



(couldn't get any gcc to run, which in Gentoo is bad..).


Heh, yeah, that would be. As in, "no new portage software for you - ever."

I asked on IRC if it was a known issues and was told that one should 
*never*, under any circumstances, "update world", and that following 
some random unofficial wiki was a recipe for disaster.


It's a rather extreme example, but valid nonetheless.

I'm thinking that's *exactly* the kind of scenario TNF wants to avoid by 
not having a de facto standard wiki which is unofficial.


Hmm, okay. Then I think the best way for me to proceed would be that if I 
do decide to create another NetBSD documentation resource, I'll be very 
clear that it's unofficial, completely detached and unrelated from TNF, 
and that all information is subject to being wrong as heck.


No you're not the only one, I liked it and I know others who did -- but 
it's a little more complicated than that.


Well, thanks again for your time and the explanation.

"... But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the 
horror was that he might also be wrong." George Orwell, 1984


-Swift

Re: The old wiki.netbsd.se

[Jan Danielsson]

On 2016-12-02 19:48, Swift Griggs wrote:
[---]
> I'm considering snarfing all my content back outta the wayback machine
> and resurrecting my own version of it. However, I'd first like to
> understand the original story if anyone knows it. Was it hackers beating
> on the site? Spammers take over the mail relay? Did the guy just get a
> divorce and his ex-wife's alimony take away the bandwidth fees?

   There was a thread about this a long while back, I believe the
argument was that it would be better for the community to have one
authoritative wiki so all useful information could be centrally managed.
 I also seem to recall that there were some voices saying that the
official NetBSD wiki broke the spirit of a wiki -- but in the end some
consensus was reached.  If you search around in the mailing list
archives I'm sure you'll be able to find the thread I'm referring to.

   I can see both sides of the argument (having a de facto standard
unofficial wiki vs not having one); I had some experience with "the"
Gentoo unofficial wiki which I think is illustrative:

   In addition to the official Gentoo wiki there used to be an unoffical
wiki.  There was a time when I ran Gentoo on a laptop and I used both
the unofficial and official wikis to set it up.  The unofficial wiki
suggested that one should "update world" from time to time -- so I
regularly ran an world update, and one time it bork'd my installation
(couldn't get any gcc to run, which in Gentoo is bad..).

   I asked on IRC if it was a known issues and was told that one should
*never*, under any circumstances, "update world", and that following
some random unofficial wiki was a recipe for disaster.

   I'm thinking that's *exactly* the kind of scenario TNF wants to avoid
by not having a de facto standard wiki which is unofficial.

[---]
> Maybe I was the only one who liked it and I'm just wasting my time.

   No you're not the only one, I liked it and I know others who did --
but it's a little more complicated than that.

   /Jan

The old wiki.netbsd.se

[Swift Griggs]

https://web.archive.org/web/20100527034652/http://wiki.netbsd.se/Main_Page

"Dear Users, Thank you for your patience and your contributions over the 
last 4 years. The time has come to shut down this wiki. Please refer to 
the official NetBSD wiki in the future."


I'm just being nosy. Anyone remember what happened that made the site 
operator ditch the site? "The time has come" Why did it come ?


Personally, I found it far more useful and rewarding than the TNF wiki 
(not knocking TNF). Plus, I had an account and could edit pages etc..


I'm considering snarfing all my content back outta the wayback machine and 
resurrecting my own version of it. However, I'd first like to understand 
the original story if anyone knows it. Was it hackers beating on the site? 
Spammers take over the mail relay? Did the guy just get a divorce and his 
ex-wife's alimony take away the bandwidth fees?


The answer I'd dread to hear is "It was too open and not dryly clinical or 
academically pedantic enough. So, we shut it down. Too many people had 
access." Unfortunately, due to the meta-refresh to wiki.netbsd.org 
appearing right afterward, it's an open question in my mind. Thus, I don't 
want to end up fussing with TNF if I stood something like it back up. 
That's the main reason why I'm so curious.


Please don't take my speculation the wrong way, it's just guessing/fear.

Maybe I was the only one who liked it and I'm just wasting my time.

Thanks,
  Swift