Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-www] Developer's Wiki
Martijn van Oosterhout wrote: On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 03:49:29PM +0200, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: I agree pretty much. However I disagree that a wiki is not useful to summarize discussion from the mailinglist. All that it needs is people that are humble and do not push their own agendas. If necessary they should discuss their summaries with members of both/all sides of a given discussion and with members of the core group. It would be helpful if people commented on the stuff already there and said if it's good, bad or otherwise. I just looked through the wiki. Generally I like whats there. It seems the approach taken is essentially that the unofficial todo items contain a current brain dump on the steps taken so far, the status and future work. So if any busy bees would want to join in and help, they would just keep close contact with the person that is working on the todo item. I think this is a great basis to make it easier for other people to join in and should be a solid basis for turning this into official todo items. The ICU todo item will maybe also become a good test bed for how to build up a document at the very early stages, where there will still be a lot of discussions on the mailinglists. Thinking a head (and maybe too far then we really need to at this point): So how will this work once they become official. I assume Bruce's todo list would then link to the wiki and the editing would become more conservative? Would the status get frozen? I assume that if the given functionality is expanded/changed in future releases then it would be done in the same document? Or would a new document be startet to detail the new development process that would simply optionally list previous documents? regards, Lukas ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-www] Developer's Wiki
On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 06:52:59PM +0200, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: Thinking a head (and maybe too far then we really need to at this point): So how will this work once they become official. I assume Bruce's todo list would then link to the wiki and the editing would become more conservative? Would the status get frozen? I assume that if the given functionality is expanded/changed in future releases then it would be done in the same document? Or would a new document be startet to detail the new development process that would simply optionally list previous documents? Unsure. I know twiki has the possibility to add a tag to a page that restricts the users that can edit a page. I assume the same could be used here somewhere, though I am unsure how. I'm not sure it's a real problem though. What's the risk? That someone will add something to the wiki that confuses people? At the end of the day it's the patch that gets reviewed, not the wiki page. Once the patch is in it's just historical interest I guess... Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org http://svana.org/kleptog/ From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to litigate. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-www] Developer's Wiki
Andrew Dunstan wrote: Being slightly more abstract, we are grappling with a couple of different kinds of objects here: discussions and decisions. The mailing list is a very good way of having a discussion, and a wiki is IMNSHO a poor substitute. Ditto, bulletin board, web forum, blog . The reason is simply that with a mailing list all you need is a subscription to get the info delivered to you in a medium everybody uses. It's push, not pull, and that's very appealing. Any other mechanism requires the user to seek the location of the discussion actively to some degree. Conversely, the very unstructured nature of the mailing list(s) makes them a poor medium for capturing decisions. That's why some of us have advocated use of a tracker to capture decisions about development directions, because the TODO list doesn't seem appropriate. But an open wiki would be a horrible substitute for the TODO list - it would turn it from a list that reflects at least some discussion and consensus into a mere wish list of no authority whatsoever. IOW, it is the exact opposite of the direction I believe we should be headed. I agree pretty much. However I disagree that a wiki is not useful to summarize discussion from the mailinglist. All that it needs is people that are humble and do not push their own agendas. If necessary they should discuss their summaries with members of both/all sides of a given discussion and with members of the core group. regards, Lukas ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-www] Developer's Wiki
Andrew Dunstan wrote: Well, of course, the internet is renowned for its preponderance of people overburdened with humility and fairness. :-) I think if you ask the php development team the chances are high that they will agree that I have done exactly that for the PHP todo list. Seriously, what will be the point? It strikes me as likely to be a huge amount of wasted effort. If the wiki is updated by others then they will be using the wrong forum (should be on the mailing list). And I suspect nobody much will use it to look for anything. The point is that you no longer argue in circles, do not have to use the ever intimitating read the archives (which buys newcomers nothing since archives are essentially useless if you are trying to understand the contents of a lengthy discussion you did not partcipate in yourself) and give people some transparency. As for the TODO list, its items belong in a tracker, IMNSHO, as feature items (as opposed to bugs). So exactly what would go on a wiki? ISTM we are in danger of wanting to use technology because we like it, rather than because it is appropriate. The problem with a tracker is that again like complicated mailinglist threads, they rarely summarize things. Since most trackers are not threaded, they are less confusing to read up afterwards, but at the same time due to lack of threading they are less useful at discussing the issue. So imho a tracker is nice to make it very easy to query the status of a giving issue (fixed in branch xyz etc), a mailing list is great for discussions and a wiki is great for summarizing discussions. The wiki can be linked to inside the tracker/mailinglist. regards, Lukas PS: Did you intentionally only reply to me? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-www] Developer's Wiki
On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 03:49:29PM +0200, Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: I agree pretty much. However I disagree that a wiki is not useful to summarize discussion from the mailinglist. All that it needs is people that are humble and do not push their own agendas. If necessary they should discuss their summaries with members of both/all sides of a given discussion and with members of the core group. It would be helpful if people commented on the stuff already there and said if it's good, bad or otherwise. Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org http://svana.org/kleptog/ From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to litigate. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-www] Developer's Wiki
Joshua D. Drake wrote: Gregory Stark wrote: Josh Berkus josh@agliodbs.com writes: I was actually hoping for more feedback on the content itself. I'm still not clear if it's supposed to be developers only - to the exclusion of users or developers only - but accessable to anyone. It should be readable by everyone, but editable only by authorized users. I think the lessons of wikipedia is precisely that you *don't* want to add such barriers. You want to let people add stuff pretty much freely. That encourages people to get involved and put up information. I don't agree, you should also look at the recent post and fork by one of wikipedia's co-founders. The developers wiki should only be edited by authorized users. Now, getting authorized should be easy as reasonably possible, but having a wholesale editing orgy on the wiki responsible for tracking postgresql developer information is not a good idea. I agree. Banning IPs is simply not feasible. I think a minor moderation step during the signup is little overhead and ensures we know who changed what etc. This is obviously not only important for blaming but also great for talking to people about a given page when it comes time to update it. I think however there should be a section that is free for all. It should be clearly labeled with parts are free for all and which are not. It should be easy to move pages from one section to the other and back. Essentially I would say the wiki should be open to anyone who signs up, however there should be pages that are only writeable to people inside a special group. I am not sure how the ACL works in the current wiki. SOme wikis allow you to define ACL's by page, some allow you to create subwikis with different ACLs etc. regards, Lukas ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
