[Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Chris Withers]

Toby Dickenson wrote:
> http://www.zope.org/WikiCentral/FrontPage lists most Zope Wikis. Does
> anyone else find Wikis to be far less convenient than a good old
> mailing list?

Each has their ups and downs :-S

> 1. No threading. On several occasions I have made comments in a Wiki
> that were subsequently ignored - I guess because they got lost in the
> mass of other edits. Recently people have been adding edits to the end
> of the page: This makes it easier to keep track of changes, but harder
> to catch up on a discussion when you come to it for the first time.

...and there's still the problem of finding out who made what changes to
what. I thought 2.2's history-isms would help here?

> 2. No personal replies. On several occasions I would have liked to
> email a comment personally to another contributer, but they didnt
> leave an email address.

That's a tough one though, isn't it?

> 3. No update notification. The one time I was update to keep up with a
> Wiki discussion involved the other participant always manually
> emailing a change notification.

Yeah, that's not _that_ hard to do, and I wish it'd be done a long time
ago :-S

> 4. Hard to keep track of many Wikis: Each wiki has its own 'whats
> changed' page, but even those are too coarse.

Yeah, that is a tough one too :-S

> 5. Too easy to fragment a discussion. On several occasions I have
> thought that a discussion had dried up, only to find out later on that
> it had moved to another page.

...that's just bad use of Wiki, although sadly, that's qutie easy to
do...

> 8. Editing is painful. I have to use the browsers text field, and the
> whole Wiki page has to make a round trip with every change.

What about FTP? I'm pretty sure you can do it into zope.org although I
can never remember the port number :-S

> 9. I never get the structured text quoting of python source right
> first time.

DTML is _that_ much worse too :S < and RSI anyone? ;-)

> 10. There are too many empty pages, because someone has clicked on a ?
> next to word that happened to be a WikiName. Useful pages lie hidden
> behind a sea of links to empty pages.

Yeah, this also makes the RecentChanges page kindof useless too :-S

Okay, here's an idea which people may or may not like:
How about running the 'Discussion' parts of (in particular) dev.zope.org
from ZDiscussions, ZUBB or Squishdot?
These products are designed for discussion and are better at it than a
Wiki. Speaking for Squishdot, you get a lot of notifcation (not as much
as I'd like, wait for Swishdot for that ;-) and threading, and it's even
got Stuctured Text support now.



I dunno about other people, but I've given up on dev.zope.org simply
because I cannot track the changes without having to put in a
disproportionate amount of work.

This has meant that a lot of proposals which could help with things that
I really hate about Zope (DTML, lack of ability to 'hide' methods like
standard_html_footer from URL access, lack of groups in Zope security) I
haven't had the opportunity to comment on in a useful way (yes, yes, no
comments about my views being useful ;-) way.

end of Rant II ;-)

Chris

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Chris McDonough]

A lot of the listed complaints are trying to be addressed by the
"WikiNG" proposal, which is (of course) in the Proposals wiki on
dev.zope.org.

> Okay, here's an idea which people may or may not like:
> How about running the 'Discussion' parts of (in particular) dev.zope.org
> from ZDiscussions, ZUBB or Squishdot?
> These products are designed for discussion and are better at it than a
> Wiki. Speaking for Squishdot, you get a lot of notifcation (not as much
> as I'd like, wait for Swishdot for that ;-) and threading, and it's even
> got Stuctured Text support now.
> 
> 

This may be a good idea... personally, I really don't have much of a
problem keeping up with the discussions, but it seems a lot of people
do.  This idea should probably be floated in dev.zope.org itself as a
proposal.

> 
> I dunno about other people, but I've given up on dev.zope.org simply
> because I cannot track the changes without having to put in a
> disproportionate amount of work.

You give up fast.

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Toby Dickenson]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:11:56 -0400, Chris McDonough
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>A lot of the listed complaints are trying to be addressed by the
>"WikiNG" proposal, which is (of course) in the Proposals wiki on
>dev.zope.org.

Yes, I was aware of that proposal, and I tried to avoid repeating
issues that are already being discussed there. WikiNG is a better kind
of collaborative-editing tool, but that seems to be fundamentally the
wrong medium for debate.

>> How about running the 'Discussion' parts of (in particular) dev.zope.org
>> from ZDiscussions, ZUBB or Squishdot?
>
>This may be a good idea...

What's wrong with a mailing list? Is this just a case of NIH?

This thread has already been more productive than anything Ive done on
a Zope Wiki over the last year, and taken a fraction of the effort.


Toby Dickenson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Ken Manheimer]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 10:11:56 -0400, Chris McDonough
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> >A lot of the listed complaints are trying to be addressed by the
> >"WikiNG" proposal, which is (of course) in the Proposals wiki on
> >dev.zope.org.
> 
> Yes, I was aware of that proposal, and I tried to avoid repeating
> issues that are already being discussed there. WikiNG is a better kind
> of collaborative-editing tool, but that seems to be fundamentally the
> wrong medium for debate.

There's a lot in the proposal.  In some cases, there are things
that address the items you mention.  In many cases, they pertain - and 
if i had been doing elaboration rather than inception, i would have
addressed them, because i too am concerned with (and was thinking
about) those issues.  For example, from your original posting (cited
with a '|'):

| 1. No threading. On several occasions I have made comments in a Wiki
| that were subsequently ignored - I guess because they got lost in the

and from the WikiNG proposal:

   For more elaborate editorial and commentary annotations, i can
   see layered documents, using mixin objects that provide a
   tailored view on other or contained objects.  The mixin would
   be a layer by which annotations are associated with text
   passages in the rendered subject document, like "the crit
   system":http://crit.org does for arbitrary web pages.

   Overall, document authors could use a particular annotation
   structure according to their needs.  Eg, discussion objects for
   points which can be discussed, or brief editorial passages to
   give feedback, and author checkmarks for when they've satisfied
   or refute the suggestions, etc.

Annotation is a spiffy kind of threading.

| 2. No personal replies. On several occasions I would have liked to

>From WikiNG:

   - Attribution of changes for tracking

With attribution, you can identify and could respond directly to the
author of a particular passage.  It's useful for more, of course.

| 3. No update notification. The one time I was update to keep up with a

WikiNG:

 - Notification - Zope wikis will be able to leverage another generic
   (planned) Zope service, the Observer-pattern based Notification
   service (ZopeInterfacesWiki:ObserverAndNotification).  This will
   implement a general system for notifying user of changes
   according to their registered interests, with added benefits of
   tracking exactly the substance of those changes for the user (see
   History and the last item in Membership, above).

   Notification begins to enable some mailing-list style
   collaboration qualities, with finer-grained content-based
   control.

| 4. Hard to keep track of many Wikis: Each wiki has its own 'whats

The ability to subscribe for notification (above) and/or to track what
you personally have seen, and not, is intended for this kind of thing.

| 5. Too easy to fragment a discussion. On several occasions I have

This is a practice issue, which can be helped with tailored
structuring and policy controls, but which also involves maturation of
convention practices that comes with experience.  We also need a more
interconnectable space, so that references across wikis can be more
tightly coupled, and make it easier to track the interconnections.

| 6. Too easy to miss the creation of a Wiki. On several occasions

My plans for notification subscriptions would be hierarchical, and
enable you to subscribe to events like creations of new wikis within a 
hierarchy - so if you subscribe at the top of the wiki space, you find 
out about any new wikis, while if you subscribe within the developer's
part of the space, you learn about new developers wikis.  Etc.  (This
was not covered in the WikiNG proposal - i was trying to avoid
including too many details, and failed miserably anyway...-)

| 7. Too easy to loose content. On several occasions I have been unable
| to add a comments to a Wiki, either because www.zope.org would not let
| me login, or because its database was full.

That sucks, and should be fixed.  I suppose it is a drawback of wikis
in as much as they need to be available to work on them, while
followups on an email discussion can continue even if the maillist
host is down.  Up to a point, though.

| 9. I never get the structured text quoting of python source right
| first time.

The only quoting you need to know is example::

  The two colons after the word "example" indicate that this contained 
  block is all quoted.

No matter what, there's some learning to be done to encode
presentation/structuring.  Structured Text happens to be the best i've
found for doing that, particularly for naturalness - but i haven't
looked at all the options, maybe there are better.

| 10. There are too many empty pages, because someone has clicked on a ?
| next to word that happened to be a WikiName. Useful pages lie hid

RE: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Toby Dickenson]

> | 1. No threading. On several occasions I have made comments in a Wiki
> | that were subsequently ignored - I guess because they got 
> lost in the
> 
> and from the WikiNG proposal:
> 
>For more elaborate editorial and commentary annotations, i can
>see layered documents, using mixin objects that provide a
>tailored view on other or contained objects.  The mixin would
>be a layer by which annotations are associated with text
>passages in the rendered subject document, like "the crit
>system":http://crit.org does for arbitrary web pages.
> 
>Overall, document authors could use a particular annotation
>structure according to their needs.  Eg, discussion objects for
>points which can be discussed, or brief editorial passages to
>give feedback, and author checkmarks for when they've satisfied
>or refute the suggestions, etc.
> 
> Annotation is a spiffy kind of threading.

I dont actually have anything against Wikis in general; I have used on very
successfully for what I would describe as "document refinement", and a
better annotation scheme will enhance that use of Wikis.

The passage you quoted uses terms like "subject document", and at the moment
I dont see that as the best model for a *debate*

> | 2. No personal replies. On several occasions I would have liked to
> 
> From WikiNG:
> 
>- Attribution of changes for tracking
> 
> With attribution, you can identify and could respond directly to the
> author of a particular passage.  It's useful for more, of course.

Cool, I missed that one.

> | 3. No update notification. The one time I was update to 
>
> | 4. Hard to keep track of many Wikis: Each wiki has its own 'whats
> 
> The ability to subscribe for notification (above) and/or to track what
> you personally have seen, and not, is intended for this kind of thing.
 
It would keep me happy if the notification includes a link to the new
content (rather than a link to the page that contains new content). Even
better, the email notification could *include* the new content.

> | 6. Too easy to miss the creation of a Wiki. On several occasions
> 
> My plans for notification subscriptions would be hierarchical, and
> enable you to subscribe to events like creations of new wikis 
> within a 
> hierarchy - so if you subscribe at the top of the wiki space, 
> you find 
> out about any new wikis, while if you subscribe within the developer's
> part of the space, you learn about new developers wikis.  Etc.  (This
> was not covered in the WikiNG proposal - i was trying to avoid
> including too many details, and failed miserably anyway...-)

Im happy.
 
> | 9. I never get the structured text quoting of python source right
> | first time.
> 
> The only quoting you need to know is example::
> 
>   The two colons after the word "example" indicate that this 
> contained 
>   block is all quoted.

Ill remember that. Your proposed new attribution scheme would help too.
 
> As i said in my last reply (but after you posted this, so you couldn't
> have taken it into account), mailling lists as they stand don't work
> for establishing growing structures. 

But Wikis don't (for me, today) work for loosely structured commentry.
Quoting from http://dev.zope.org/Fishbowl/Introduction.html

>In some cases a mailing list will be setup for substantive,
>large-scale projects. Otherwise existing mailing lists can
>be leveraged (for now, use zope-dev for this).

Perhaps I should rephrase my objection. The *real* problem is that this
isnt happening - discussion is stored in Wiki pages like
http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Proposals/XxxxDiscussion




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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Rik Hoekstra]

At the WikiNG discussion page I wrote the following remarks, that
I think not everyone will read

IMHO there are too many issues muddling the discussions about wikis vs
maillists vs discussion platforms. This problem is caused by the
intermingling of too many different functions of a wiki. I'll go a bit
at length to expose these and try to strike a balance, which should be
in a combination (did I hear WikiDot?):

1.A mailing list is more convenient than a wiki because it is more
instantaneous and more compelling because people get mail in their mail
boxes. But mail discussions tend to wither away quickly. They go on for
a day and if no one pins them down into a document they'll be forgotten.
More so on a high volume list as the Zope list(s). I've seen this happen
many times. Wikis have the quality of permanence both in (cyber)space
and in time.

2.Discussion platforms like Squishdot, Wikis and what have you have the
problem of getting out of attention of the people involved. They are
permanent, but people have to perform separate actions to keep up with
an online discussion and their mailboxes. Even if there is a
mail-notification possibility, this leads to the situation that mails
are sent as replies to the notification (by accident) and not to the
forum itself (I'm not sure about Squishdot on this last point).

3.Both discussion platforms and mail lists are often too much of a
sequential nature: proposals follow comments, follow counter proposals,
follow comments etc. This leads to much inconclusion. A discussion is
not per se over once it's withered away. A Wiki is (possibly; if used
right) much more compelling in keeping discussions focused.

4.Some people think Wiki discussions are easily dispersed. Bad Wiki
discussions are, but discussion products are almost always dispersed by
nature. On many occasions I have (already) seen people summarize and
structure maillist discussions into a Wiki web.

5.Wikis give the impression of being structured, but as is they lack
structure. Both maillists and discussions have since long had the
possibility of moderation. Wikis should have these too. The nice point
about wikis is that you can determine which parts should be moderated
(the central and the thought capturing documents for instance) and which
ones are free for all (like discussions for example). The Wikis on the
dev.zope site do a bit of this with delegating discussion to a
discussion
page.

Most of these points are addressed in the proposal, but what I wanted to
add is the notion of the necessity of integrating the three types of
discussion into one product. That would make for a new generation. How
would that look then:

Make the wiki the central/anchor point for discussion. This means there
should be a possibility for making central pages, spin off pages and
discussion pages. 
- Wikis should be moderable on all levels (not editable, changes only
after approval, free for all). The point up to which that is done is up
to the owners/maintainers of the Wiki. 
- Include both a (threaded) discussion product for discussion. 
- Make this discussable from the web and from email. In the case of web
discussion the advantages
would be that discussions could take the form of annotations with a
discussion. In the case of a maillist discussion this would mean
instantaneous discussion. It should be possible to indicate in your
email whether you want it included into the Wiki.

This would also mean that there should be a structured way to integrate
e-mails into a Wiki. The noding proposals (divide a wiki page into
information nodes) above could well help to enable hooks for
discussions. Perhaps even for determining which parts are discussable
(namely only the one with a discussion node attached)

not-completely-coherently-yours

Rik

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Ken Manheimer]

*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro*
On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Rik Hoekstra wrote:

> At the WikiNG discussion page I wrote the following remarks, that
> I think not everyone will read

(The territory is just ripe for irony, because we're talking about
developing tools for conducting collaboration - including these kinds of
discussions!  I *really* appreciate that you put your comments in the wiki
discussion page, and sent them to the list - i periodically check the
discussion page for developments, but i lapse, too, and generally find it
painful that i may wind up missing stuff.  I think the best model, now, is
to make changes and to notify people that they were made via this list -
as you've done.

(Not sure that will scale, but creating new lists for each proposal
definitely won't scale.  For a bit of nested irony, if i had time to do
some more mailman-connected work, i might make it easier to create
maillists - but i'm convinced that "content-based mailling lists" are a
much better solution to the problem - eg, that's part of what i'm aiming
for with WikiNG, and i'd rather spend whatever time becomes available on
that then on tweaking the maillist side of things.))

> Make the wiki the central/anchor point for discussion. This means there
> should be a possibility for making central pages, spin off pages and
> discussion pages. 
> - Wikis should be moderable on all levels (not editable, changes only
>   after approval, free for all). The point up to which that is done is up
>   to the owners/maintainers of the Wiki. 

Yes, this is something i also advocate, as you probably realize i did so
in the proposal.

> - Include both a (threaded) discussion product for discussion. 

I have to think about it more, but offhand i much prefer more tightly
coupling the discussion with the wiki content - make the "threading" based
on changes to the wiki, and if weblog style is called for, use wiki
structuring that restricts changes to the end of the existing
content.  (With allowance for having people with edit privilege that
allows them to consolidate...)

The thing is, if we had an annotation style wiki, where people are
restricted to insertions, but anywhere in the text, and notifications
indicated the changes, then the job of the consolidator would be **much**
easier - all the editors would be involved in organizing their comments in
the context of the document, as well as referring to relevant existing 
passages.  I would expect this "closer coupling" to promote more salient
collaboration - because people would have the burden of finding where
their points fit, in the process uncovering points they might have missed
if they just appeneded their comments to the end.  By offering a view that
shows the growth of a document, people can discern what's changed since
they last grokked the whole thing, and as easily as possible keep track of
the whole thing.  

Note that there's been a *number* of places in this recent WikiNG
discussion where' i've cited existing passages that directly address
people's points.  I don't mean to complain - i think that's one cost
increased by disconnecting the discussion and the document. I may be
presuming too much, but i strongly suspect that if we were all making our
points directly in the relevant context of the document, the reiteration
would be necessary a lot less often - or structural flaws in the
organization of the document would be exposed.  It's this aspect of
"building the stories" together where WikiNG ahs incredible promise, to
me.

> - Make this discussable from the web and from email. In the case of web
>   discussion the advantages
>   would be that discussions could take the form of annotations with a
>   discussion. In the case of a maillist discussion this would mean
>   instantaneous discussion. It should be possible to indicate in your
>   email whether you want it included into the Wiki.
> This would also mean that there should be a structured way to integrate
> e-mails into a Wiki. The noding proposals (divide a wiki page into
> information nodes) above could well help to enable hooks for
> discussions. Perhaps even for determining which parts are discussable
> (namely only the one with a discussion node attached)

See my prior message on this subject.  I do think these are great ideas -
hope i'll get time before the end of the weekend to visit your comments in
the wiki discussion so i can include my responses.  If only the wiki took
care of this for us!-)

Ken
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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RE: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Ken Manheimer]

*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro*
[I'm running out of time here, so pardon the brief responses.  Make no 
mistake, though - i'm glad to be having this discussion!  It's good to 
be getting this input, seeing suggestions for other ways to look at
this discussion problem...]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Toby Dickenson wrote:

> I dont actually have anything against Wikis in general; I have used on very
> successfully for what I would describe as "document refinement", and a
> better annotation scheme will enhance that use of Wikis.
> 
> The passage you quoted uses terms like "subject document", and at the moment
> I dont see that as the best model for a *debate*

Do you feel that weblogs are bad models for debates?  I think they're
pretty good least-common-denominators.  I would probably prefer the
kind of annotation-based thing i described in my last message (and
began to sketch in the WikiNG proposal) for collaborative generation
of documents, but i can see the place for weblogs, just as i can see a 
place for network chats.  With adequate integration of email
(for notification and response), i see them as better than just
email...

> > The ability to subscribe for notification (above) and/or to track what
> > you personally have seen, and not, is intended for this kind of thing.
>  
> It would keep me happy if the notification includes a link to the new
> content (rather than a link to the page that contains new content). Even
> better, the email notification could *include* the new content.

Different options for different purposes - but we need at least
notification!

> But Wikis don't (for me, today) work for loosely structured commentry.
> Quoting from http://dev.zope.org/Fishbowl/Introduction.html
> 
> >In some cases a mailing list will be setup for substantive,
> >large-scale projects. Otherwise existing mailing lists can
> >be leveraged (for now, use zope-dev for this).
> 
> Perhaps I should rephrase my objection. The *real* problem is that this
> isnt happening - discussion is stored in Wiki pages like
> http://dev.zope.org/Wikis/DevSite/Proposals/XxxxDiscussion

I think we all agree this is a problem.  We seem to have found a short 
term solution - though i'll tell you that with time constraints, i
won't immediately have time to incorporate the points raised in the
documents.

Ken
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Simon Michael]

Chris Withers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I wonder what Simon Michael is up to nowdays?

I have been visiting family.. I'll be back in the US next week.

Great thread here. I also feel this pain, grovelling around between
wiki, mailing list, newsgroup, message board, etc. 

I wonder if we should expose all messages, edits and annotations in
some RSS/RDF-like format, for easier syncing/monitoring/indexing of
the different forums and to faciliate alternate UIs.

-Simon

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Toby Dickenson]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:27:33 -0400 (EDT), Ken Manheimer
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


>(Not sure that will scale, but creating new lists for each proposal
>definitely won't scale.

I dont see this as a problem: You only create a new list when the
traffic for that proposal gets too great for zope-dev. Threading is
good enough before that point.

You cant do that with todays Wikis, which need to capture the whole
discussion right from the beginning (IMO)

>Note that there's been a *number* of places in this recent WikiNG
>discussion where' i've cited existing passages that directly address
>people's points.  I don't mean to complain - i think that's one cost
>increased by disconnecting the discussion and the document.

I think you (inadvertantly) provide evidence for my objection that
Todays Wikis fragment discussion. Speaking as the person who started
this thread, I didnt realise my comments would affect WikiNG until you
suggested the issue.

The inclusive nature of a mailing list is what makes it a useful
community resource.



Toby Dickenson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Toby Dickenson]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:40:09 -0400 (EDT), Ken Manheimer
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Do you feel that weblogs are bad models for debates?

I find the wiki and weblog tools available today to be inferior to
mailman for debates, and it will take alot of work to develop WikiNG
into a serious contender. I suspect the sticky points will be:

1. The ability to read without continuous network connection.

2. A user interface that is not encumbered with transatlantic
   http round-trips for each user interaction.


>I think they're [weblogs]
>pretty good least-common-denominators.

>i see them [weblogs and wikis] as better than just
>email...

(Ive snipped those two comments out of context, and I hope it doesnt
misrepresent Ken)

I agree email alone is inadequate Please dont misunderstand me: I
am *not* advocating that.

Wikis work well for consolidating documents once a rough concensus has
been reached. My preference is that the discussion leading up to that
concensus takes place on zope-dev.


Toby Dickenson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Martijn Faassen]

Toby Dickenson wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Sep 2000 11:27:33 -0400 (EDT), Ken Manheimer
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> >(Not sure that will scale, but creating new lists for each proposal
> >definitely won't scale.
> 
> I dont see this as a problem: You only create a new list when the
> traffic for that proposal gets too great for zope-dev. Threading is
> good enough before that point.
> 
> You cant do that with todays Wikis, which need to capture the whole
> discussion right from the beginning (IMO)
[snip] 

I think you could integrate both mailinglists and wikis. On the one
hand, often we'd like to preserve a good posting in a mailing list as
a wiki page. So we make a separate [EMAIL PROTECTED] address that's subscribed
to the mailing list, that keeps listening to the list and sees things
like this in postings:

Wiki:StructuredTextWiki:FooBarPage

This is a bunch of text that should be added to FooBarPage.

Wiki:end

Or I see you posted something interesting, and *I* think it should be
on the list:

Wiki:StructuredTextWiki:FooBarPage

> Something very interesting you wrote

Wiki:end

It should strip off the quotes automatically in such a case.

Some care should be taken so that replies don't add the same text to the
wiki *again*.

Anyway, so that's the mailinglist to wiki gateway. Now the wiki to
mailinglist gateway.

There's a very interesting discussion going on about ZFoobar on 
the MetaSyntaxWiki. So, someone presses the 'make this page into a
discussion list' button, and the following happens:

  * A new mailinglist is created (with some name the user could fill in)

  * the wiki page is posted to the mailing list as the first message
(perhaps after some editing)

  * if there is a notification system, the existence of the mailinglist is
announced (ideally to all people who posted on that page).

  * the mailinglist is also listed in some central list somewhere on
the Zope site.

As people post interesting things to the mailing list, the wiki can
be informed by the mechanism I described above.

There should also be a rule for the list to be shut down as soon as 
the discussion has died down (no postings for a while, etc).

I hope these ideas contribute to the discussion. I too find it harder
to keep track of wikis than of a mailing list, and editing structured text
in textareas through the web is not very unpleasant. I keep tripping up
over structured text rules as well.

(that gives me an idea that is fairly simple to implement: [EMAIL PROTECTED] is
an address you can mail to directly as well, and whatever you write
is added to the wiki page you indicate; we get to use our own editors,
parts can be forwarded from the list, and so on)

Regards,

Martijn


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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Simon Michael]

I like where you're going with this Martijn.

Spurred on by your concrete examples, how about this: every wiki page
has an email address and functions as a "mailing list". Eg: I could
subscribe or send edits to

ZWikiWeb:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
StructuredTextWiki:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (defaults to the front page)

A zwikiweb could be seen as a hierarchy of very lightweight mail
lists. When I subscribe to a page(list), I would also receive
edits(mail) to its child pages(lists) by default.

Implementation: a sufficiently smart mail server, or (better?) build
on the "mail into zope" project for an all-zope solution. Eg: I might
install and configure the "ZWikiMail" product, and suddenly my
existing wikis are mail-enabled..

Comments ?

-Simon

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Rik Hoekstra]

> Do you feel that weblogs are bad models for debates?  I think they're
> pretty good least-common-denominators.  I would probably prefer the
> kind of annotation-based thing i described in my last message (and
> began to sketch in the WikiNG proposal) for collaborative generation
> of documents, but i can see the place for weblogs, just as i can see a
> place for network chats.  With adequate integration of email
> (for notification and response), i see them as better than just
> email...

I like the email list proposal of Martijn Faassen earlier on this list. I
added some comments to the Wiki discussion page, where someone proposed
using XML for Wikis:

I agree with Peter that the proposal is practically shouting XML all over
the place. In a Zopish way this would mean dividing up a Wiki page in
different objects (say Topics or Paragraphs or whatever). So a Wiki page
would become an XML document, consisting of Wiki node documents. The
advantage is that this would allow for a presentation in the form of

- one or several continuous pages as in the OFWikis (OF=Old Fashioned as
opposed to NG).

- a presentation with 'folded' nodes (like in a folding editor)

- a threaded discussion a la S[qu|w]ishdot or the Discussable thingy

- an XML document (for who would want it)

The editing could be in the form of Martijn Faassens XML Widgets editor: put
a node point in front of a 'discussable' node, promote that one to the top
when the 'node point' is clicked on and allow for editing. An example below,
in which the o stands for an editable (=clickable) node point (for wiki
reasons I have not put blank lines between them.


o this is the first editable node
 > (user::time) this is a comment to it
   > (user::time) and another comment to that
 > (user::time) this another one
   > (user::time) more comments
o this the second one
this one is not editable
o this one is
 > (user::time) a commennt to the last node


alternate view (in threaded discussion mode - probably know to all):
(- is foldable; + is expandable)

-This is the first editable node
 + this is a comment to it
 -  this another one
   - and another one to that
- this the second one
this one is not editable
+this one is



another 2 cents

Rik


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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Chris Withers]

Toby Dickenson wrote:
> >> How about running the 'Discussion' parts of (in particular) dev.zope.org
> >> from ZDiscussions, ZUBB or Squishdot?
> >
> >This may be a good idea...
> 
> What's wrong with a mailing list? Is this just a case of NIH?

Setting up a mailing list for each proposal is painful.

Setting up a Squishdot site for each proposal takes 5 minutes, and could
even be worked into a 'Create New Proposal' DTML or Python method...

Chris

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Re: [Zope-dev] I feel your Wiki Pain ;-)

[Karl Anderson]

Martijn Faassen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> I think you could integrate both mailinglists and wikis. On the one
> hand, often we'd like to preserve a good posting in a mailing list as
> a wiki page. So we make a separate [EMAIL PROTECTED] address that's subscribed
> to the mailing list, that keeps listening to the list and sees things
> like this in postings:
> 
> Wiki:StructuredTextWiki:FooBarPage
> 
> This is a bunch of text that should be added to FooBarPage.
> 
> Wiki:end

Check out the MonkeyFist blog at  -
it's generated by scanning their IRC channel.

-- 
Karl Anderson  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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