You cannot compare AppDB to Wikipedia nor anything like that. You cannot compare wiki vandals to spambots either. That's outside the point, anyway. The real problem here is this, a wiki fits a need where most content can be added and changed by anyone and everyone. This is not the AppDB's goal. You are setting sail for administration-hell. Nevermind having one volunteer, you would put more workload on current maintainers, and it would certainly not attract many more.
There's been discussions on ways to improve the AppDB recently, I'm sure you followed them. Things are working out, there are just a few points to fix; how it can be confusing for users submitting test data, and how it can be confusing for users reading test data. There is no actual problem with the data itself most of the time. I liked the proposal for getting some kind of Application Wizard that would automatically give the app a rating, etc. I'd also like, as a user but also as a maintainer of external resources, to have a nice organized page for tips/hacks/patches/what-not in order to get an app to work. Here is a common example. I play WoW and just installed Ubuntu to ditch my Windows install. I want to get WoW working. My first reaction is to google or ask around and I'll get linked to wine. This is the first page I will see: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=1922 That's confusing, I have multiple versions of the game, but for WoW I should only have something like "WoW without any expansion", "WoW: The Burning Crusade" (1st expansion) and "WoW: Wrath of the Lich King". Additionally, the most recent version is in the middle of the others; I might not read, click the first link and get way-outdated data from wine 0.9.39. Solution: Have an obvious "Recent version(s)" link, and a more obscure "Old/Archived test data" if need be archiving it. I then land on this page if I get it right: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=14154 Woah this is just huge. No way I'm reading it all. I have dozens and dozens of workarounds - am I gonna have to use them all or something? I want to get everything right on the get-go but this is very discouraging. If you know how it works it's actually pretty neat, but this is kind of unreadable. A few solutions: Have a bunch of section. Maybe something tabbed or something, when I look at a page for the first time I don't want to see something extremely long. Moving the comments out of the page, but with a very obvious link would be nice. What I'm thinking is some kind of tab UI between the breadcrumb and the top of the test data. Test Data || Known bugs (8) || Workarounds || Comments What I'm doing here is just splitting the page in 4. Everything should fit within 1 or 2 screens, much more readable suddenly. "Known bugs" could probably have a maintainer-written note on anything that doesn't belong on bugzilla (such as bugs happening on Windows only) and voila. See, no need for a Wiki. Jerome L. On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:47 AM, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2009/3/9 Ben Klein <shackl...@gmail.com>: >> 2009/3/9 David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com>: >>> 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie <jjmckenzi...@earthlink.net>: > >>>> If we move to an open Wiki, be prepared to be very busy. I've seen >>>> spambots get past most, if not all, of the verification systems and bomb >>>> away. > >>> I come from years of fighting vandals on Wikipedia. I know a thing or >>> two about the field ... > >> AppDB is not an encyclopaedia. > > > And, of course, I didn't say it was, so your point is very unclear > indeed. I would have thought the above was fairly obviously answering > the question of wiki spam control, and noting that I know a thing or > two about the area; in this case, the relevant point is that Wikipedia > is a wiki rather than that it is an encyclopedia. > > If you're going to pick random unrelated tangents out of what I write, > it won't really enhance communication. > > > - d. > > > -- Adys
