[Bf-docboard] Wiki reorganization proposal

[Juho Vepsäläinen]

Hi,

Just to remind people about what was the driver behind this proposal
see original post
by Mr. Roosendaal
(http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-docboard/2008-November/003267.html).
Note especially following part:
>My impression is that there's no real lack of documentation efforts
>(well we can also need more) but mostly lack of design, coordination
>and planning. That's what I'd like to spend some time on the next
>months.

Note also following part:
>I would propose to tackle the following:
>- Make a design and navigation structure for wiki. I think we need a
>clear distinction of "official docs" versus "personal pages".
>- We also have to define what goes to blender.org cms, and what in wiki
>- Finding out who would like to help on achieving this, and make a plan
>for it
>- Assigning sections to "owners" who will accept coordination of such
>sections, to keep them clean and up to date.

I think Luca's proposal does a lot in this account. For me the most important
parts about his proposal are:
* Structure. Note that it shares many aspects with the one proposed
at http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-docboard/2008-December/003276.html
with the important addition of Theory. In current wiki theory is embedded
to the documentation. Separating it explicitly seems like a fine idea to me.
* Workflow. Take a good look at how information ~should~ flow.
Documentation should not be something that comes as an afterthought.
On the contrary it should be well integrated into the development
process itself.
* Versioning. Obviously the important thing here to keep in mind is
that people may not always use the newest version available. So
documentation for older versions should be preserved in a clear manner.
* Occasional contribution. Current wiki does not really encourage people
to contribute. To be able to contribute you first have to go through
registration and approval process. I believe this may be too much for
many making it harder for prospective documenters to chip in.

There are many other interesting aspects in the proposal. I believe that
even by focusing on aforementioned ones would yield nice gains and
conform well with the original goals set. Of course there are still the issues
of related to CMS/wiki and ownership. And of course this all has to be
coordinated in a nice manner.

I hope this post yielded some food for thought and provides at least
some sort of basis for hopefully upcoming conversation. :)

Sincerely,
Juho Vepsäläinen

2009/1/5 mindrones <mindrones at yahoo.it>:
> Hi,
>
> during Xmas holidays I've prepared a proposal for restructuring the wiki:
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Mindrones/blender-wiki/proposal
>
> Since moving and reorganizing 4400 pages is a lot of work, and can easily bring chaos, basically I think it would beneficial to create specific (custom) namespaces for different sections of the wiki, and my proposal relies on them. Having such namespaces would help searching things and it is a good stategy to avoid mistakes: contents in (Main) namespace are "old" (easy :) and after the cleaning if we find new content in (Main) namespace we can easily redirect it in the right place.
>
> I didn't have much time for it so I consider it a first draft, but I hope this can bring to some useful discussion, after which we can go for a list of priorities and then a todo-list for wiki admin (if we need custom namespaces and/or new mediawiki extensions) and ourselves :)
>
> Thanks to bebraw for the extensive discussion before xmas, it helped to clear out the ideas :)
>
> Best regards,
> Luca
>
> _____________
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>
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