[openbeos] Re: The Wiki (or MediaWiki-powered semi-wiki)

Hi Austin,

ar1000@xxxxxxx wrote: 
This is quite a long e-mail — bear with me . .
On Sep 29, 2006, at 10:45 PM, Waldemar Kornewald wrote:


I guess the problem is that we mix end-user content with developer
content. My intention is that our developers use Drupal as a tool for
writing RFCs and anything else which is useful for development. There
should be no other tool. This makes up most of our website content
which is organized using categories because there will be too many
articles for tree-based navigation. The rest is the most
relevant/useful information for end-users and companies. The website
should prove our three target audiences (devs, users, companies) with
sufficient information. Anything going beyond the normal use-case
(e.g.: installing Haiku on your mobile phone, hacking kernel&driver
configuration files, creating non-standard distributions, etc.) should
be part of the knowledge base.

I understand Jorge's problem, and I have it too in fact. End user content isn't compatible with developer content. That is why major companies seperate the content. developer.apple.com, msdn, etc.
The drupal site as it is now is a good developer website, but it isn't a good end-user site. Its presentation of data is too strict. Part of this is due to our setup and what data we are choosing to present. I also believe that part of this is due to our near exclusive use of text. We need more images! Further, when you examine the consumer-end of a lot of websites you see that that are often html-based or more static (at least the entry points). Apple.com is html, redhat.com is an interesting and effective mix; *all of the Novell open-source sites (MediaWiki powered)*. There is nothing wrong with a more static website — as long as there are people to maintain it. 



The wiki may be also a good place to put the BeOS documentation that has
been abandoned but that may still be useful to Haiku. Putting such
documents in the wiki could also make it easier to adapt old
documentation to Haiku.


This should really be part of the official documentation system (which
doesn't have to be a wiki).

BeOS documentation should be integrated and rewritten, we can maintain a .tar.gz with old Docs in it, but Haiku is assuming its own identity.

Why not just post it as reference documentation in the wiki, so that users can conveniently print out out or save it locally to their PCs (instead of having to download a package, unpack it, etc.)?

I would also move all the articles on the website that have the "This is
not finished..." label to the wiki until they are finished.


I think this is not a good idea because it separates our development
content between two systems. . . .

I agree, which is why we should consider a separate venue for end-user content.

You don't need to do that. Both the website and the wiki can have information for devs and end users. I think the ideal should be to have finalized documentation in the website, and WIP documentation in the wiki (with content transitioning from the former to the latter as needed).

The problem with the new website is that it does not have a good front end; all the information is dumped together, and not organized in a way that makes it easy for different types of people to find the kind of information that they need.

Ah, that's a wrong statement, then (except if our developers really
want to use the wiki instead of Drupal, of course).

Yes it was, and it is actually contrary to my actual opinion (read on . . ) I changed the wiki accordingly.

- MediaWiki is a powerful tool, and its presentation of data is simpler and more streamlined than Drupal. That being said, we currently have both, and both are waiting for good purposes. There is no reason why we can't maintain the wiki for end-user content instead and have a Knowledge-base namespace that allows for more editing. *Check out tango-project.org, hula-project.org, mono-project.org, and opensuse.org. *Drupal works well for developers and communities because it has very good data flow and I think it works well with the developer mentality. The wiki as it is now is very readable, easy to maintain, and rich. I implore everyone to consider using it as the holding place for end-user content.

- The wiki as a knowledge base is also a good idea. It is easier to create and integrate content than on drupal and its category system works well.

- In summary: better content and better presentation for end-users and a separation from developer content.

- Austin B. 

Austin, I made the same point to the web team back in June. :-)

http://www.freelists.org/archives/haiku-web/06-2006/msg00034.html

Having said that, what your are proposing is, in fact, a separate website (Drupal for devs, wiki for end users). I don't think this is a good idea.

I think Haiku should have one website for devs and end-users, and I think Drupal is well suited for that job. The wiki can be used as a venue for community contributed content, to create a wider knowledge base (again, for both devs and end-users). Ideally, both the website and the wiki should have the same look too.

Koki


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