[arch-general] What is the current wiki-poliicy for re-writing contributions?
Archdevs, What is the current policy for having wiki-contributions re-written? I have been a wiki-contributor for years, I've more than 28 years Unix/Linux experience, I am an attorney, a registered professional engineer, and I have spent years doing technical writing for NASA MOD and Space Flight Operations -- I know technical writing. Over the past year or so it seems like every wiki contribution made is re-written to the point that the immediacy of the needed information is lost, is replaced by a link, or the contribution is reworded in a bewildering manner. Under what criteria does this take place? It has gotten to the point where you just get tired of helping -- why bother? Under the current system, the pages are slowly becoming less-useful rather than more useful as more and more information is chopped out of pages or replaced by links to 3rd-party pages that may (or may not) be there tomorrow. When I first began using Arch in '09, the pages were written such that you could fully-complete whatever task the page addressed without bouncing around from page-to-page hunting for all the pieces of the puzzle. That is no longer the case. Don't get me wrong, the Arch-wiki pages are still by far the most useful of any distribution, but understanding the criteria under which this is taking place will help those willing to contribute determine whether to make a contribution or not. The goal being to keep the Arch-wiki, the very best that it can be. Thanks. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 12:22:30PM -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
I don't know why this is happening, but I got the same impression. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)
On 21 March 2016 at 23:22, David C. Rankin <drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
There is no policy per se that helps anyone here. Whatever little write-up I have contributed (in a few cases entire pages) may have in turn been rewritten by someone else over the years. Sometimes this may be frustrating but that's how open wikis work, and sometimes it's helpful (if the edits are of good quality). We do lock some pages but those are special-purpose articles (e.g. developerWiki).
I do agree the quality of the wiki has diminished (when I take a look now and compare with what we had in the past I can tell) but perhaps that's the result of more contributors and more information. My only advice is that if you're frustrated, leave it and let it grow in whichever way the community takes it. Otherwise, I'm sure there are some moderators keeping a look out (but even they can't keep track of quality). -- GPG/PGP ID: C0711BF1
On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 6:22 PM, David C. Rankin <drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
I hardly look at the wiki anymore, but I remember getting the same impression—most recently I had to hunt through multiple pages about encryption to get even a basic setup going. This is a problem.
On Tuesday, 22 March 2016 09:00:28 IST Jan Alexander Steffens wrote:
Initially, when the wiki was small, a page would have a small section, with instructions to get a basic system running. Now, probably as the wiki has grown more comprehensive, it is becoming more and more reference-based and the tutorial like properties are disappearing. May be it would nice if people would start writing tutorial like articles for simple enough uses. For example see [1]. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Simple_stateful_firewall
--- On Tue, 22 Mar 2016 08:26:15 +0000 Jayesh Badwaik <archlinux@jayeshbadwaik.in> wrote ---- On Tuesday, 22 March 2016 09:00:28 IST Jan Alexander Steffens wrote: > I hardly look at the wiki anymore, but I remember getting the same > impression—most recently I had to hunt through multiple pages about > encryption to get even a basic setup going. > > This is a problem. Initially, when the wiki was small, a page would have a small section, with instructions to get a basic system running. Now, probably as the wiki has grown more comprehensive, it is becoming more and more reference-based and the tutorial like properties are disappearing. May be it would nice if people would start writing tutorial like articles for simple enough uses. For example see [1]. -- Cheers Jayesh Badwaik [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Simple_stateful_firewall Exactly. It almost looks like it's done on purpose, to obfuscate information as much as possible. This would neatly reflect the elitist mindset of many arch users one comes across on the internet. My prime example is the 'Beginners Guide' from the wiki; I have an old version from around July 2015 as an installation checklist, to prevent me from forgetting any important steps. Thank $DEITY i have that printed on paper. Today it's completely watered down and littered with links. That guide is, as the name suggests, for 'beginners'. Many explanations have been stripped or are hidden behind links. You can't just print it, start the installation and be done in 30 minutes. No, now you either need a second machine to 'browse' the wiki or memorise the whole process. I'm afraid your suggestion to write tutorial like articles may appear too 'Ubuntu-esque' for some wiki editors...
On Mar 22, 2016 3:26 AM, "Jayesh Badwaik" <archlinux@jayeshbadwaik.in> wrote:
Initially, when the wiki was small, a page would have a small section,
with
Perhaps there could be a tutorial section for aetting up the basics, and a reference section. Or seperate pages, such as Program/Tutorial for setting up and Program as reference.
The main criterion is this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Help:Style#Hypertext_metaphor Specifically, "Before writing a specific procedure in an article or describing something in particular, always check if there is already an article that treats that part in detail: in that case, link that article instead of duplicating its content." This is not some conspiracy to "obfuscate information as much as possible", it is a matter of practicality for maintaining the wiki. I see the usefulness of all-in-one tutorials that users can simply read from start to finish, but such tutorials come with their own problems: - They often duplicate content from multiple articles. That means that they can quickly become inaccurate as other articles are updated, making wiki maintenance much harder. - They have to balance between simple/general and complex/specific. A general tutorial is most likely going to omit important information for some users, leaving some users struggling with errors or missing functionality. However a more specific tutorial becomes bloated as it tries to address corner cases, making it harder to read, and even more susceptible to the problem of article duplication. - By providing a "one-stop shop" they discourage users from reading important articles. The fact is that some aspects of Arch Linux are just complicated: they might require reading multiple long, complicated wiki articles in order to understand them. Every time you say "Just do X, Y, and Z" without giving the full context of these actions, you are sacrificing short-term readability for potentially more confused users in the long term. See also https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux#User_centrality. For example, take this discussion prompted by one of my big reverts of the AUR article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Talk:Arch_User_Repository#Uploading_AUR... articlclear_and_consise.2C_reverted_edit: <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Talk:Arch_User_Repository#Uploading_AUR_Packages.2C_clear_and_consise.2C_reverted_edit:>. Someone wanted to make the AUR article easier to read for new maintainers by adding a quick git intro for AUR4. Being an AUR maintainer means you need some familiarity with git, so this quick intro objectively made the article easier to read. So why did I revert it? Having worked with git professionally for years and having taught git to many, many people I know that it can be an extremely confusing tool even for people already familiar with other version control tools. Looking at that intro, I could picture the hoards of confused new AUR maintainers in the AUR subforum with horribly mangled git repositories on their hands because their only introduction to git was a tiny subsection of the AUR article. Being an AUR maintainer means using git, and git is complicated, so you need to take some time to learn it. Is that bad writing? Is that obfuscation? Is that elitist? I think it's just the way things are. All of that being said, I am not against including tutorial-like articles on the wiki. As long as they are clearly marked and kept separate from the main reference articles, I see no problem. I particularly like Kenneth's idea of having a Tutorial sub-article e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository/Tutorial. It would be even better if we could add a Template:Tutorial to such articles like "This tutorial may not cover every use-case. Consult the main article for comprehensive information and troubleshooting." Max
On Monday 21 March 2016 12:22:30 David C. Rankin wrote:
David, First, sorry to make you feel your work is undermined. There are two principles in my mind when doing Arch wiki admin work: "Remove duplication" & "Upstream first" 1. Remove duplication Duplication in wiki is just as bad as duplication in code. It is hard to maintain. When things change, usually only one location is updated and other places are left there out of date. When user see two sections document the same thing with different content, they will confuse. So some sections in "Beginner's Guide" is moved into their own pages. You could refer the talk page[1] to get the reson behind changes. 2. Upstream first Arch wiki emphasize upstream just as Arch package emphasize upstream. It is great that Arch Wiki could be the document for every Linux topic. But it is even greater if Arch wiki could be the gateway of upstream document. If the document is not Arch specific, we hope it is contributed to upstream first and link back in Arch wiki. This way, it is not only benifical to Arch, but also to Linux/Free software as a whole. Thus we specify below policy: * If the upstream documentation for the subject of your article is well- written and maintained, prefer just writing Arch-specific adaptations and linking to the official documentation for general information. [2] The best thing I like Arch: "Arch is a distribution that acts like just a distributor". Arch distribute packages which stay as close as upstream. We also hope Arch wiki could distribute our upstreams document to Arch user, not just duplicate the content here. It seems some contributors are disappoint about recent changes and I hope above explaination could make the change more logical. And for every change you do not like, please raise your concern in the Talk page[3]. Changes will be reverted if it is resonable. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Talk:Beginners'_guide [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Help:Style#Hypertext_metaphor [3] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Help:Discussion Fengchao
Am 23.03.2016 um 15:16 schrieb chaos Feng:
Some time ago I stumbled on selective transclusions in the wikipedia help.[1] It seems to be an extension, that allows display of a partial article inside another article.[2] Maybe that would help to collect the necessary information in the "Beginner's Guide" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SELTRANS [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Labeled_Section_Transclusion ProgAndy
Em 23/03/2016 5:39, ProgAndy escreveu:
Hi there ProgAndy's ideia seems nice. Since it's for begginers, it could be referencing a more detailed page and still provide short info. But I think this situation is really complex. I wouldn't be using Arch Linux if its configuration wasn't so malleable as it is. And I wouldn't see how malleable it is if it wasn't the way the wiki is. As said before, Arch is user-centred. For user-friendliness we have more "domestic" distributions, such as Manjaro, with their own wikis, which should be user-friendly. And we have, in the other hand, that thing with begginers. Firstly, I found hard to familiarize with the wiki and the distribution. And many people doesn't have time or conditions to learn stuff. But then, why use a distribution like Arch? As I said, it's complicated. But, since Arch is made for users which are willing to have a better understending of the system, I think things should be like that. And/Or ProgAndy's idea for the begginers article. Regards,
On Thu, 24 Mar 2016, sculy@riseup.net wrote:
This probably won't be feasible for now but may become necessary with further archwiki user-percieved degradation. A main open wiki and an archlinux basics closed wiki. For anything to get into the archlinux basics wiki it will have to be verified as working and whichever user verifies it as working gets credit for verification in the article along with the author and the verifier cannot be the author. Articles in the archlinux basics wiki could refer to articles in the archlinux main wiki but by themselves will be sufficiently informative to get packages functioning on a basic level. The arch basics wiki is closed to prevent what happened to the archlinux main wiki; edits can happen and those edits would not happen on original articles in archlinux basics until they had gone through verification and the edited version of the articles would live in incoming space until either verification or rejection had happened due to verification failure. I do realize any such change will take volunteer hours to do and for now the community probably hasn't got those available. I hope the pain level does not rise to a level sufficient to make such changes necessary too. --
I'll try to integrate what Feng and Maxwell already explained about the official ArchWiki policies regarding these matters.
What is the current policy for having wiki-contributions re-written?
The content added to the wiki is published under the GFDL [1], and any registered user can edit it as they wish. It's up to the other interested users to keep watching the content and protect it from counterproductive edits, see also [2]. There are no users paid for watching wiki pages, therefore no third party, not even admins, can be held responsible for how articles are changed. If an article is changed in a way that somebody thinks is deteriorating, it's only up to them to take action, possibly opening a discussion in the article's talk page (not in the forums or this mailing list, or just whining on IRC). [1] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html [2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchWiki:Contributing#The_most_importan...
This is not true at all. No information is replaced with broken links, which is what the cited passage means. If information is replaced with a link, it's thought that the same thing is explained better at the link target, which must be a valid (internal or external) page. If useful information is removed without pointing to a new location where to read it, it's a counterproductive edit (see above) and must be reverted or at least discussed. If you can cite specific examples, we can discuss them, otherwise this is only bikeshedding. As already explained by the other wiki staff, on the wiki it's strongly discouraged to duplicate content between - or within - articles, of course with exceptions only made where reasonably needed. Yes, this forces people to follow links instead of being able to read everything in a single page: while this seems a disadvantage at a glance, it's actually a big usability improvement, since having multiple pages talking about the details of the same topic will force users to compare all of them with each other to understand which one has the most accurate and up to date content, since inevitably some of them will be left unmaintained even in the medium term. In this thread we see a few people complaining about this policy, but this is not statistically relevant, as it's very unlikely that all the users who instead see this as an efficient policy will start a thread to say how happy they are with the way the wiki is organized, i.e. the policy is not going to change on the basis of a ML thread, just to release an official statement with my wiki admin hat on :)
If "tutorials" means systematically writing tl;dr sections for users who want copy-paste-ready code to get stuff to work in 5 minutes without understanding what they're doing and why, with all the future maintenance troubles that this will cause, then maybe those users should consider using other distributions that have (semi-)automatic configuration of the software and can support that kind of tutorials. Arch is too customizable to be able to support tutorials like that in general, since the various usage scenarios are usually too numerous, and users would end up writing tutorials for each of their personal scenarios, thus leading to more and more duplicated content with the same problems outlined above. The generic system installation is the most notable example where we don't accept tl;dr walkthroughs. Again, of course specific cases can be discussed, as we do have some articles that are used to show how the information from multiple pages can be combined together to reach a particular result.
The idea of using transclusions has been considered a few times in the past, but always discarded because it would make the maintenance of the "source" articles much more complicated, since the articles that transclude them should also be kept into account when doing changes. Also, I don't see the advantage that this would have over simple links pointing to the relevant article sections.
The "pain" level rising from such an implementation would surely be much more unbearable than that felt by some users when following links to read the content they need ;) Dario (Kynikos)
participants (13)
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chaos Feng
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Dario Giovannetti
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David C. Rankin
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Fons Adriaensen
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Frank Schaffhaeuser
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Jan Alexander Steffens
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Jayesh Badwaik
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Jude DaShiell
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Kenneth Jensen
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Maxwell Anselm
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ProgAndy
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Rashif Ray Rahman
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sculy＠riseup.net