[linux-audio-user] Re: Wiki (Was: Attracting more Linux audio developers)

ico at vt.edu ico at vt.edu
Fri Dec 15 18:03:07 EST 2006


> > Please do not take what follows personally
>
> I'm very hard to offend;).

Good! :-)

>
> > I know for sure that this particular thing bothers only you
>
> ;), not so sure.
>
> The problem is, I don't believe in a documentation system where you
> have to register; I've seen too many that gets updated so very
> infrequent.

And I do appreciate your stance. However, please note that your statements have
provided plenty of "I"s, but no "We"s. Hence, I would like to hear what others
have to say about this.

> My answer was that the user does this himself. Each time the user
> visits the wiki, if there is spam there, he reverts it to a previous
> revision.
>
> We can have a feed, like Fugal, that notifies us of updates; if
> someone spams we'll know immediately, but nevertheless, a user is
> fully capable of reverting to a previous revision; it's not like a
> wiki is unknown territory.

My inbox is alredy a mess. The last thing I need is another mess waiting to
happen to flood my inbox asking extra time from me which I already have too
little of. The only reason I am replying to this topic so verbosely is because:

1) I am very much interested in this particular topic and
2) it is the end of semester here and I can actually afford to reply

Again, if you volunteer to maintain this overhead (either by organizing a
dedicated 0-day response team who will manage this or whichever other way you
wish to do that in order to ensure that the University server does not host
Viagra adds and other messages of questionable nature), I will gladly provide
space for such a Wiki. "Users will take care of it" does not cut it in the real
world because:

1) It creates a paradoxal situation where no one is responsible for misuse,
meaning linuxaudio.org will be responsible and subsequently may lose its right
to be hosted by a University for free
2) Does not guarrantee 0-day response

Both of these points can be summarized to "the model yields no structure one can
uphold when facing circumstances which require accountability."

> There should be no reason to maintain a wiki in the common sense, as
> far as I believe.
>
> > on behalf of linuxaudio.org I am inclined to make an offer to the
> > Linux audio community that favors majority
>
> I understand your position, but also understand my disbelief. I can
> understand that people don't want spam, but I only see less
> contributors with such a scheme. I can only speak for my own behavior,
> seeing myself editing frequent Fugal entries, in this context. In
> other contexts, when I stumble over incorrect or outdated entries of
> information at sites where you have to register, I just continue my
> Internet navigation, except some instances where I send a mail to the
> administrator, asking him to free the wiki.

I appreciate that but I am also equivalently skeptical about your model based
upon my Internet/admin experience. I also fear that at the end of the day most
users will prove to be indiferrent, or worse yet, they will post to the LAU
list how a particular page is mangled asking someone else to take care of it,
ultimately forcing me or someone else in linuxaudio.org to clean-up.
And that is something I am not ready to do. Rather, I would like to see
some kind of an accountability. For Dave's legacy sakes, I think we owe it to
him to provide resource with the same kind of accountability as his site.

> > I can almost guarantee it that Wikipedia will decline a full-blown
> > documentation page simply because Linux audio software, just as any other
> > software is a moving target which may radically change, making
> documentation
> > outdated, and/or become deprecated, making respective wiki pages obsolete,
> > and as such should not be a part of an online encyclopedia.
>
> I'm not so sure about my stance on wikipedia and I'd like to hear what
> other people feel. I know that I will back such an effort if people
> want it and of course, contribute.
>
> > Hence, this one will be out of the race before you know it (unless
> > we use it as a general introduction/portal to other resources in
> > which case it does not collide with the existence of a dedicated
> > Wiki, but rather, it is there to redirect traffic
>
> Yes, but the wikipedia issue will not go away. As long as you have
> reference, wikipedia will keep the entry, because an encyclopedia
> documents the past and the present.

That would be even worse, as that would simply perpetuate current problem of
having many documentation resources for the same app, some of which are
outdated, and others which outright conflict each other.

>
> > As far as the LAD Wiki is concerned, I am not sure which one you are
> > referring to
>
> The potential future one that you talk about.
>
> > as long as we propose fragmentation of the humble Linux audio scene
> > because of our hard-line stands/preferences [..] we will be spending
> > immense amounts of time and effort reinventing the wheel.
>
> It's more a fact. If you make a registration required wiki, someone
> WILL make a non registration required wiki.

Again, fine. If that is what the community wants, we shall have it. I've made
my proposal under the terms which were the best I could offer. My proposal is
non-coercive nor definite, it is simply the best what linuxaudio.org could
offer. Now, it is up to you and the rest of the community to decide what you
wish to do about this.

> How about just setting up a wiki, have it open and see how it
> goes?. How about just pointing wiki.linuxaudio.org to the Fugal wiki,
> work on it and see how the cookie crumbles?.

As long as there is a path of accountability as stated above, I am fine with
setting up a wiki.

Linking Fugal site is something that needs to be discussed between
linuxaudio.org and Fugal, hence I feel that I am not in a position to give you
a definite answer on that particular point...

Best wishes,

Ico



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