Hi Karsten, On Mon, 2010-11-01 at 17:10 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > Right, that's fine; like Ian, I was mainly pointing out that the > wiki[1] is (at least) dual-purpose, so putting a link to it's > front-page might come from two different purposes. The reason I put the link in the navbar was specifically to support contributors. A contributor might want to look up the developer schedule (linked to from the wiki front page) or look up a SIG or use the search box to look up meeting minutes. I think the wiki would probably be most useful with an interface similar to the front of google.com to be honest. For users, the website itself is speckled with direct links to useful documentation on the wiki. I believe sending someone new to Fedora to the front page of a wiki is a really bad idea (too much jargon, too much content that has little to do with their needs), so we approached it by sending them to targeted wiki pages based on specific contextual needs. Ultimately I think it would be awesome to have a version of Fedora Community (http://admin.fedoraproject.org/community) that covered all contributors, not just package maintainers, had knowledge of common workflows and guided folks through them, and worked properly such that the wiki wasn't really necessary. You want to use fedora, you go to fedoraproject.org, you want to create/work-on fedora, you go to something like fedoracontributors.org. > What is the front page of the wiki as a destination? - A searchbox to insider info - An exhaustive listing of subprojects - Updated general news about the project (current active release, current schedule) I have to say 99% of my own visit to fedoraproject.org/wiki are to access its searchbox. > Considering what is now on the real front page, the top bits of the > wiki front page looks repetitive. Perhaps it should be trimmed to the > two identified purposes and make the gateways clear: end-user > tutorials[2] and pages for contributors-by-contributors. The latter > would be where to link "Contributors" from the fp.o front page. > Then we link to those two gateway pages instead of the front page of > the wiki. Otherwise, the _only_ reason I can see to link to /wiki > directly is to say, "Here is our wiki, loveable mess that it is." > (Read below for my argument that a wiki is not just a technology.) That kind of sounds like a splash page to me, and generally splash pages are a bad idea. Why not just make a decision and decide the wiki is pages for contributors-by-contributors? The thing is, having documentation repeated on docs.fpo and on the wiki is really confusing. *I* actually am not sure which I should be using and I generally look to docs.fpo first and point non-contributor users to docs.fpo only. The only documentation that I see in that directory that isn't on docs.fpo is documentation on using the wiki itself (Help:Wiki structure, Help:Editing) or are definitely contributor-specific (Creating GPG Keys, Infrastructure Licensing, Fonts spec template notes). I think users who aren't contributors would be better served by a knowledgebase than the wiki... I mean, here's some common first-time user questions that have been raised in my Girl Scouts class and the wiki results: = How do I play youtube videos? Search terms: "youtube" - Features/Swfdec - QA/Meetings/20100222 - Upstream Release Monitoring - FWN/Issue110 - KulbirSaini = How do I install new software? Search terms: "install software" - File:Tours Fedora8 009 Install Software.png - File:LuyaTshimbalanga AnacondaGUIEnhanced anaconda Install Default Software-mockup.png - ... lots of images - Anaconda/NetworkIssues -Interviews/EricSandeen - Packaging:PHP = How do I move files from my computer to my USB stick? (or vice-versa) Search terms: "move files" - Interviews/EricSandeen - MichaelPeters - Packaging:Minutes20070626 - Infrastructure/Meetings/2007-02-08 - Extras/SteeringCommittee/Meeting-20060831 Search terms: "transfer files" - Legal:Licenses/LicenseAgreement1 - Interviews/EricSandeen - FWN/Issue95 - EPEL/Reports/Week51 - Legal:Licenses/LicenseAgreement7 These results are pretty bad. Try answering those questions without search, starting from the front page. Pretend you are a girl scout if you have to. It will start looking pretty hopeless 3 or 4 clicks in. > [1] Somewhat OT: On your point about "wiki == a technology", I think > it is more than just a technology brand/type (as Drupal is a > brand/type of CMS.) It also means a certain type of highly successful > open community documentation and collaboration. I think wikis are a great way for contributors to collaborate, and absolutely have the potential to be highly successful, and some really have been. In many cases, though, they are confusing, unpolished, and often out-of-date for users who have no immediate intention of contributing. I say this having done several usability tests that involved going to our wiki (via the website or google results) to try to figure out something and ended in confusion and failure. (Why does this have a different template? Why does this refer to "FC6"? There's two different pages that say how to do the same thing differently - which is the right one to follow?) > > A wiki is a kind of content management solution that works in a > certain way that is different from all other types of CMS as to be a > category of it's own. People _do_ come looking to "contribute to the > wiki": as a generic noun. The technology has surpassed being just a > type of IT solution. > > [2] For example, it might be useful to (clean-up and) link to > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:Documentation as a > documentation help source. Karsten, I understand your point, our wiki has a lot of potential. I really believe it's not something we want to be pointing users at right now, though. ~m -- websites mailing list websites@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/websites
