Am 23.03.2016 um 15:16 schrieb chaos Feng:
On Monday 21 March 2016 12:22:30 David C. Rankin wrote:
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,
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places are left there out of date.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.
Hello,
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
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
