Wikiworkgroup | Main topic

[twodogs]

Bongo,

I'm guessing that there are a few people who are really working hard on this, but a lot of your team is in wait mode. If you could give us your idea of the path to completion, then others could get to work. We could shift from a sequential effort to a parallel effort. In another post, you asked everyone to identify obsolete wiki articles. That's too broad. But if you said "Twodogs, go through all the Telecom wiki articles and identify the obsolete ones", then I could say "yes, boss".
So, even though we might not have the wiki structure in place yet, I think we should identify who will be responsible for what chapters. That's what I was getting at in my previous post. I don't care if you use the timeline I suggested - maybe someone else has a better idea. I just think that this is a big job and we need to get lots of people working on it.

Bongo, give us your idea of what we are embarking upon. I suggested a sequence a few weeks ago where you would be the supervisor, and the rest of us would be the worker bees. It also seems like you are asking for us to do things that I thought would come much later (rewrites and new content). I think the sequence below makes your life a whole lot easier and would get us up and running faster.

    Create the new wiki structure/framework (programming skills required)
    Identify the chapter leads (maybe one or two chapters per volunteer)
    Have each chapter lead fill out his chapter by cut/paste from existing content. The first level would come mainly from the manual. Second and third levels would mostly be wiki articles. This would be more of a sorting effort instead of a huge rewrite (which could take forever).
    Release the new wiki. Beers for everyone. There would not be much new content, but at least people could finally find what they are looking for (our biggest problem).
    Improve/Maintain. Once we have everything properly sorted and organized, we will discover many areas for improvements. This is where we can draft rewrites. The chapter leads can start tracking down the experts and asking for updates (making every effort to avoid bugging the devs).

[bongowongo]

Bongo,

I'm guessing that there are a few people who are really working hard on this, but a lot of your team is in wait mode. If you could give us your idea of the path to completion, then others could get to work. We could shift from a sequential effort to a parallel effort. In another post, you asked everyone to identify obsolete wiki articles. That's too broad. But if you said "Twodogs, go through all the Telecom wiki articles and identify the obsolete ones", then I could say "yes, boss".
So, even though we might not have the wiki structure in place yet, I think we should identify who will be responsible for what chapters. That's what I was getting at in my previous post. I don't care if you use the timeline I suggested - maybe someone else has a better idea. I just think that this is a big job and we need to get lots of people working on it.

Hi Twodog, I am new at this too, and I have been away for some days.
So I am picking up where I left of.

What I want to do first is get a good basis, purps has been coming along quite well but I guess he is busy now too.

look at this page
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Wikiworkgroup

• get a good template to work with, and to be honest I suck at templates.
  If the template is there we have a good and easy basis for the gruntwork. This needs research
• Redesigning the front page, because the frontpage is non standard so it doesn't depend heavily on a template, it can be done now.

I also got some critisism from phenigma that my approach of making draft pages of existing pages is not a good idea. I would really like hear people's take on this.

[purps]

Please accept my apologies for the slackness, just quit my job (don't worry, I now have another) and house hunting has started again. I will finish off the bits I started ASAP, as well as the main page.

[twodogs]

I wasn't trying to accuse my new friends of slackness. I was just feeling kind of slack myself. I know all about life transitions - we moved to Denver, ripped down and rebuilt half the house, and I'm looking for a new job (unfortunately I can't say I have one now!)

twodogs

[bongowongo]

Please accept my apologies for the slackness, just quit my job (don't worry, I now have another) and house hunting has started again. I will finish off the bits I started ASAP, as well as the main page.

Did you see my posts regarding the "draft page status"
And I want to focus on a wiki template, so others can start using them.

[purps]

I wasn't trying to accuse my new friends of slackness. I was just feeling kind of slack myself. I know all about life transitions - we moved to Denver, ripped down and rebuilt half the house, and I'm looking for a new job (unfortunately I can't say I have one now!)

twodogs

No that's not what I meant, I was only talking personally, just don't want you guys to think I have lost interest. And yes, I have read your blog with great interest.

Did you see my posts regarding the "draft page status"
And I want to focus on a wiki template, so others can start using them.

I just responded, will look at that first.

Will attack the template next. Does anything exist at this moment in time? Will the instructions as to how to approach the writing of the article be included (language, pronoun use, etc) or would this be a separate page?

[twodogs]

I can start trying to establish a new wiki structure if I can get set up with a wiki administrator password.

[bongowongo]

I can start trying to establish a new wiki structure if I can get set up with a wiki administrator password.

Is your name twodogs in the wiki?

[bongowongo]

I have opened an IRC channel on freenode
It is called #linuxmce-wiki.

Please join.

Also twodogs could you join the channel so we can talk through your plans

[twodogs]

I'll try to catch you on IRC. Basically, I'd like to create a new sidebar on the main wiki page with a few headings and subheadings in order to model our proposed wiki format.

[twodogs]

I'm Twodogs in the wiki, yes. And I'm logged into the IRC channel.

[twodogs]

Here is what I'm talking about. Look at the left to see a new "Contents" sidebar. Clicking an item in the sidebar reveals a drop down menu. The second picture shows what happens when you click "media". All wiki articles relating to media are linked to the various subheadings. The sidebar is always visible and all content is no more than 2 clicks away.

[Marie.O]

I am not sure it is easily possible to have the sub-headings displayed dynamically. And I don't think it is really needed. As I wrote in IRC, please provide the necessary landing pages that should be called from your first level of content, and I will change the sidebar accordingly.

[twodogs]

The drop down sidebars are not strictly necessary, but I think they make things a whole lot easier for users. It would provide a site map always in view. Its not practical to shift all the second level sidebar items up to the first level - too many of them. Not trying to make work for people which is why I was volunteering to give it a try. Here is a link...

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Thread:Project:Support_desk/Drop-down_Sidebar

As for the landing pages, I think it is basically all wiki content. Again I'm not trying to overwhelm anyone with busywork. I thought we could dole out responsibility for the different sections to our wiki volunteers.

[Marie.O]

How about, as a start, you provide the main set of articles for the first level of headings, to get going? As soon as you have those, I shall modify the sidebar accordingly, and we take it from there?