Lobster wrote:

And doesn't the fact that it is sitting there in it's current form
rather suggest that the concept of a diy Wiki, however well-intentioned,
is fundamentally flawed?

There are flaws with the concept certainly. Although the same is true of
our traditional FAQ approach.

It seems only fair to highlight there are things wrong with it, and give
the author chance to give it another going over. If not we can always
put it right. (or as I suggested in:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...installati on

Have the useful stuff out of it (with the errors corrected) and merge it
into existing articles that cover most of the subject already).

It's a similar situation to the articles John Rumm cited here the other
day in his thread "electrical stuff" - AFAICS having been alerted to a
John's new wiki article lots of people duly suggested and discussed
various changes here in the newsgroup, whereupon John went off and
tweaked his article. But that's exactly what's always happened here
historically when people have penned articles for the uk.d-i-y FAQ,

It is, although the wiki adds a little speed to the system in that
changes can be implemented faster. Its also an opportunity to fiddle
with presentation and layout of material a little more to make it more
accessible without placing an unreasonable maintenance burden on Phil
(the FAQ maintainer) to keep updating things.

The wiki is still early days for the group, and I expect not many people
have plucked up the nerve to have a fiddle with it. It takes a little
time to work out a comfortable way of working with it that is
cooperative but still leaves authors enough control.

isn't it? It's not how a wiki is meant to work. And if John hadn't
specifically invited the critique, there would have been none...

Mostly but not totally true, you will note if you look at the history,
that Andy W and John S have made many improvements to it by themselves
as well.

Posting here is obviously a good way of drawing attention to a new
section, as one would for a new FAQ entry.


--
Cheers,

John.

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