Hi all,

Further to the discussion in the faq thread, I've installed a copy of
WordPress for the group to try out.

You can access it he
http://diyfaq.org.uk/wpress/

There's information on the homepage on how to login. Have a play, post
some stuff, and discuss the suitability of this cms for the purpose we
have in mind. If people don't like this particular app, and would prefer
a more wiki style app, please say so and I'll install a test wiki.


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:

Further to the discussion in the faq thread, I've installed a copy of
WordPress for the group to try out.

You can access it he
http://diyfaq.org.uk/wpress/

There's information on the homepage on how to login. Have a play, post
some stuff, and discuss the suitability of this cms for the purpose we
have in mind. If people don't like this particular app, and would prefer
a more wiki style app, please say so and I'll install a test wiki.

Just had a quick play. I made a comment on there but thought it best to
re-iterate here - presumably we don't want discussion/comment in two
places in parallel??

Anyway... my point was that I’m not sure what the point of the Wordpress
interface is - wouldn’t it just end up being a replacement or
alternative version of uk.d-i-y? As far as the test categories on the
right-hand side of the Wordpress screen go - well, don’t they equate to
“uk.d-i-y.general” “uk.d-i-y.home” and “uk.d-i-y.pushfit”; and the
majority of uk.d-i-y punters regularly reject the concept of subdividing
the ng? I think I feel a Wiki would be better; but I don't know how you
solve the inevitable edit-wars issues.

David

Lobster wrote:

Anyway... my point was that I’m not sure what the point of the Wordpress
interface is - wouldn’t it just end up being a replacement or
alternative version of uk.d-i-y?

Different people will have different takes on this; here's mine.

I don't see the suggested content management/publishing system as in any
way a replacement for the newsgroup. In fact, I don't see it as a place
to have discussions at all, any more than the main FAQ is.

I see it as a platform for publishing articles - these could be reviews,
how-tos, collections of links to other useful resources etc.

Perhaps one reason it looks like some kind of discussion forum is
because of the comments that one can post below an article. I thought
this would be a useful feature, but we can simply turn it off. That
would leave a simple article publishing system, where you log in,
publish an article, and place it in the relevant category.


As far as the test categories on the
right-hand side of the Wordpress screen go - well, don’t they equate to
“uk.d-i-y.general” “uk.d-i-y.home” and “uk.d-i-y.pushfit”; and the
majority of uk.d-i-y punters regularly reject the concept of subdividing
the ng?

Again, my take - the categories are just a way of organising the
articles - they aren't there for discussions.


I think I feel a Wiki would be better; but I don't know how you
solve the inevitable edit-wars issues.

This is the one thing that worries me most about a real wiki. My
preference is that whatever publishing platform we use, an author should
be the only person with editorial control over their articles. How do
others feel about this?


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:
Lobster wrote:

Anyway... my point was that I'm not sure what the point of the Wordpress
interface is - wouldn't it just end up being a replacement or
alternative version of uk.d-i-y?

Different people will have different takes on this; here's mine.

I don't see the suggested content management/publishing system as in any
way a replacement for the newsgroup. In fact, I don't see it as a place
to have discussions at all, any more than the main FAQ is.

I see it as a platform for publishing articles - these could be reviews,
how-tos, collections of links to other useful resources etc.

Perhaps one reason it looks like some kind of discussion forum is
because of the comments that one can post below an article. I thought
this would be a useful feature, but we can simply turn it off. That
would leave a simple article publishing system, where you log in,
publish an article, and place it in the relevant category.


As far as the test categories on the
right-hand side of the Wordpress screen go - well, don't they equate to
"uk.d-i-y.general" "uk.d-i-y.home" and "uk.d-i-y.pushfit"; and the
majority of uk.d-i-y punters regularly reject the concept of subdividing
the ng?

Again, my take - the categories are just a way of organising the
articles - they aren't there for discussions.


I think I feel a Wiki would be better; but I don't know how you
solve the inevitable edit-wars issues.

This is the one thing that worries me most about a real wiki. My
preference is that whatever publishing platform we use, an author should
be the only person with editorial control over their articles. How do
others feel about this?

Thanks for putting a tester up for us.

I've got 2 comments, and they may both seem trivial, but I do think
they matter.

First I couldnt see how to read the articles, so nor will many new
visitors, and this is an issue as it stands. Presentation not
technology of course.

2nd everyone is familar with wiki and knows how to use one. This isnt
so with the test site.


NT

wrote:

I've got 2 comments, and they may both seem trivial, but I do think
they matter.

First I couldnt see how to read the articles, so nor will many new
visitors, and this is an issue as it stands. Presentation not
technology of course.

2nd everyone is familar with wiki and knows how to use one. This isnt
so with the test site.


Ok, I will leave WordPress up there, and install a wiki. I'll try to get
this done later today.


--
Grunff

Owain wrote:

Would it be possible for anyone to be able to create or edit a wiki
page, but for the page then to be held in a pending file (and locked
from further editing) until one of a trusted band of account-holders
approves the amendment to take the changes live?

If the wiki presents the account-holders with a list of pages to be
approved with the before/after changes highlighted, it should be very
quick to approved/reject the changes. Most FAQ pages are fairly static
anyway. If we have 10 trusted people who log in once every two days to
the wiki system, any edit shouldn't have to wait more than abg 4.8 hours
to be made live, so the system would be fairly responsive.

I envisage the account-holders doing a minimum of editing and if a post
needs rewriting because of grammar/spelling etc to reject it with a note
asking the author to rewrite it.

IP address blocking to limit the number of creates/edits by
non-registsred users in a 24/48/72-hour period to prevent automated
spamming.

Rejected edits to be held on file with a record of the account-holder
who rejected it, (and perhaps a brief note of the reason) for a
reasonable period, in the interests of openness, and to allow the author
(or anyone) of a rejected edit to rewrite it and resubmit it.

All of these suggestions are good, and all quite possible - but. Unless
I can find an open source wiki that does all of the above, and anything
else we want, the only choice is to write one. This turns a "I'll spend
a couple of afternoons this week doing uk.d-i-y stuff" project into
"I'll spend 2 weeks writing a wiki that does exactly what we want"
project - which is sadly something I can't do at present.

As I type, I'm evaluating a bunch of different open source wikis for
functionality. I'll pick the one that comes closest, and put it up for
group evaluation.

As far as I'm concerned, this is just an experiment. If we don't find a
solution that most people are happy with, it'll have to wait til I, or
someone else, has the time to write one.


--
Grunff

wrote in message
ups.com...
2nd everyone is familar with wiki and knows how to use one.

Pretty presumptious. I'd guess that nine out of ten people posting here
haven't heeard of a wiki..

As far as I'm concerned uk.d-i-y is perfect as-is.

NT

Grunff wrote:
Owain wrote:

Would it be possible for anyone to be able to create or edit a wiki
page, but for the page then to be held in a pending file (and locked
from further editing) until one of a trusted band of account-holders
approves the amendment to take the changes live?

If the wiki presents the account-holders with a list of pages to be
approved with the before/after changes highlighted, it should be very
quick to approved/reject the changes. Most FAQ pages are fairly static
anyway. If we have 10 trusted people who log in once every two days to
the wiki system, any edit shouldn't have to wait more than abg 4.8 hours
to be made live, so the system would be fairly responsive.

I envisage the account-holders doing a minimum of editing and if a post
needs rewriting because of grammar/spelling etc to reject it with a note
asking the author to rewrite it.

IP address blocking to limit the number of creates/edits by
non-registsred users in a 24/48/72-hour period to prevent automated
spamming.

Rejected edits to be held on file with a record of the account-holder
who rejected it, (and perhaps a brief note of the reason) for a
reasonable period, in the interests of openness, and to allow the author
(or anyone) of a rejected edit to rewrite it and resubmit it.

All of these suggestions are good, and all quite possible - but. Unless
I can find an open source wiki that does all of the above, and anything
else we want, the only choice is to write one. This turns a "I'll spend
a couple of afternoons this week doing uk.d-i-y stuff" project into
"I'll spend 2 weeks writing a wiki that does exactly what we want"
project - which is sadly something I can't do at present.

As I type, I'm evaluating a bunch of different open source wikis for
functionality. I'll pick the one that comes closest, and put it up for
group evaluation.

As far as I'm concerned, this is just an experiment. If we don't find a
solution that most people are happy with, it'll have to wait til I, or
someone else, has the time to write one.

I presume you are familiar with the home forum of the Inquirer and a
sister site teh beehive? They have a pretty good discussion board
devised and I dare say would be willing to help you tailor one to suit.
(They seem to have developed a wiki.)

http://www.hermitscave.org/forum/ exemplar gratis:

Women. Don't waste energy faking orgasms. Most men couldn't give a ****
anyway and you could use the saved energy to hoover the house after
you've been banged.

Hermit's Kave is sponsored by Talisker™, the methylated spirit of the
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You've GASPED at the news on The Inquirer, you've RUN SCREAMING from
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Kave Charity

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* if you don't know what Talisker is, you shouldn't be editing this
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FrontPage (last edited 2006-11-09 18:07:55 by ip-213-135-226-27)

* Edit (Text)
* Edit (GUI)
* Info
* Attachments

Paul Andrews wrote:

As far as I'm concerned uk.d-i-y is perfect as-is.

I think I should clarify a couple of things - a statement like that
makes me think that perhaps some people have misunderstood what we're
discussing.

Like you, I think uk.d-i-y is perfect as it is - as a discussion medium.
It's a great format for having threaded discussions. However, it is an
awful format for publishing permanent articles. I know Google (and Deja
before it) does a great job of archiving the content, but it doesn't
present you with a nice set of easily navigable, searchable articles -
it presents you with lots of threaded discussions.

What we're talking about is setting up an article publishing system that
allows multiple contributers to contribute content. This would not be a
place for diy discussions, it would be a repository of knowledge, with
the content maintained by the authors.


--
Grunff

wrote:

2nd everyone is familar with wiki and knows how to use one. This isnt
so with the test site.

Ok, I've set up a wiki. After installing and trying out 8 different
ones, I came to the conclusion that MediaWiki (which is used by
Wikipedia) is way ahead of the rest. Here it is:

http://wiki.symworks.com/

I had to install it on a different server; the server on which the faq
resides doesn't have all the required modules.

Play away, and post your thoughts.


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:
wrote:

2nd everyone is familar with wiki and knows how to use one. This isnt
so with the test site.

I suspect many people (like me) have used them for reference but never
written them from scratch though, or even edited them...

Ok, I've set up a wiki. After installing and trying out 8 different
ones, I came to the conclusion that MediaWiki (which is used by
Wikipedia) is way ahead of the rest. Here it is:

http://wiki.symworks.com/

I had to install it on a different server; the server on which the faq
resides doesn't have all the required modules.

Play away, and post your thoughts.

Great stuff!

But 'scuse the ignorance: how does it get started off? doesn't it need a
shell or template or something rather than a blank canvas?

Is there a good general numpty guide somewhere?!

David

Lobster wrote:

But 'scuse the ignorance: how does it get started off? doesn't it need a
shell or template or something rather than a blank canvas?

Is there a good general numpty guide somewhere?!


I knew someone would ask this, and have just written a couple of
pointers on the main page. Please take a look, and let me know if more
detail is required.


--
Grunff

Owain wrote:

But yes, it does, otherwise all the articles will look differently messy
and won't interlink properly.

Agreed, a starting point would be to produce a navigation structure and
page template - but I think it would be nice to know that there are
enough people who would want to contribute to it before doing this.


Because it's powered by the same software, the help pages on Wikipedia
offer general guidance.

Also additional documentation he

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents


--
Grunff

Owain wrote:
Grunff wrote:

This is the one thing that worries me most about a real wiki. My
preference is that whatever publishing platform we use, an author should
be the only person with editorial control over their articles. How do
others feel about this?

That's not really how wikis work :-)

Yes, and this is an issue. We have so many threads on ukdiy with people
chasing each other down the page I can only expect the same there. Due
to the format that may mean edit wars.


Would it be possible for anyone to be able to create or edit a wiki
page, but for the page then to be held in a pending file (and locked
from further editing) until one of a trusted band of account-holders
approves the amendment to take the changes live?

If the wiki presents the account-holders with a list of pages to be
approved with the before/after changes highlighted, it should be very
quick to approved/reject the changes. Most FAQ pages are fairly static
anyway. If we have 10 trusted people who log in once every two days to
the wiki system, any edit shouldn't have to wait more than abg 4.8 hours
to be made live, so the system would be fairly responsive.

I envisage the account-holders doing a minimum of editing and if a post
needs rewriting because of grammar/spelling etc to reject it with a note
asking the author to rewrite it.

IP address blocking to limit the number of creates/edits by
non-registsred users in a 24/48/72-hour period to prevent automated
spamming.

Rejected edits to be held on file with a record of the account-holder
who rejected it, (and perhaps a brief note of the reason) for a
reasonable period, in the interests of openness, and to allow the author
(or anyone) of a rejected edit to rewrite it and resubmit it.

Owain

Sounds like a lot of work to get around what is a weak point in the
first place with wiki. Personally I wanted to keep the whole thing
simple, as the less work it all is the longer it lives and the more
articles it accumulates.

Tell me, so we know what the various options are, is there a way to use
wordpress but have it appear more like wikipedia? If so, could we get
the advantages of both worlds? User familiarity with wiki, but edit-war
proof.


NT

wrote:

Tell me, so we know what the various options are, is there a way to use
wordpress but have it appear more like wikipedia? If so, could we get
the advantages of both worlds? User familiarity with wiki, but edit-war
proof.

Yes, the look is very much up to us.

There are many other CMSs, WordPress is a good one, but it isn't the
only one. A good way of tackling this might be to start off by defining
what functionality we want.


--
Grunff

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:16:55 +0000, Grunff wrote:

Ok, I've set up a wiki. After installing and trying out 8 different
ones, I came to the conclusion that MediaWiki (which is used by
Wikipedia) is way ahead of the rest. Here it is:

http://wiki.symworks.com/

Thanks grunff that's great!

Play away, and post your thoughts.

OK I've put up an article I've been knocking up on DHW systems.
Please feel free to read & edit....

(search for Hot Water - there doesn't seem to be an article index)

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 23:09:57 +0000, John Stumbles wrote:

OK I've put up an article I've been knocking up on DHW systems.

Sir, sir ... Owain's been editing _my_ page!

BSF ... is there no way to upload images on the test system? Should be
In the sidebar, under toolbox, click "Upload file", according to The
Friendly Manual wot I Read.

John Stumbles wrote:

BSF ... is there no way to upload images on the test system? Should be
In the sidebar, under toolbox, click "Upload file", according to The
Friendly Manual wot I Read.


I've enabled this now. You must be logged in to upload files.


--
Grunff

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:22:03 +0000, Grunff wrote:

I'm having trouble with categories. I added a [[Category:Plumbing]] tag to
the Plumbing _page_ but when I followed the Category: link at the bottom
of the page I got:

"""""""
Editing Category:Plumbing
From DIYWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. To create the
page, start typing in the box below (see the help page for more info). If
you are here by mistake, just click your browser's back button. Preview

Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data.
Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging
back in.
"""""""

If I just 'Save page' with an empty page and again try to follow the
link I get the same error. However if I create a page with some random
text and save that I get correctly directed to the newly created Category
page. I can then edit it and delete the random text, save again and I
still get to the new page (which is what I want). Odd.

[Cc:to Talk:Main Page]

John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:22:03 +0000, Grunff wrote:

I'm having trouble with categories. I added a [[Category:Plumbing]] tag to
the Plumbing _page_ but when I followed the Category: link at the bottom
of the page I got:

"""""""
Editing Category:Plumbing
From DIYWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. To create the
page, start typing in the box below (see the help page for more info). If
you are here by mistake, just click your browser's back button. Preview

Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data.
Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging
back in.
"""""""

If I just 'Save page' with an empty page and again try to follow the
link I get the same error. However if I create a page with some random
text and save that I get correctly directed to the newly created Category
page. I can then edit it and delete the random text, save again and I
still get to the new page (which is what I want). Odd.

[Cc:to Talk:Main Page]


This is new to me too - I'll read some documentation and see what I can
find out.

So what are people's thoughts on a wiki? More people seem in favour of
this than a more controlled CMS (such as WordPress). If we have a
consensus forming, then there is no reason not to adopt this and start
building navigation and content.

Now that I've had a chance, I've created a subdomain for it, so from now
on please access it he

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/

I will leave the other subdomain in place for now, but it will get
deleted in a week or so.


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:

So what are people's thoughts on a wiki? More people seem in favour of
this than a more controlled CMS (such as WordPress). If we have a
consensus forming, then there is no reason not to adopt this and start
building navigation and content.

I really think it should be not possible for one person to edit
another's article. We know what it'll lead to otherwise. Good to enable
comments to be added afterward, but not in the original article itself.

Unless you want drivel or similar to correct all our articles.


NT

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:16:55 +0000, Grunff wrote:

wrote:

2nd everyone is familar with wiki and knows how to use one. This isnt
so with the test site.

Ok, I've set up a wiki. After installing and trying out 8 different
ones, I came to the conclusion that MediaWiki (which is used by
Wikipedia) is way ahead of the rest. Here it is:

http://wiki.symworks.com/

I had to install it on a different server; the server on which the faq
resides doesn't have all the required modules.

Play away, and post your thoughts.

Just thought it might be worthwhile wikifying the normal FAQ or
splitting it into separate articles to kick this off?

I'm convinced a wiki is the right way to go but you need to tie down
user rights as well as the system allows i.e anonymous edits aren't
ever allowed and every user has to provide a verifiable email address.
A group of sysops, preferably prolific (useful) contributors from here
would need to be appointed to stamp down on any Dribble/Bacon/Firth
type content that might sneak through.

While this site is not DIY related this url shows what can be done
with a wiki that doesn't look too much like wikipedia (it's running
standard mediawiki)

http://www.350z-tech.com/zwiki/Main_Page


--

Grunff wrote:

So what are people's thoughts on a wiki? More people seem in favour of
this than a more controlled CMS (such as WordPress). If we have a
consensus forming, then there is no reason not to adopt this and start
building navigation and content.

Now that I've had a chance, I've created a subdomain for it, so from now
on please access it he

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/

I will leave the other subdomain in place for now, but it will get
deleted in a week or so.

I like the wiki. A well tried and comfortable interface for most people,
I think.

Good luck with the project and thanks for the hosting and the work you
are putting in.

Steve

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 07:59:46 -0800, meow2222 wrote:

I really think it should be not possible for one person to edit
another's article. We know what it'll lead to otherwise. Good to enable
comments to be added afterward, but not in the original article itself.

That's different from the philosophy of wikis which are specifically about
collective authorship and ownership of content. It's also IMHO better
aligned with a usenet FAQ which is the collective knowledge and wisdom of
the group rather than of any particular members. (Not to be confused with
any naive PC dogma that everyone is equally expert: more about recognising
that there are usually many experts in any field and arriving at a
consensus.)

Unless you want drivel or similar to correct all our articles.

Wikipedia have exactly the same setup: anyone can edit anything, (except
in a very few cases) and generally it works. Helped by having history and
rollback to counter vandalism.

Shall we try it and see?

wrote:

I really think it should be not possible for one person to edit
another's article. We know what it'll lead to otherwise. Good to enable
comments to be added afterward, but not in the original article itself.

Unless you want drivel or similar to correct all our articles.


While my personal view tends to lean that way, we do seem to have a
majority who prefer the wiki approach to a more controlled CMS. As such,
I suggest we give the wiki a go.

Please feel free to build content and navigation, you can now consider
the wiki a permanent feature. If I need to move it onto another server
in future, all the content will move with it.

Just to repeat, please make sure you access it at this url:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/


--
Grunff

On 16 Dec 2006 07:59:46 -0800, wrote:

Grunff wrote:

So what are people's thoughts on a wiki? More people seem in favour of
this than a more controlled CMS (such as WordPress). If we have a
consensus forming, then there is no reason not to adopt this and start
building navigation and content.

I really think it should be not possible for one person to edit
another's article. We know what it'll lead to otherwise. Good to enable
comments to be added afterward, but not in the original article itself.

Unless you want drivel or similar to correct all our articles.

I don't think you *really* meant to say "correct"

--

Steve wrote:

I like the wiki. A well tried and comfortable interface for most people,
I think.

Good luck with the project and thanks for the hosting and the work you
are putting in.

You're most welcome, I look forward to seeing how it develops :-)


--
Grunff

Matt wrote:

I'm convinced a wiki is the right way to go but you need to tie down
user rights as well as the system allows i.e anonymous edits aren't
ever allowed and every user has to provide a verifiable email address.

This is where the fun starts.

How does everyone feel about this? Free-for-all editing? User account
only editing?


While this site is not DIY related this url shows what can be done
with a wiki that doesn't look too much like wikipedia (it's running
standard mediawiki)

I'm quite happy to do some styling if it proves sufficiently popular.
I'll even get our graphic designer to do a full site design if
necessary; that should result in a fantastic looking site.


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:

Steve wrote:

I like the wiki. A well tried and comfortable interface for most people,
I think.

Good luck with the project and thanks for the hosting and the work you
are putting in.

You're most welcome, I look forward to seeing how it develops :-)



I think it's really good - John's Domestic Hot Water Systems article really
shows the potential of what a good article might look like. Presentation is
very easy on the eyes IMO - a perfect complement to this group.

Good luck and thanks for taking the time

Tim

In message , Matt
writes
On 16 Dec 2006 07:59:46 -0800, wrote:

Grunff wrote:

So what are people's thoughts on a wiki? More people seem in favour of
this than a more controlled CMS (such as WordPress). If we have a
consensus forming, then there is no reason not to adopt this and start
building navigation and content.

I really think it should be not possible for one person to edit
another's article. We know what it'll lead to otherwise. Good to enable
comments to be added afterward, but not in the original article itself.

Unless you want drivel or similar to correct all our articles.

I don't think you *really* meant to say "correct"

But then, realistically, there's little chance of him actually making a
"contribution" or amendment


--
geoff

Matt wrote:
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:16:55 +0000, Grunff wrote:
wrote:

I'm convinced a wiki is the right way to go but you need to tie down
user rights as well as the system allows i.e anonymous edits aren't
ever allowed and every user has to provide a verifiable email address.
A group of sysops, preferably prolific (useful) contributors from here
would need to be appointed to stamp down on any Dribble/Bacon/Firth
type content that might sneak through.

I honestly think this is a mistake. It gives us 2 problems:

First anyone that comes along can for whatever reason make a mess of
articles. I'm not saying drigonig to bble but who knows who or for what
reason. And we know that edit wars are a real world problem. This in
turn means extra work for the maintainers, then non-clear cut cases get
discusses / argued over on ukdiy... none of this is necessary.

2nd there is a real tendency with this format iron out the real world
range of views that exist. The most informative pieces are where
differing views are presented in one thread, and the user makes what
they will of them - and neither piece is chopped about to lose or
change its meaning. And that approach means much less work input from
us. We can pretty much leave contributors to it.


NT

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:47:55 +0000, in uk.d-i-y Matt
wrote:

Just thought it might be worthwhile wikifying the normal FAQ or
splitting it into separate articles to kick this off?

I did suggest as much in the original thread but got no takers -
refers. Well it was in
Wordpress context then, but Wordpress/Wiki are similar contenders,
though Wiki seems to be getting the vote at the moment.

One thing I find difficulty with, and hasn't been answered yet, is
finding a complete contents list for articles in any of the examples
that have been mentioned. I hope I'm missing something, but in both
Wordpress and Wiki, it seems that you have to traverse all the links in
order to discover the totality of what's covered, whereas in the present
FAQ you have a clear contents list. So again the question I have is: can
a structure like the one I mentioned in the first thread be embodied in
a Wiki/Wordpress implementation? see
http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/beta/FAQ_Pr...tents_List.doc
or
http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/beta/FAQ_Pr...tents_List.pdf

A more important question is: How can the overall structure be
controlled so that articles are put in a logical place in a sub-tree in
the first place? I fear there will a tendency for new articles to be
just dropped onto the top level. If the 'master editors' don't like
where an article has been placed, will they be able to move it to a new
location? I am very worried by the statement in grunff's Wiki testbed
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/ that "... titles seem to be one thing that's
almost impossible to change in a wiki." If it's that hard to change a
title I imagine restructuring is even worse. I hope we don't have to
resort to deletion and recreation to achieve a 'move', that is, if you
*can* delete an article within the concept of edit history being
retained.

I'm convinced a wiki is the right way to go but you need to tie down
user rights as well as the system allows i.e anonymous edits aren't
ever allowed and every user has to provide a verifiable email address.

Most definitely one would need to exert control over who is given
accounts. Allowing every Tom, Dick and Drivel to register and edit is
asking for trouble. I would like to see new members' edits moderated (by
whom?) until such time as the moderator trusts them. And that moderation
ideally should not be a simple accept/reject criteria, but be an
interactive correspondence with the editors to offer feedback and
recommendations for bringing the style and presentation up to 'house
standard', in other word, the same as what happens with the main FAQ.

Being able to verify new contributors' email address and IP before
allowing them to have an editing powers is essential to prevent trolls
or the like getting in with fake IDs. A verification system, as used on
many sites, where you have to respond to an email sent to your address
should achieve that.

A group of sysops, preferably prolific (useful) contributors from here
would need to be appointed to stamp down on any Dribble/Bacon/Firth
type content that might sneak through.

Yes, there must be someone (or several) with the final say whether an
article is fit to publish or not. A facility for putting up drafts for
review/comment would be handy - or should those continue to be posted
here? or both?

While this site is not DIY related this url shows what can be done
with a wiki that doesn't look too much like wikipedia (it's running
standard mediawiki)

http://www.350z-tech.com/zwiki/Main_Page

That's a nicely done site but you still can't see what's below the top
level menu without actually traversing it. I suppose if that facility
does not exist in the Wiki, it wouldn't be too hard to have a piece of
non-Wiki software to traverse the site and create an index page.

Phil Addison wrote:
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:47:55 +0000, in uk.d-i-y Matt
wrote:

A more important question is: How can the overall structure be
controlled so that articles are put in a logical place in a sub-tree in
the first place?

The question of structure is important. 2 things I think that are
necessary a
1. A complete contents listing
2. Any article can appear in more than one place in the tree - many
discussions are germaine to more than one area. Classic examples are
gas/heating/plumbing, or electrics/style/energy saving and many others.


Most definitely one would need to exert control over who is given
accounts. Allowing every Tom, Dick and Drivel to register and edit is
asking for trouble. I would like to see new members' edits moderated (by
whom?) until such time as the moderator trusts them. And that moderation
ideally should not be a simple accept/reject criteria, but be an
interactive correspondence with the editors to offer feedback and
recommendations for bringing the style and presentation up to 'house
standard', in other word, the same as what happens with the main FAQ.

Talk about creating work... we dont need to create ourselves any work
if the article is like a forum thread in that others can add their own
comments after, but not cut it about.


Yes, there must be someone (or several) with the final say whether an
article is fit to publish or not. A facility for putting up drafts for
review/comment would be handy - or should those continue to be posted
here? or both?

Or maybe a vote rating of each article as t how accurate people think
it is. Just trying to get away from creating ourselves a pile of work.


NT

"Matt" wrote in message
Just thought it might be worthwhile wikifying the normal FAQ or
splitting it into separate articles to kick this off?

I'm convinced a wiki is the right way to go but you need to tie down




We recently changed the UK_Selfbuild FAQ to a WIKI
gave write access to a few, will save on updates.


http://www.sbfaq.borpin.co.uk/dokuwiki/doku.php

wrote:

First anyone that comes along can for whatever reason make a mess of
articles. I'm not saying drigonig to bble but who knows who or for what
reason. And we know that edit wars are a real world problem. This in
turn means extra work for the maintainers, then non-clear cut cases get
discusses / argued over on ukdiy... none of this is necessary.

2nd there is a real tendency with this format iron out the real world
range of views that exist. The most informative pieces are where
differing views are presented in one thread, and the user makes what
they will of them - and neither piece is chopped about to lose or
change its meaning. And that approach means much less work input from
us. We can pretty much leave contributors to it.


FWIW, I agree with your argument totally - I personally don't think a
wiki is the way to go. However, I think we're outvoted at present.


--
Grunff

Phil Addison wrote:

One thing I find difficulty with, and hasn't been answered yet, is
finding a complete contents list for articles in any of the examples
that have been mentioned. I hope I'm missing something, but in both
Wordpress and Wiki, it seems that you have to traverse all the links in
order to discover the totality of what's covered, whereas in the present
FAQ you have a clear contents list. So again the question I have is: can
a structure like the one I mentioned in the first thread be embodied in
a Wiki/Wordpress implementation?

The answer is yes.

With WordPress, it is trivial to generate a fully nested menu of all the
articles, either on the homepage or in the navigation menu.

With MediaWiki, it is a little more work, but still perfectly possible
to generate a navigation menu that contains links to all articles,
categorised by group/sub-group.


A more important question is: How can the overall structure be
controlled so that articles are put in a logical place in a sub-tree in
the first place? I fear there will a tendency for new articles to be
just dropped onto the top level. If the 'master editors' don't like
where an article has been placed, will they be able to move it to a new
location? I am very worried by the statement in grunff's Wiki testbed
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/ that "... titles seem to be one thing that's
almost impossible to change in a wiki." If it's that hard to change a
title I imagine restructuring is even worse. I hope we don't have to
resort to deletion and recreation to achieve a 'move', that is, if you
*can* delete an article within the concept of edit history being
retained.

The concept of categories in wiki context is a very loose one. An
article (or page, if you wish) should be thought of as a standalone
chunk of data, which is only related to other articles (including index
pages and article lists) by virtue of the links we insert into those pages.

This is in contrast with WordPress, where the article/category
relationship is clear.

Moving an article from one category to another in the wiki is simply a
matter of editing the article list, to place that article in the correct
category, and editing the article to reflect the category it's in.


Most definitely one would need to exert control over who is given
accounts. Allowing every Tom, Dick and Drivel to register and edit is
asking for trouble. I would like to see new members' edits moderated (by
whom?) until such time as the moderator trusts them. And that moderation
ideally should not be a simple accept/reject criteria, but be an
interactive correspondence with the editors to offer feedback and
recommendations for bringing the style and presentation up to 'house
standard', in other word, the same as what happens with the main FAQ.

Being able to verify new contributors' email address and IP before
allowing them to have an editing powers is essential to prevent trolls
or the like getting in with fake IDs. A verification system, as used on
many sites, where you have to respond to an email sent to your address
should achieve that.

I will take a look at the MediaWiki functionality to see what is
possible. Certainly email verification can be switched on, but I'm not
sure what moderation tools are built in.


Yes, there must be someone (or several) with the final say whether an
article is fit to publish or not. A facility for putting up drafts for
review/comment would be handy - or should those continue to be posted
here? or both?

But how does 'final say' ever work in a wiki context? Someone could come
along and simply edit the article afterwards.


I suppose if that facility
does not exist in the Wiki, it wouldn't be too hard to have a piece of
non-Wiki software to traverse the site and create an index page.

Harder than you might think, again because of the lack of category
structure within the database. This is one of the reasons I dislike the
idea of using a wiki for this - I like structure ;-)


--
Grunff

Rick Hughes wrote:

We recently changed the UK_Selfbuild FAQ to a WIKI
gave write access to a few, will save on updates.


http://www.sbfaq.borpin.co.uk/dokuwiki/doku.php


Now that's a nice wiki - is that folder tree part of DokuWiki, or
something you added on?


--
Grunff

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 17:56:42 -0800, meow2222 wrote:

Phil Addison wrote:
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:47:55 +0000, in uk.d-i-y Matt
wrote:

A more important question is: How can the overall structure be
controlled so that articles are put in a logical place in a sub-tree in
the first place?

In mediawiki you put a tag in the article saying what category it belongs
to.

The question of structure is important. 2 things I think that are
necessary a
1. A complete contents listing

If the FAQ gets very big this becomes unmanagegable so a good search
engine is probably more useful. Arguably users are more likely to search
for 'boiler' than navigate some tree such as plumbing - gas - appliances
- boilers

2. Any article can appear in more than one place in the tree - many
discussions are germaine to more than one area. Classic examples are
gas/heating/plumbing, or electrics/style/energy saving and many others.

In mediawiki one can assign an article to more than one category so e.g.
gas boilers might be in categories plumbing heating & gas.


Most definitely one would need to exert control over who is given
accounts. Allowing every Tom, Dick and Drivel to register and edit is
asking for trouble.

And yet this is exactly what wikipedia does and they survive, possibly by
virtue of there being enough good folks keeping things sane to deal with
daftness, and it bing relatively easy to revert to earlier versions of
material.

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 12:00:34 +0000, in uk.d-i-y Grunff
wrote:

Rick Hughes wrote:

We recently changed the UK_Selfbuild FAQ to a WIKI
gave write access to a few, will save on updates.


http://www.sbfaq.borpin.co.uk/dokuwiki/doku.php


Now that's a nice wiki - is that folder tree part of DokuWiki, or
something you added on?

Are you referring to this ?
http://www.sbfaq.borpin.co.uk/dokuwi...faq:electrical

It almost meets what I want to see; and it would if there was an always
visible link that generated it to full depth (or perhaps to optional
depths) on demand. There is also a 'move' feature in docuwiki, so that
answers an earlier query.

As is probably clear, I am new to wiki internals With the examples
mentioned so far, I find their opening page very cluttered and not at
all clear where the meat is found. Is the pre-occupation with explaining
what a wiki is, and references to developers tools, built-in to these
wikis, or is it just an the way the author(s?) decided to do it?

Does it tell us something that although the sbfaq is done as a docuwiki,
the hosting site is actually done in Wordpress?

Have you found the http://www.wikimatrix.org/ which compares many (all?)
wikis?

I'm all questions today!!

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:58:02 -0800, meow2222 wrote:

First anyone that comes along can for whatever reason make a mess of
articles. I'm not saying drigonig to bble but who knows who or for what
reason. And we know that edit wars are a real world problem. This in
turn means extra work for the maintainers, then non-clear cut cases get
discusses / argued over on ukdiy... none of this is necessary.

Well it's very early days yet but so far exactly the opposite is
happening: far from sqabbling over content nobody is putting any in!