I think having any barriers to entry for contributing documentation will without doubt cut down the amount contributed. If quality becomes an issue then policies like these might make sense to look at, but until then a fully open system that lets people improve the content over time and add when it makes sense seems far preferable.
-Jeff Meikel Brandmeyer wrote: > Dear Clojurians, > > I found out, what the problem with the wiki is. > > On 15th of November there was a new "feature" installed > on Wikibooks: "Flagged Revs"[1]. Its sublime aims are to > improve the quality of the presented material by freezing > known good revisions. In between, changes can be made, > but are not shown to anonymous users. Special users > so-called "editors" resp. "reviewers" can review a page > and then release a new version. This should be familiar > to any software developer. > > However such status must be assigned by some administrator. > That means, that we are now basically locked out. We can > change the wiki, but it is not shown to the public. > > The whole system also includes some kind of ranking > system for grammar, style, content and correctness. This > ranking is intended to provide a quality measure for > readers to judge how much trust they should put into > the content, or which quality they should expect from > the writing. > > However, as with all these KPI systems: you get what > you measure. > > - For grammar and spelling: we have a lot of contributors > from around the world - Asia, India, Europe, North and > South America, Australia. A lot of these people (including > myself) are non-native english speakers. There will > always be mistakes in spelling or grammar. > > - For style: with so many contributors it is hard to keep > a consistent style across sections written by different > people. Let alone writing in a "compelling" style... > > Concerning coverage and correctness, I fully go with > the mentioned points (see link below). The content must > be correct and should cover all important aspects + x. > And if that is not the case one has to fix it. > > Still I don't like this new system. > > First of all we have to install some group, which is > assigned "Editor" status. Otherwise we cannot release > our own contributions. Some John Doe from Wikibooks > is certainly not qualified to judge coverage or correctness > unless he is a Clojure programmer himself. > > Nevertheless, the situation is as it is. We have to cope > with it and should discuss how to handle the wiki. I see > the following possible ways: > > - Abandon the wiki completely. People don't read it anyway, > and if they do their comment is "atrocious". > > - Move to another hosting platform and continue with > the "self-organising wiki" approach. > > - Stick with wikibooks and install some editor group, which > reviews contributions. Fixes spelling and grammar. Checks > correctness. Takes care for a consistent style. etc. > > I strongly oppose the first point. I put it here only for > completeness sake. > > How do we proceed? Any thoughts? > > Sincerely > Meikel > > [1]: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Article_validation > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
