Hi, as someone who initially was involved with setting up techbase + userbase + community I think that this separation of wikis came along with many disadvantages: - It is not always clear whether contents is better suited for techbase or community - Sometimes, you want to link a page from community to techbase or vice versa. Since we have different instances, dead links and all the MediaWiki features do not work. - Templates etc must be managed/setup twice/trice.
If I nowadays would have to make the decision again, I'd clearly vote for just one wiki. So I'd be in favor of just one wiki, and redirect e.g. techbase.kde.org to some dedicated page/portal on community.kde.org. And who codes decides: If there is anyone who would like to make this happend, I'd give my +1. Best regards Dominik On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 4:21 PM Juan Carlos Torres <juc...@kdemail.net> wrote: > Greetings, > > I won't be going into history but right now we have two developer-facing > wikis: TechBase and Community. On paper, the division between the two is > clear: "external" vs "community". In addition to still being in transition, > the distinction doesn't always work well in practice: > > - Tutorials and information for external developers (a.k.a. users of our > libraries/software) are pretty much the same tutorials new internal > developers would use. > - Readers are led to jump back and forth between the two wikis, which may > make them lose context. > - There is also a risk that documentation gets duplicated, put in the > wrong wiki, forgotten, etc. > > On the non-technical side, it also creates this "them vs us" division. Of > course, we do have hard rules on projects that get hosted on our > infrastructure as an official part of the KDE community. But putting up > that fence there might not be a good way to encourage "users of our > libraries" to eventually become part of the community and help develop > those libraries. > > That said, I am also playing my own devil's advocate here. "TechBase" is > admittedly a catchier name than "Community Wiki" and is symmetrical to > "UserBase". Searching for tutorials on Google shows more TechBase results > due to a longer history, page ranking, and stuff. So if I may, I'd like to > propose two somewhat opposing options on how to move forward with these two > wikis: > > OPTION 1: Sunset TechBase, put everything in Community Wiki > > PROS: > - All-inclusive, all-welcoming place for any kind and any level of > developer > - Everything is one place, easier to search, easier to see duplicates, no > jumping back and forth > > CONS: > - Could make the Community Wiki crowded > - Lose search ranking, lose a catchy name > > > OPTION 2: Redefine TechBase - make it really only about technical stuff: > tutorials, architecture/infrastructure, overviews. Remove the "external > developers" distinction. This will also be where projects will put their > technical docs for contributors. > > PROS: > - Keeps the TechBase name (and SEO stuff) without the external vs. > internal division > - Better defined purpose. Community Wiki will just be for the "human" side > of documentation: planning, minutes, project notes, etc. > > CONS: > - Still jumping back and forth between two wikis > - Some technical information have already been migrated to Community Wiki > > In addition to some material being outdated or irrelevant, having some in > one place but others in another doesn't help give new and current > developers clear path. I'd love to hear thoughts on the matter and other > options we might have with regards to the wikis. > > (Apologies for the rather long email. Please be sure to keep both > kde-devel and kde-www in the replies as I'm not subscribed to the latter.) > > > -- > Regards, > > Juan Carlos Torres > Jucato >
