[documentation] does this seem funny to anyone else?

[Steve Dondley]

Garfied's post prompts me to put in my two cents on the wiki phenom:
really overrated.

Everyone points to the success of Wikipedia. That's great. But that's
one project. And I think it's wrong to attribute it's success to the
technology behind it. In fact, I think it succeeded despite the
underlying technology (learning the arcane markup is quite maddening
in my opinion).

Maybe I don't get out into the wilds of the web enough, but I've seen
far more disorganized, unreadable disasters with wiki then I have
successful projects.

On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Joshua Brauer <joshua at brauerranch.com> wrote:
> I'd thought about this off and on over the years. Then recently Larry
> Garfield wrote a piece that encapsulated the situation brilliantly pointing
> out that Drupal.org effectively *has* a wiki:
>
>  http://www.garfieldtech.com/drupal-org-wiki
>
>  As Larry suggests in his article, for me the idea of adding non-HTML markup
> to the documentation of a system that is all about building and serving HTML
> is counter-productive. Users with the desire need only ask and they can have
> edit rights on content and they need to know very rudimentary HTML. If
> someone doesn't know the most basic of HTML perhaps a few hours spent
> learning it would be a worthwhile pre-requisite to contributing to the
> documentation of a system that is all about HTML.
>
>  Josh
>
>  ---------------------------
>  Joshua Brauer
>
>  Brauer Ranch Ltd. Co.
>  http://BrauerRanch.com
>
>  Making the world better through Drupal.
>
>
>
>  On Apr 2, 2008, at 8:56 AM, Steve Dondley wrote:
>
>
> > Walter,
> >
> > This proves that following the "Build it and they will come" is a
> > gamble. You need buy-in and agreement from others most of the time.
> >
> > To get buy-in, you need karma. To get karma, you need to contribute.
> > To contribute, you need to work within the system as it is.
> >
> > Call it politics or whatever, but that is how humans haved tended to
> > operate for the last 3 million years. I don't think it's likely to
> > change anytime soon.
> >
> > That is why my advice to ricco is to not ask the community to bend to
> > his needs but to have him bend to the community's needs. If the
> > community jumped at every request from every person, no matter how
> > worth, nothing would get done. You need to first earn the reputation
> > to be able to persuade others that your way is superior.
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 10:28 AM, Walter GR <waltergr at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > > ricco at webulite.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > lol... this kind of cracks me up. In a frustrating kind of way :)
> > > > <snip>
> > > >
> > > > Cheers! Ricco
> > > >
> > >
> > > In June of last year, I suggested that doing documentation-as-a-wiki
> > > might be a good idea.
> > >
> > > I created one, much to others' chagrin.  They suggested I join the
> > > documentation team.  I decided to pursue that route.
> > >
> > > As I had a wiki at my disposal, I decided to use it for proposing some
> > > changes to the documentation.  I spent *hours* making improvements, and
> > > then posted a link requesting feedback:
> > >
> > > http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/2007-June/005657.html
> > >
> > > Nobody gave any feedback.  I don't even know if anyone looked at my
> > > proposed changes.
> > >
> > > Best of luck, Ricco.
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > The Online Slang Dictionary - Now with a thesaurus!
> > > http://onlineslangdictionary.com/
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> > > List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Prometheus Labor Communications, Inc.
> > http://prometheuslabor.com
> > 413-572-1300
> >
> > Communicate or Die: American Labor Unions and the Internet
> > http://communicateordie.com
> > --
> > Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> > List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
> >
>
>
> --
>  Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
>  List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/
>



-- 
Prometheus Labor Communications, Inc.
http://prometheuslabor.com
413-572-1300

Communicate or Die: American Labor Unions and the Internet
http://communicateordie.com