[Vim-l] Ideas go grow vim.wikia.com

[hermitte at free.fr]

On 2/16/08, Robert Melton <rmelton at gmail.com> wrote:
> The reason I am writing this little-post (I was advised to by John
> Beckett) is a plea to change the front-page (and to a lesser degree,
> the focus) of the wiki.  Beyond that, to open-up the culture to be
> less "tip" focused, and more vim focused, in order get people more
> involved.  So let me outline what I think are the main problems with
> the site as is.
>
> #1. It doesn't address the primary reason people come to the site, to
> get help.
> The lack of a focus being put on what I imagine (please correct me if
> I am wrong) the vast majority of people who come to the site seems
> somewhat misguided.

Hum ... Even if they are misguided, are they really targeting the
correct place to find help ?

Static sites (as far as I see it, a wiki is a very static site) are not
the best place. They can concentrate a lot of ancient wisdom in the sense
for those who know how to search, there may be the responses to their
questions somewhere. But the best place is a dynamic community (vim
mailing list_s_, news:comp.editors, irc, ...)

> Most of the features on the front-page seem to make it very busy, as
> if someone is looking to "browse" tips when they come to the site,
> which I think is unlikely, they need help!

Well, I can't speak for others, but when I search help on a topic, I'm
usually able to identify a sub-domain (e.g. regex) of a given subject
(e.g. vim) related to my problem. I like having everything organized as
hierarchies.

As a matter of fact, I often ignore sites without any hierarchical
organization of their contents.


Now, I have to admit there is still a lot to reorganize, to merge, ...,
the existing tips -- I haven't been a big help these last months.
Plus some categories are quite difficult to figure out.

> Now, when I say "FAQ" -- I don't mean the entire VIM FAQ, I mean let
> grow naturally -- let people add questions, the common questions will
> be answered, and you link to the real VIM wiki for the less common
> questions.

The more noise there is, the less use the site will bring. As for now
there is a lot of noise. The initial vimtips were extremely redundant,
people were adding tips already addressed more than 10 times for some of
them.
It may be interesting to have an official FAQ, but if we let it go out of
control like the vimtips had, it will become useless in a couple of
years.

> #2. It doesn't encourage anyone to contribute.  It is overwhelming, and
> intimidating.

I think the noise also has its responsabilities in it.

> Beyond that, generally you create a tip in an anonymous fashion, no
> ego stroking.

Tips are not anonymous at first (see the VimTip template). However,
after merging them a certain degree of anonymity has been introduced.

[...]

> So, my concept is basically, change the front-page to do three major
> things.
>
> #1. Answer the common questions,
> add a FAQ (right on the front-page would be great),

Why not.

> add links with specific "sections" of problems.  File format issues,
> syntax highlighting issues, etc.  Once these sections are defined, it is
> easy to add new "tips" to them.

As far as I'm concerned, that's what browsable categories are for.

> Also, link out in an obvious way to places where people can get more
> help (#vim on freenode, the vim user list, etc).

Agreed.

> Don't bury these next steps, make them obvious and easy to find.

Don't bury the /browse/ tree either.

> #2. Encourage people to create vim.wikia.com user accounts, and start
> to add their own content via their personal userpage.   This is
> something I have done with every wiki I have implemented, make the
> persons userpage be their personal safe zone, where they can add
> content rapidly and safely without a ton of concern about formatting
> and perfection.

Well. My only concern is about having information where it can be found.
Tips in userpages are quite useless, nobody will ever see them.

> Fear is the enemy of contribution.  Don't jump on them for formatting
> or other mistakes.  :)

Nope. We just correct, and John (bless him) welcomes them.

> #3. Try to create a nice cross-connect with the other vim-help
> resources,

-> see {{help}} and {{script}}

> and reach out to the authors of tutorials

Some tutorials have been added to the wiki. But we can't know all the
authors out there.

> and other valuable vim content,

This reminds me about scripts. I think the wiki can also been used for
mini-FAQs and tips related to scripts available on vim.org.


-- 
Luc Hermitte