On Feb 19, 2008 8:05 PM, John Beckett <<a href="mailto:johnb.beckett@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnb.beckett@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>Metacosm wrote:<br>> The reason I am writing this little-post (I was advised to<br></div>> by John Beckett <a href="http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User:JohnBeckett" target="_blank">http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User:JohnBeckett</a>)<br>
<div>> is a plea to change the front-page (and to a lesser degree,<br>> the focus) of the wiki.<br><br></div>Some big ideas have been raised and I will need time to digest them. I'll<br>probably write a lot of stuff here, but the bottom line is that I welcome<br>
Metacosm's arrival, and I would be very happy to experiment with his ideas.<br>If they work, great. If not, we can revert.<br><br>For me, the attraction of the wiki is the potential to polish previously<br>given advice. In a forum or mailing list (or the old static Vim Tips web<br>
site), person A says something, then B points out a deficiency, and C<br>contradicts them both. Later, D says that the new version makes all previous<br>advice obsolete.<br><br>The result is confusion and bad advice.<br>
<br>
The wiki holds the promise that at least the core features of Vim can be<br>helpfully explained in a how-to manner. I fully accept that we will never<br>polish everything, but I don't see why, for example, there should be any new<br>
pages on copy/paste or searching! Just fix the pages we've got!<br><br>Fully documenting everything would be pointless and unhelpful (too large to<br>digest). We should concentrate on how-to advice with an overview and<br>
examples. I don't understand Metacosm's distinction between "tip focused"<br>and "vim focused". Call it what you will, our pages should help people use<br>Vim.<br><div><br>> It doesn't address the primary reason people come to the site,<br>
> to get help.<br><br></div>You would need to explain exactly what you have in mind. Let's say I can't<br>get copy/paste working nicely, so I visit your optimum wiki. What do I do?<br>Ask a question in a forum? View a FAQ? Browse a category tree that hopefully<br>
includes my topic?<br><br>I like browsing tips, and if more of them were fixed, I would get more out<br>of it! Reading the Vim docs can be a bit hard, but browsing the wiki to get<br>an overview of features I mightn't be familiar with is very helpful.<br>
<br>Like Fritzophrenic's "For help with...", I think we need a static list of<br>links, with descriptive text, showing Vim features. It would be like an<br>expanded category tree. It should not attempt to be exhaustive, but should<br>
guide newcomers to find info they want.<br><div><br>> I mean let grow naturally -- let people add questions, the<br>> common questions will be answered,<br><br></div>Is there any example of a web site where this is done and the result is<br>
worthwhile? Sure, we could experiment with a page that invites questions.<br>However, I don't think it should be left to grow to become the normal<br>archive of confused advice that frequents the web.<br><br>> It [main page] doesn't encourage anyone to contribute.<br>
<div>> It is overwhelming, and intimidating.<br><br></div>Really? But if most people come to get help or to browse, the main page<br>should oblige.<br><br>I would have thought that anyone using a modal text editor would be capable<br>
of quickly identifying which of the six boxes on the current main page was<br>of interest.<br><br>Anyway, a theoretical discussion of the ideal main page is pretty pointless.<br>Let's just see some alternative designs. Then we can try something else, and<br>
revert later if wanted.<br><br>Is your proposal finished? (If so, I'll post to vim_use and try to get more<br>interest.)<br> <a href="http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User:Metacosm/Proposed_Main_Page" target="_blank">http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/User:Metacosm/Proposed_Main_Page</a><br>
<br>I agree that it is more inviting, although presumably you would want to<br>provide a little more advice (on a linked page) about just how a newcomer<br>would create a user page, and their own Vim tips and help.<br><br>
However, your proposal offers very little for people wanting to browse (I<br>suspect there's quite a few of us).<br><div><br>> you create a tip in an anonymous fashion, no ego stroking<br><br></div>Yes, this is a problem. I have had a few long discussions with Bram where<br>
I've tried to get him to encourage users who contribute to the wiki, but he<br>doesn't see the point.<br><br>I'm not sure how your alternative world would work out, but we can try it. I<br>do think that encouraging development of user pages would be worthwhile.<br>
However, the ultimate aim should be that the wiki has *one* helpful tip on<br>copy/paste (for example).<br><br>I realise that we will need several pages on most topics, because it's too<br>complex to make just one. But I would oppose developing significant general<br>
content in user pages - we don't need the individual thoughts of 100 users<br>on how to copy/paste. Sure, a user page can have significant stuff (like the<br>Ipkiss page Fritzophrenic mentioned), and a user page can be a place to<br>
experiment. But it should be made clear that the aim is for general Vim<br>how-to advice to be merged into the main wiki.<br><div><div></div><div><br>John<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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<div><br>So, I will take a bottom up approuch to giving my two cents. <br><br>(A) As for "significant general content in user pages". I understand that you don't need 100 different copies of how to copy / paste. But you DO want 100 users comfortable enough to contribute to all the endless work you need done on the wiki. To me, this is why you let me run around on their user page. As for which of those 100 pages end up coming up in search and direct links -- hopefully the cream will rise and all that. My point on this was to encourage people to explore, experiment and be fearless.<br>
<br>(B) As for the "ego" issue, I believe it is an issue, that can be solved by driving people towards "starting" in user pages, post their vimrc, whatever. <br><br>(C) My proposal doesn't address the issue of browsing for two reasons. #1. My assumption that it isn't the focus of people who come to the "MainPage" (maybe a poll will let everyone know exactly what people DO come for primarly). #2. It is a mostly solved problem, all that it seems is needed now is a (lot) of elbow grease, and for that, you need people (see A).<br>
<br>(D) I am going to skip over your commend on my little copy of MainPage, because it isn't even started. I hope to get some time to work on it this weekend. <br><br>(E) As for a page that encourages questions, it won't grow endlessly, because it will be viciously re-factored. Most of the questions will be rolled / merged / pointed at existing content. But the goal is to be a "good enough" that hits the common high points, there is always the vim_faq for everything, you ever wanted to know. <br>
<br>(F) In my "optimum" wiki, you are having a copy / paste issue, most likely you are having a lack of :set paste / :set nopaste issue. So, on the FAQ, you will see an entry like " How do I paste in code without having all the indenting screwed up?" with a link to a solution. Now, the great thing about having an amazing backlog of tips, is you can keep adding good information to that FAQ entry. <br>
<br>(G) I agree entirely with your "polish what we got" -- but that is an issue of manpower, all my advise is towards that end, get people to use it -- which is the step people take before contributing. My goal is to bring humans, and encourage them to use the site and get comfortable, so they can work as rock-tumblers to help clean up the site. <br>
<br>(H) There seems to be an implication that I am looking for radical changes, I just want to see some "OMG - I am stuck, where to go" content, on the wiki, in an obvious place, with obvious next steps. <br><br>
(I) My point about "not encouraging" users to contribute was a direct result of talking to #vim users who REFUSED (or where unable) to use this site, but wanted to keep using a much less built out, much worse maintained version of the wiki on my site. When I questioned about "Why don't you just put stuff on <a href="http://vim.wikia.com" target="_blank">vim.wikia.com</a>" -- the question came up "where do I put it, where do I link it, where do I start, too much work", after talking to enough people (probably 11 to 13) -- it is what made me start bumping around. I wanted to disprove them. I added something to the homepage, and got jumped in a very nice way by John. And here I stand!<br>
<br>(J) I don't think two different wiki sections are really needed, I think the help content lives very naturally along side the tips / browsing content. It is a different focus (maybe its own section, for basic help). I think that "basic" tips and help are fairly easy to differentiate from advanced tips that would be of interest to experienced vim users.<br>
<br>(K) Also, I don't think that creating a new focus on help (versus the already solved problem of tips and browsing) will do anything other than bring more users and more contributers. <br><br>*deep breath* <br><br>
So, I think I responded to most of the points brought up. My focus is on people, getting them comfortable, getting them motivated, getting them to contribute. We are basically asking people to donate their time and effort, to do one of the LEAST exciting tasks in existence... cleaning, polishing and organizing someone else's work. It is a deep *yawner*. My overarching goal was tweak the main page to (1) provide help, to get new community members... (2) provide a clear and simple path to become a contributing member of the <a href="http://vim.wikia.com">vim.wikia.com</a> community, with a little ego return.... (3) leave up the valuable parts of what is already there. <br>
<br>Hopefully, this weekend, I will get something up that will get across my point a little more clearly. <br>
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