maria-docs team mailing list archive

[Bryan Alsdorf <bryan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Daniel,

On 12/07/2011 02:30 PM, Daniel Bartholomew wrote:
> Bryan>  I like the thought of stubs helping people to participate but as
> Bryan>  many others have said, I'm very worried about it a) cluttering
> Bryan>  up the KB and b) not actually helping.
> Bryan>
> Bryan>  A first step could just be a "Requested Articles" page, and add
> Bryan>  a link to a "Want to contribute?" in the sidebar and at the
> Bryan>  bottom of article listings.
>
> I think the list of tasks on
> http://kb.askmonty.org/en/contributing-to-the-askmonty-knowledgebase#tasks
> ...is a good start for a "Requested Articles" page. I'm fine with a
> dedicated page if others like the idea.
>
> Peppering "Want to contribute?" links around the site is a good idea
> and they should link to the above "Contributing to the AskMonty
> Knowledgebase" article.

Any other places for the link other then in the sidebar and at the 
bottom of the article list?

> Daniel>  To keep track of them, we could add a checkbox to the edit
> Daniel>  page to mark whether or not a page is considered a stub, and
> Daniel>  then have a special page that lists all stubs.
>
> Shaun>  Instead of a boolean flag for stubs, how about an enum field
> Shaun>  for status? Stubs would be one status. This could help you
> Shaun>  keep track of which pages you've thoroughly reviewed, for
> Shaun>  example.
>
> Bryan>  If we do add stubs, instead of adding another option to the
> Bryan>  status field or a dedicated check box, I propose going forward
> Bryan>  with adding tags to the KB. The multiple parents was seen by
> Bryan>  some as a replacement for tags, but I think they can complement
> Bryan>  each other and as an alternative way to find what you are
> Bryan>  looking for.
> Bryan>
> Bryan>  Thoughts?
>
> I know we've talked about tagging articles as being relevant for
> specific releases, so am I correct in thinking in that instance the tag
> would be something like "MariaDB 5.2.10" for something that only
> applies to MariaDB 5.2.10 or "MariaDB 5.2" (if it applies to any 5.2
> release)? (just trying to make sure I'm remembering our previous
> discussions correctly)

The product / version tagging would be something different. It needs to 
be a lot more structured as it would actually tag certain sections of 
text, not just an article.

> For things like stub articles, would we just adopt a convention of
> adding a "stub" tag to articles which are stubs? I guess I'm just
> wondering about the mechanics of how the tags would work in practice.
>
> For example, would there be a pre-defined list that people can choose
> from or will the tags be more free-form? Free form would be much
> easier, I'm guessing, from an admin point of view, but we would need to
> agree on a set of conventions (and maybe write them down somewhere) so
> we don't end up with lots of very similar-but-not-quite-the-same tags.
> And we should probably have a "tag review" tool that easily lets us
> combine similar tags together.

These are questions that need to be hashed out. a pre-defined list is 
simple and cleaner but less flexible. I would probably start off with 
this and if needed allow free-form tags to be added. I am interested in 
what others think of this idea.

Best Regards,
--
Bryan Alsdorf, Lead Web Developer
Monty Program AB. http://montyprogram.com