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