Re: Setting up a wiki for GNU Project volunteers?

[Carlos O'Donell]

On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 5:22 AM Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@gnu.org> wrote:
> You say we must follow requirements and policies, but yet you
> purposely rejected it when you removed text that was explcitly asked
> to be kept by RMS in the glibc manual.  Which is it?

Yes, we must follow requirements and policies.

Yes, I explicitly rejected the request to keep the abortion-related
cartouch in the glibc manual.

I don't see that those two things are contradictory.

> I agree with Brandon, in that wikis are terrible for documentation
> purposes, and think that the quality of the glibc/gcc/... manuals, for
> example, has become much worse due to the fact that a wiki is being
> used.  Much of it is very hard to navigate, and find relevant
> information -- not to mention that one is required to have a network
> connection.  And some parts might be very very wrong.  A good manual
> takes concious effort to update, since a wiki doesn't it will always
> be a much worse place for writing down things.

The wiki I'm proposing would be legible offline since you could check it out.

I disagree with you about the glibc manual. The number of
contributions to the manual has gone up over the years and high
quality text is being added. If you have concerns please raise them on
the main developer mailing list to discuss.

The wiki for glibc is completely different documentation and contains
no API documentation, all of that is in the glibc manual. I agree a
good manual takes conscious effort to update. I am not suggesting the
glibc manual be put into a wiki. Though other packages are free to
choose as they wish, the GNU Coding Standard only says texinfo is the
preferred format.

This effort to make the manual better has been helped by the
communities organization, and that includes a wiki.

> The GCS, etc, are maintained by people who feel that they don't have a
> use for a wiki or that it would be useful for the purpose.  GCC, the
> GNU C library, are maintained by people who feel that a wiki is useful
> for their purpose.  Today, we have a nice balance of people being able
> to make things work for them, but you are trying to force everyone
> into your workflow.

I am not forcing anyone into any workflow.

I am looking at creating a wiki for use by those who find wikis useful.

My belief is that we should enable developers where possible and
support their workflows.

If, in the GCS, with the volunteer time you have, you want to ask
people to post to the mailing list, that's perfectly fine.

Cheers,
Carlos.