[pmwiki-users] Fwd: RFC PmWiki Tips and Tricks

Tegan Dowling tmdowling at gmail.com
Tue Sep 26 09:38:04 CDT 2006


On 9/26/06, The Editor <editor at fast.st> wrote:
> Another solution might be to move forward with the Pm Mag idea, and
> use it to include articles (reviews) of recipes, that compare and
> contrast.
> <snip>
>  And then rather
> than thinking of them as permanent documents, let's allow them to be
> updatable as new recipes come out or functions/features change.

I like the idea of the magazine articles (whatever they're called),
and I like the idea of having such an area that is receptive to the
kinds of Tips & Tricks suggested here.  But I'm thinking about how the
articles would stand up to the passage of time - my concern is that
they should age gracefully.

Example: Pages for some of the recipes are unusably messy - one can't
tell which version/fork of a recipe a given comment relates to, or
whether problems with an earlier version are still a concern, etc.
Dealing with that requires that someone who really knows the material
take the responsibility to refactor the page from time to time, and
some recipes just don't have that kind of caretaker.

I'm not suggesting we should let the problem stop the articles project
from proceeding.  Just suggesting that a template should include a way
to encourage contributors to make meta-comments (item-by-item, if
appropriate) on the issues they identify with the documentation
material itself.  The template should provide an easy way for readers
(readers who are just users, and do *not* have the expertise to make
actual contributions) to leave notes when they know there's newer work
that ought to be incorporated into the article, for instance, or when
they just find some section confusing.




More information about the pmwiki-users mailing list