Just a comment on Robert's otherwise-excellent reply, we agreed some time ago that the forum for discussing changes to the site is this list, not trac. This is because many participants such as myself are not involved in code development and do not have (or need) trac accounts. We should *not* encourage people simply to romp in the pages and restructure as they please, as the web site is in constant public view by more than just developers and should therefore not be a playground for testing ideas (except for DevZone, which is specifically for that purpose). Shortly after the switch to the Moin site, someone went in and rewrote a bunch of the pages to follow their own style, and it made us realize that an open invitation to edit was not the best idea. Small changes like adding a link or an entry in a list are of course fine to make. Changing a page's overall structure should at least get a brief review by the list. The page layouts are simple enough that improvements can either be discussed based on a posted description, or actually made by example. For the latter, copy the page onto a page hanging off of DevZone and post an email pointing to it and asking for comment. For obvious reasons, the front page can only be modified by a few people, not just anyone with an account. It would be best if people making regular changes identified themselves in DevZone as site maintainers so that others can find them. That said, I agree restructuring is called for in some cases, and as Robert pointed out, in the doc area what's really needed is a doc. I think we'll be quick to cheer on anything reasonable in either area. --jh--
Joe Harrington wrote:
Just a comment on Robert's otherwise-excellent reply, we agreed some time ago that the forum for discussing changes to the site is this list, not trac. This is because many participants such as myself are not involved in code development and do not have (or need) trac accounts.
I don't actually recall any agreement to that effect. The Trac exists for tracking issues for all parts of the project, not just bugs in the code. If you want to be active in the project even you are not a developer of code, use the Trac.
We should *not* encourage people simply to romp in the pages and restructure as they please, as the web site is in constant public view by more than just developers and should therefore not be a playground for testing ideas (except for DevZone, which is specifically for that purpose). Shortly after the switch to the Moin site, someone went in and rewrote a bunch of the pages to follow their own style, and it made us realize that an open invitation to edit was not the best idea.
Again, I'm pretty sure that there was no such universal realization. I explicitly do encourage people to use the Wiki and change pages as they see fit (except for FrontPage because it's special). If you are concerned about changes, watch the RSS feed and change things back if you disagree with the changes. If there is continued disagreement, then bring it to the list. That's how Wikis are supposed to work. We have no lack of suggestions on this list about how a page ought to look or what it ought to have. What we lack are people actually willing to put the time in to do the edits and provide the content. I encourage the latter; the former needs no such encouragement. -- Robert Kern "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -- Umberto Eco
participants (2)
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Joe Harrington -
Robert Kern