[Nix-dev] Restructuring of the Wiki

[Kirill Elagin]

On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 7:13 PM, Alex Berg <chexxor at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the link to past discussion on this topic, Cillian. That was a
> good discussion. Also, thank you, Third3ye, for contributing to the wiki
> effort and raising Nix wiki awareness.
>
> ### On the Nix Wiki
>
> A wiki is a low-barrier way to build a database of eventually consistent
> and correct info. Good topics for this info includes history, design, and
> purpose of entities, in addition to explaining relationships between topics.
>
> In Nix project's case, several areas need such info - OS-management,
> software building/distribution, and development environments using Nix. Our
> wiki is not only for NixOS info, nor is it only for developers to document
> their additions to Nix code. It's a place for seeing the big picture, of
> both Nix and as it is meant to relate to other things. This includes its
> relationship with ubiquitous software design problems or just to help out
> our current projects.
>
> If you want to add a page which doesn't fit in this picture, should you
> forget about adding it? No. Just add it somewhere. Wiki maintainers, who
> care about enforcing the wiki's design, can assimilate it by moving it to
> the right place and editing it's style.
>

Do we have a specially designated team of wiki maintainers?


> Now, having said that, do we still need to change how the wiki works? I'm
> pretty happy with our wiki. We have zero spam now. We just need to complete
> it's redesign, and new users should feel more confident adding content to
> the skeleton. We've been playing with a new main page [1], but it's not
> finished.
>
> The OP also mentioned machine-generated pages. I'm not a fan. This implies
> two different places to visit to edit the wiki, which distracts from the
> wiki's purpose of a *central* place for community-maintained big-picture
> info.
>
> ### On Moving the Wiki
>
> This thread *does* include some discussion on moving the wiki, and I
> didn't comment in last year's thread on that topic, so I'll do so now.
>
> Requirements for software which enables this kind of information
> compilation:
>
> 1) Easy for non-coders to contribute
> 2) Searchable
> 3) History of content, to recover lost info
>
> Nice to have:
>
> 3) Organizable into topics
> 4) Software is easy to maintain
> 5) Content is portable
>

It looks like any reasonable wiki software can offer all of this. Gollum
and Gitit included.


> If we want to become "A GitHub Project", we can
> - Use their wiki system
> - Create a new Git repo called "wiki". We can edit and commit file changes
> in GitHub browser UI.
>
> I'm not a fan of becoming "A GitHub Project", because the Nix project is
> bigger than just GitHub. How so? We have several other web sites which are
> essential to Nix, including Hydra, online manuals, and the Nix homepage
> itself. Also, fads come and go, and GitHub may be just a fad.
>

Again, staying inside GitHub for their wiki is not necessary. We can run
their wiki (Gollum) standalone on nixos.org domain and be happy with it.
So, basically, if we are talking about migration we just have to choose one
of the engines which all seem to be nice. Again, I feel that opening an
issue for this would be handy.

But wiki organisation is way more important than the engine used. And I'd
like to hear more on this topic. It would be nice to have guides on writing
wiki articles and wiki organisation.
Are those available anywhere in written form?


> I *am* a fan, however, of having a file-based backend which still keeps
> file history. I would *only* consider such a system if they can be
> maintained entirely through a browser. It looks like these are both
> features of Gitit.
>
> [1] https://nixos.org/wiki/Main_Page_B
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 9:29 AM, Anderson Torres <
> torres.anderson.85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> About documentation itself, I find the format of famous "FreeBSD
>> Handbook" (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/) very appealing. It can
>> be used as a guide to our wiki or even a book on its own.
>>
>> Also, a thing I miss in the wiki is a 'hacking guide' inside Nixpkgs and
>> Nix programming in general. I would like if some functions as callPackage,
>> recurseIntoAttrs were more explained with examples or whatever.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-05-19 8:22 GMT-03:00 Cillian de Róiste <cillian.deroiste at gmail.com>:
>>
>> For reference, here's the discussion from the last time the topic of
>>> changing wiki platform came up, last year:
>>> http://lists.science.uu.nl/pipermail/nix-dev/2013-March/010800.html
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> nix-dev mailing list
>>> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
>>> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
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