[Nix-dev] Restructuring of the Wiki

[Alex Berg]

I've not heard that we have a "specially designated team of wiki
maintainers".

If we want to use user permissions as an indicator of responsibility, we
have 3 wiki admins: Chexxor, Goibhniu, and EelcoDolstra:


On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 12:45 PM, Kirill Elagin <kirelagin at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>>
>
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