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Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Wiki "standardization"?

I just finished creating a Template:ECF [1]. On Wikipedia, templates
like these are usually placed at the bottom of the page. This is a
"sample" and I think a lot of the information there could actually be
reused for other projects. Ideally, I think all project pages should
have a template like this somewhere (at the bottom, I guess?). This
will allow users to easily jump from one wiki page to another.

I think there should also be a common template that can be used by all
projects like Template:Platform UI [2] on the top right hand corner
that incorporates some of the "common" elements I have placed in the
ECF template. This would include things like the project name, mailing
list info, newsgroup info, IRC channel link if applicable, open bugs,
dev guidelines, website (linking back to www.eclipse.org/project),
javadocs, downloads link, status (incubator or not), stable/unstable
version, and other such things. The things I've listed are common to
all projects, there are probably other things, but you get the idea.

So basically, my suggestion is to have a project-specific template to
put all their wiki pages in one area ("all" is subjective, the key
ones anyway I guess) to let the user easily navigate within the
project's wiki pages. Then we create a second common/reusable template
that is placed at the top right hander corner of a project's main wiki
page to provide the user with immediate access to links that pertain
to the project.

Of course, if this idea is implemented, the ECF template will have the
redundant information (like newsgroup/open bugs/javadocs) removed. Or
should it? If a user was browsing another page of the that project,
should they still see all those information? Should the common
template only show on the main project page or on all pages (like what
a navbar would be for in a usual website)?

What do you all think?

Note that I have a pretty heavy Wikipedia background so I'm pretty
biased towards the standards/formatting that they have over there.
Their methods/ways may or may not be suitable for the Eclipse wiki.

[1] - http://wiki.eclipse.org/Template:ECF
[2] - http://wiki.eclipse.org/Template:Platform_UI

Regards,
Rem

On Nov 19, 2007 9:26 PM, Nick Boldt <codeslave@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Brad:
>
> After I posted this I found your Category:Templates Talk page so I've
> updated that page [0] with a link to the Templates namespace search [1]. I
> think having common templates like Template:Bug in Category:Templates will
> make it easier for people to find that search page, so I plan to leave it
> there (though not to add others).
>
> [0] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Category:Templates
>
> [1]
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10
>
> Thanks!
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2007 5:17 PM, Brad Reynolds <bradleyjames@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > To make your templates easier to find, add this to their code, so they'll
> be in the Templates category but pages using that template will no:
> >
> > <noinclude>[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>
> >
> >
> > You can find templates by going to All Pages[1] and searching for
> Templates (select it in the drop down).  'Templates' is a built in
> namespace[2].  IMHO, categories are to describe the content in terms of what
> is being documented, not to add metadata that the wiki already knows about.
> That would be like adding a category of 'Talk' to every talk page.  If we
> just educated authors on the search capabilities they'd be able to find this
> and other information on the wiki.  I think it would be better to do this
> than asking every author to know of this practice when it's not employed as
> a standard mediawiki practice.
> >
> >
> > -brad
> >
> >
> > [1]
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10
> > [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Namespace#List_of_namespaces
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Nov 19, 2007, at 1:42 PM, Nick Boldt wrote:
> >
> > +1 for Option 1, but for things that are specific to the Tools TLP, I'd
> put them in Tools_Project/, as we do for Modeling, with Modeling_Project
> pages (as well as EMF/ and MDT/ pages).
> >
> > Whether WTP will agree remains to be seen. Apparently David and I disagree
> [0] on wiki/markup conventions. ;-)
> >
> > [0]
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/Category_talk:Eclipse_Web_Tools_Platform_Project
> >
> > As to templates, I recently [1] created the bugstrike template for
> pointing to closed bugs [2], to complement the bug template for open bugs
> [3]:
> >
> > [1]
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform-releng-basebuilder#org.eclipse.releng.basebuilder_update_history
> > [2] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Template:Bugstrike
> > [3] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Template:Bug
> >
> > You might also be interested in the "Unused templates" page [4], and some
> other cool special pages [5].
> >
> > [4] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Special:Unusedtemplates
> > [5] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Special:Specialpages
> >
> > To make your templates easier to find, add this to their code, so they'll
> be in the Templates category but pages using that template will no:
> >
> > <noinclude>[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > On Nov 19, 2007 3:08 PM, Remy Chi Jian Suen < remy.suen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > Option 1 by far. as Mik mentioned, if a project jumps from one
> > > top-level project to another, they would then have to move all their
> > > articles, which is rather annoying and time-consuming. Using
> > > categories and templates should be good enough in my opinion.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Rem
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Nov 19, 2007 3:02 PM, Mik Kersten <beatmik@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Great to see this come up.  I didn't know about the subpage support
> until
> > > > now!  While I agree that we should continue to improve our use of
> > > > categories, I have a big +1 for this convention because of the
> automatic
> > > > bread crumb trail.  One of the biggest problems we had with our wiki
> pages
> > > > is that users find it hard to navigate all the pages related to a
> topic
> > > > (e.g. Mylyn), and the automatic bread-crumb trail addresses that.  If
> others
> > > > are in favor of the subpage naming I would like to convert all of the
> Mylyn
> > > > pages (bug 210295).  I also think that having consistency here would
> be
> > > > helpful.  So the main question I have is whether the top-level pages
> should
> > > > be projects, or subprojects?  In other words, should the Mylyn pages
> be
> > > > titled:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 1)      Mylyn / Contributor Reference
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Or
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 2)      Tools / Mylyn / Contributor Reference
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I vote for (1), because I believe that most consumers don't care about
> the
> > > > internal organization as much as they care about which project they
> are in.
> > > > Also, a flatter structure can be easier to use, and subprojects can
> move
> > > > between projects.   I figure that we can make the project structure
> clear
> > > > with categories (i.e., Mylyn is a subcategory of Tools).
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > The template approach Boris proposes looks helpful too, we may try
> that as
> > > > well.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Mik
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > From: cross-project-issues-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > [mailto:cross-project-issues-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Nick
> > > > Boldt
> > > >  Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 9:49 AM
> > > >  To: Cross project issues
> > > >  Subject: Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Wiki "standardization"?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > When I first started writing wikis, I tended to use the
> [[Category:...]]
> > > > convention to group pages into obvious categories like Releng, Java,
> EMF,
> > > > Modeling, FAQ...
> > > >
> > > >  I still do that, but having discovered the 'automatic breadcrumb'
> effect of
> > > > creating subpages using "/" in titles, I've started renaming pages to
> use
> > > > that new convention, as it provides a sense of page-to-project
> ownership and
> > > > navigation that the categories don't provide.
> > > >
> > > >  Consider:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/Modeling_Project_Releng/Component_Creation/Build_Server_Setup
> > > >  http://wiki.eclipse.org/PDT/1.5_Plan
> > > >   http://wiki.eclipse.org/MDT/XSD/FAQ
> > > >  http://wiki.eclipse.org/Ganymede/Signoffs
> > > >
> > > >  Also, category nesting is a powerful way to create component or
> subproject
> > > > categories:
> > > >
> > > >  http://wiki.eclipse.org/Category:Dash_Project
> > > >   http://wiki.eclipse.org/Category:Modeling
> > > >  http://wiki.eclipse.org/Category:Releng
> > > >
> > > >  Personally, I recommend using both. Oh, and as Remy taught me a while
> back,
> > > > if you need to redirect a page to another page (and can't do a Move
> because
> > > > there are already two existing pages, or because you want to have a
> landing
> > > > page direct to a Category [1]), just do something like this:
> > > >
> > > >    #REDIRECT [[:Category:Eclipse_Web_Tools_Platform_Project]]
> > > >
> > > >  [1] http://wiki.eclipse.org/Web_Tools_Project
> > > >
> > > >  Of course one aspect of naming that Remy didn't mention is the
> over-verbose
> > > > page titles like "Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project" when "Web Tools
> > > > Project" would work just as well. ;-)
> > > >
> > > >  $0.02,
> > > >
> > > >  Nick
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Nov 17, 2007 12:17 PM, Remy Chi Jian Suen <remy.suen@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I know a wiki is supposed to be open and free, but I think that
> > > >  standardizing a couple of things here and there would be helpful and
> > > >  make it look a lot more uniform. The primary issue I have is with the
> > > >  naming convention of pages. There are probably other things that
> needs
> > > >  to be changed too, but I think that this inconsistency looks bad and
> > > >  is kind of annoying.
> > > >
> > > >  There are a couple of projects that have adopted the subpages concept
> > > >  by using slashes in their page names like...
> > > >
> > > >  CDT/Developer/FAQ
> > > >  PDT/FAQ
> > > >
> > > >  ...and then we have those that go about with the full article name
> like...
> > > >
> > > >  GMF Development Guidelines
> > > >  Equinox p2 Getting Started
> > > >  ECF Ganymede Roadmap
> > > >  Mylyn Contributor Reference
> > > >
> > > >  ...and next, we have RAP and Bug Day kind of doing its own thing (as
> > > >  far as I know) with limiting the use of spaces (for no technical
> > > >  reason, mind you, since spaces in titles are perfectly valid)...
> > > >
> > > >  RapFaq
> > > >  RapPlan
> > > >  Rap10M3 News
> > > >  BugDay/November 2007
> > > >
> > > >  ...and BIRT that's decided to use suffixes for identification
> purposes
> > > >  on a few of their pages like...
> > > >
> > > >  Contributing Examples (BIRT)
> > > >  Logging The Events - Show the Typical Log Stack (BIRT)
> > > >
> > > >  ...and finally, we have some pages that come out of nowhere with no
> > > >  context like...
> > > >
> > > >  Components
> > > >  Deployments
> > > >  CodingConventions
> > > >  Shared Editing
> > > >
> > > >  There may be other naming conventions that are being employed, but
> > > >  since there are so many Eclipse projects and so many wiki pages, I
> > > >  have only presented a sample of what I have seen while clicking
> > > >  around.
> > > >
> > > >  I would personally vouch for the first option of using subpages
> > > >  (PDT/FAQ) as I feel that that would make organizing things a little
> > > >  easier and makes it immediately clear as to what a page is under.
> > > >
> > > >  Does anyone have any opinions or thoughts about this, what are your
> > > >  preferences? Does anyone even care or am I making this inconsistency
> > > >  problem sound bigger than it really is?
> > > >
> > > >  Regards,
> > > >  Rem
> > > >  _______________________________________________
> > > >  cross-project-issues-dev mailing list
> > > >   cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> > > >  https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > cross-project-issues-dev mailing list
> > > > cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev
> > > >
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> > > https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev
> > >
> >
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> > https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev
> >
> >
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> > https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev
> >
> >
>
>
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