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Topic: Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase (Read 16372 times) previous topic - next topic
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Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #26 –
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Wouldn't it be a good idea if people start a thread in the forum to gather and discuss information that's supposed to get integrated into the wiki? That way everyone can contribute without fearing to submit invalid information to the wiki. Further, everybody who hasn't enough time to create a wiki entry but has knowledge to contribute can add his thoughts in the regular manner of posting to the HA forums. And people who have problems expressing themselves in english correctly could contribute easier, as they don't have to fear that they write nonsense due to language barriere etc.

If all the information in such a thread were found to be valid and complete someone with enough time can make an entry in the wiki for it.

In this topic I tried to list all necessary topics to be covered: Wiki topics to be covered for Foobar, ...to make it a complete knowledge base

Might be a start for a reasonable help and knowledge base.

JD

offtopic: have to go to work now and I so don't want to go!

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #27 –
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In this topic I tried to list all necessary topics to be covered: Wiki topics to be covered for Foobar, ...to make it a complete knowledge base

Might be a start for a reasonable help and knowledge base.


Good idea, but I would simply start threads in the topic related forum, not the wiki discussion forum, i.e. I think this thread would be more noticed and contributed to if it were in the foobar forums.


Regards, David

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #28 –
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Then you are in luck since I made such one:
http://doc.hydrogenaudio.org/wikis/hydroge...itingGuidelines

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Linking
Prefered way is to use WikiWords

OK, what's a WikiWord? first link that google offers:
Quote
The parts of a camel-cased WikiName, i.e. for this page, Wiki and Word.

Camel-cased, huh. And what is it good for?

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For small words with 1 syllable you can use square brackets: [AAC]

Why can't I just use a WikiWord (whatever that is). Is "AAC" really a syllable? Won't it get accepted, if I write [Welcome]. What will that link to anyway?

Quote
`some text`__

__ http://sitewithsomething.com

Does that mean I can put the "__" part anywhere on the page? Would be good for maintainance. What if I want to have more than one of those in my page?
Code: [Select]
`first link`__ and `second link`__ __ http://first.com __ http://second.com


Maybe this is all real intuitive for programmers, but not for me. A little more explanatory text bellow each example could greatly flatten the learning curve. Imo this is NOT an idiot's guide. I find it grotesque that I have to gather tiny bits of information from several web pages to start understanding what is advertised as being simple and clean. Most of the time the "answer" I find raises even more questions (see above).

My other problem is that I have difficulty putting my thoughts into English sentences, but that is secondary.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #29 –
Quote
Quote
Then you are in luck since I made such one:
http://doc.hydrogenaudio.org/wikis/hydroge...itingGuidelines

Quote
Linking
Prefered way is to use WikiWords

OK, what's a WikiWord?

A WikiWord can be:

1) A word with more than 1 syllable where the first letter in at least 2 of the syllables are capitalized.

- BandWidth
- LossLess
- CarJacking (to find an example with more than 2 syllables)

2) Combination of 2 or more words with first letter of each word capitalized.

- RippingGuide
- OtherCodecs
- RecommendedLAME

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For small words with 1 syllable you can use square brackets: [AAC]

Why can't I just use a WikiWord (whatever that is). Is "AAC"

I wrote that because the system doesn't understand that it is a WikiWord when all letters are capitalized.
You use [] to force it to make a link.
Also with a word like "Speex" there is no logical place to put 2 capitalized letters so you force a link like this:
[Speex].

But yes. The description is not accurate.


Quote
Quote
`some text`__

__ http://sitewithsomething.com

Does that mean I can put the "__" part anywhere on the page? Would be good for maintainance. What if I want to have more than one of those in my page?
Code: [Select]
`first link`__ and `second link`__ __ http://first.com __ http://second.com


It just looks for the next "__" each time there is a reference like this. So yes you can put them anywhere as long as they are in the right order.
I think it would be good to have them after each larger paragraph though.
Code: [Select]
`first link`__
`second link`__ 

__ http://first.com 
__ http://second.com



Quote
Maybe this is all real intuitive for programmers, but not for me. A little more explanatory text bellow each example could greatly flatten the learning curve. Imo this is NOT an idiot's guide. I find it grotesque that I have to gather tiny bits of information from several web pages to start understanding what is advertised as being simple and clean. Most of the time the "answer" I find raises even more questions (see above).

My other problem is that I have difficulty putting my thoughts into English sentences, but that is secondary.

Ok. I am glad you took the time to be specific. I will try to add some of this info if you find it good. It is hard for me to know what people don't know. You know that when you know something quite well it becomes hard to understand why people are having trouble with it.

About it being intuitive or not: Well, I am not a programmer either but after 2 days of  playing with it I was able to write that guide which shows many things that you normally don't need (not to brag. it was easier for me because I have worked with 3 other wiki systems or something like that before.) so for me it is hard to understand where it might not be intuitive to others. But as long as you or others can find the time to show where it is not good enough I will find the time to try to improve it based on your suggestions.

Thank you.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #30 –
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I just find the layout very messy and unconfortable to browse. I have no direct preferences but as a good example I think AudioCoding's wiki turns out great. Simple and easier to work on.

This wiki is too messy for me even to edit anything in.

my 5C

I'd have to agree. It's a bit of a pain to work on. Non-standard formatting, utterly bizarre syntax (not that I can't decypher it, but still)... Furthermore, the header sizing scheme is b0rked (Check the FAQ page of the fb2k wiki for an example; the first head-line should be one size bigger than the one right after it; I had to do it the way I did it so that there would be a clear size decrease as you went down in significance.

The one thing it has going is that it's pretty, but any useful information's at least 3 clicks deep. Click on Knowledgebase, then Wiki Directory, then HA Wiki, then you're at your choice of info. Horrible. What would be so much better would be if the Knowledgebase linked straight to the place that the "HA Wiki" link goes to presently.

Mind you, I have done a little editing/elaboration on it at times. I just don't know what more needs to be added. The FB2K wiki needs some serious work, but I don't have a lot of time for it as of late.

And the CamelCaps formatting decision sucks, IMO. It's extremely obtrusive and does not really make things any easier than just wrapping links in square brackets and working nicely.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #31 –
I'm a computer science student, and the reStructuredText seems strange to me. Something about using whitespace as a formatting parameter, or allowing someone to choose one of 20 punctuation marks for a delimiter, or not making a clear distinction between markup characters and content characters, just gives me the heebie-jeebies.

The WikiWords, on the other hand, I like more than HTML links, and I'm sure I'll grow comfortable with them (assuming I spend time on the Wiki). Question: If someone changes the page name for a page, what happens to all the WikiWords? Are they automatically updated?

I'll go break the SandBox now... 

Edit: yes, there really is some trickerly involved with properly formatting a Wiki entry. If anyone here wants to post some information on the Wiki but can't get over the formatting hurdle, just post your text, PM me, and I, or perhaps some other kind WikiWhiz, will labor over the implementation details.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #32 –
Just for the records, as far as I'm concerned, if there is enough of a consensus that the wiki should be changed, and people are actually willing to do the work (and not just theorize or complain), then I don't have a problem with someone coming up with something new/better.

The reason the current wiki was chosen is because it fit in extremely well with Zope and Plone, which I had eventually hoped we would try and migrate more of HA over to as time went on.  As it seems that so few people are interested in actually helping to make this kind of thing a reality, and I have don't have enough time or desire anymore to make it happen myself, it doesn't make much a lot of sense to hold onto this system anymore.

I'm willing to entertain ideas on a better system, and willing to provide the necessary hosting as well.  However, the less integrated everything becomes, the more maintenance that means.  Right now, I'm the only one doing this sort of thing, and I simply don't have much time for even this anymore... so that needs to be a serious consideration in whatever is chosen (that it needs to be very easy to maintain).

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #33 –
@Dibrom: Well, then, I'll see what I can do...

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #34 –
I'd vote for a simpler Wiki Engine, which is more classical in its Wiki approach like UseMod (OddMuse) or MoinMoin. The current environment is too complex to let the 'Wiki Dynamics' play out (read WhyWikiWorks).

dev0
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #35 –
Despite being somewhat annoying to use, the output looks much nicer than any other wiki I've seen, so I vote to stick with this. If it were replaced with something uglier, I'd have no incentive to work on this one instead of AudioCoding's .
Happiness - The agreeable sensation of contemplating the misery of others.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #36 –
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Question: If someone changes the page name for a page, what happens to all the WikiWords? Are they automatically updated?

yes. All Backlinks are changed too... which means you have to be careful when renaming pages.
Perhaps click the "backlink" button and check that all links makes sense with the new name.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #37 –
To make the wiki more convenient (usability) I inintalized the structure of a complete FoobarManual. Hope it helps people to contribute more to the knowledgebase.

JD


/offtopic: damn, I had to learn the whole night, how to use the wiki "language" and now I won't get enough sleep!


edit: BTW ... how do I DELETE pages I created and don't need anymore? What if a simple word became a backlink and I don't want it to? I ask because in my case I had two different pages which started with the same name and I didn't realize and changed the name of one of them...ALL the backlinks changed!!!

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #38 –
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What if a simple word became a backlink and I don't want it to?

I think you need to put an exclamation mark before the word. For example, if "ReplayGain" becomes a link and you don't want it to, then write "!ReplayGain" in the editor. It will show up as "ReplayGain" in the displayed page, but without the link.

However, the idea of WikiWords is that they link every which way, so it's easy for the user to explore something they don't recognize. In cases like "FooBar", where you might end up with 20 of the same link as you repeat the word over and over, it might make sense to disable the links. If you make a couple of referenes to "MassTagger" or "DiskWriter", though, it's ideal if you allow the WikiWords to link to the appropriate pages.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #39 –
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edit: BTW ... how do I DELETE pages I created and don't need anymore? What if a simple word became a backlink and I don't want it to? I ask because in my case I had two different pages which started with the same name and I didn't realize and changed the name of one of them...ALL the backlinks changed!!!

You can't delete pages on your own.
put "DeleteMe" only in the file you want deleted and I'll do it.

Contributing to the wiki/knowledgebase

Reply #40 –
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Ok. I am glad you took the time to be specific. I will try to add some of this info if you find it good. It is hard for me to know what people don't know. You know that when you know something quite well it becomes hard to understand why people are having trouble with it.

Thank you for the explanations, that cleared up a lot of my issues. Still missing in that explanation is what a WikiWord is actually used for. I think I've figured that part out (linkable titles?), but it would be good to be mentioned in the guide as well. How does the link target look like, how does the actual link look like.

Right now I think it works like this: create a title

========
MisterEd
========

...and later i just refer to MisterEd and this becomes a link to the above title. However I can't see this mechanism explained in the guide.

There should also be a big fat link in the "Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase Introduction" section to the getting started guide.

edit: Another important but different issue: as soon as I click on the Wiki Directory I get logged out. I stay logged in as long as I only maneuver in my personal section. I have two cookies stored on my PC according to Mozilla named "__ac" and "__ac_name".