CMS for publishing FAQ articles

[John Stumbles]

Well it's very early days yet but so far exactly the opposite is happening: far from sqabbling over content nobody is putting any in!

[John Stumbles]

Yup, and that might be necessary from time to time if the wiki gets targetted by vandals, but in general let's keep it open unless we need to protect it rather than default-deny. I think the latter would put people off contributing, particularly little casual edits such as correcting typos and adding small but useful snippets of information.

[Phil Addison]

That's good, but reading a bit of the docuwiki manual I see that it creates the structure simply by an author mentioning a sub-section in another page. For example, I could write " see [:electrcial:fusebox]" and a new top-level section "electrcial" (replete with typo) would be created, and with subsection "fusebox" under it.

That's all too convenient and I think means that individual authors can create arbitrary structures anywhere in the tree. That could all too easily degenerate into a tangle. Really 'the comittee' should decide on an overall structure first, and then authors be invited to fill out the content. That does not preclude authors requesting a new major section in the contents list, or a restructuring of it.

So to create a sub-section in that sort of wiki do you have to write the subsection page first, then go to the page you want it reside beneath, and put a link in there? It sounds as if the whole thing is totally unstructured (or flat) with hyperlinks jumping you from place to place. A nightmare to index, or for the reader to see at a glance the content without actually reading it all.

You are wooing me to Wordpress now;)

OK, 'final say' was too strong. What I am looking for is to have two parallel platforms. One equates to the FAQ where the content is agreed and published for the world to refer to, but only updateable by a trusted few. The other is a draft of the next version which allows contributors to place and edit content directly.

Me too!! However, docuwiki, at least, seems to be capable of structure. A big issue for me is how to control that structure.

[Phil Addison]

Work is required to achieve a good end result. I already do this for the main FAQ, and as I see it, the proposal above will reduce that effort as well as encouraging more contributor input. Nobody here wants to do work for its own sake, so if we are going to change at all from the existing mechanism, lets try to decide what will produce the optimum technical result without constraining ourselves by what might or might not be 'more work'.

[Andrew Gabriel]

material in there (and others) which you've lifted from the uk.d-i-y FAQ without my permission or acknowledgement. I don't mind you using my material, but you must acknowledge the copyright of material you use, and get the consent of the copyright holder. I did not provide this material under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, contrary to your claims.

[meow2222]

I think full discussion of the issues should come before voting, otherwise people are typically voting without proper awareness of all the issues raised.

means 'I'm not saying dribble will, but who knows who or for what reason.'

NT

[meow2222]

Yes, but the other, namely a full listing, is also useful thus important. Many times I've read pieces that turned out to be useful though I'd never have thought of searching for them.

thats good news.

yes, and it creates a lot of pointless work.

NT

[Lobster]

But I can envisage entries in a decent Wiki saying stuff like "this is a controversial issue and other opininions can be found *here* and

*here*" (where *here* is hyperlinked to (eg) a particularly useful thread or search output from (eg) uk.d-i-y.

Wouldn't that work?

David

[djc]

I would strongly advise registration and email verification before editing. The problem will be that once the wiki gets into search engines it will be targeted by spammers. This is quite a different problem from that cased by obsessives and edit wars. You really don't want a wiki to fill up with offensive and off topic links etc.

[Owain]

I noticed that some parts of wikipedia have a 'captcha' anti-spam feature where you have to type the answer to a sum in a box.

Owain