Re: [Axiom-developer] Front page esthetic

[Ralf Hemmecke]

First of all, I'd like to thank Bill for all the effort he has put into
the Wiki.

In some points I must, however, agree with Antoine. The current Wiki
currently is a bit of a mess. There are only a few pages that are of
real value. You know, when I started I had hard times to find my way
through the information that I was looking for and even now I don't find
things that I am looking for in a few clicks.

Until somebody posted the BeBold principle to the mailing list I was
always hesitating not to edit/delete too much of the existing
information, but surely that slowed down improvements to the wiki. Now I
am a bit bolder, but it is still hard.

If I look now at some pages, I would rather like to see that information
organised in a different way, but different from a text in a
text-editor, I cannot simply drag & drop text from one page to another.
Well, I should have open several browser windows, I know.

What is also important is some more structure of the wiki. I am
personally used to linear text with sections and subsections, ie, some
kind of hierarchy. We should have a number of standard pages that can be
edited only by registered Axiom-developers. These pages should not
change too much once they are set up. But hey, until now we only had
problem with spam, but not with people willingly destroying pages. So
restricting the wiki idea at this stage of Axiom is an unnecessary
effort, there are too few edits anyway. To ALL: Start improving the wiki
pages!!! If you don't like something then change it!!!

Bill, what I would like to see on top of an edit page is a link to
BeBold. Furthermore, it should be said that the first paragraph of the
page is a kind of abstract that is used for the "SiteMap" (which can be
considered as a kind of glossary, if you like).

Actually, I would also like to have some facility that let's me move the
 pages in the tree structure of the wiki. Best would be to see the tree
and take my mouse to move pages in the hierarchy.

> About the new comers : we are competing to get their attention and
> time.

> If their is two column I will only read the left one.

I feel the same, but the right column doesn't disturb me too much. In
fact, I like it, since it gives related material. Only having both "Site
Index" and "Site Map", I find a bit confusing. Maybe one should be
called by a more appropriate name. I cannot easily guess what is what. I
don't like to see the IssueTracker pages on the siteindex/sitemap. It is
too distracting from the hierarchy view.

> I want a "Description" two page long maximum with what is Axiom what
> is special and great about it.

Don't we have it somewhere? Haven't I seen this on one of Tim's pages?

> And then I want a Download with maybe some binary but for sure a tgz
> of the source.

Yes, I have already put a section into SandboxAxiomSource. I just don't
know where the .tgz and friends are. Or would just a file be just too
huge? In that case we declare on SandboxAxiomSource why we don't give a
.tgz file.

> Then I am going to look for a good introduction. And I hate it when 
> people give me choice I want the one and definitive introduction.

I think we should take this consideration seriously. Currently
"Tutorial" links to "AxiomInterface" (very intuitive!) and gives not a
tutorial. I rather think that we should maybe give a weighted list of
introductory material.

http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~mnd/documentation/axiom_tutorial

The above tutorial looks quite reasonable to me. The tutorial page
should not be like a sandbox were everyone just adds his/her commands.

I hate everything on http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/AxiomInterface that
comes after the "That was easy!". It should go away, because it looks
unprofessional.

> I will read between 5 and 20 pages max. Any document that go over 100
> pages will scare me to death.

So the Axiom Book should come at the end of the tutorial under "Further 
Reading".

> And modifying a page is not has easy at it sound. Writing correctly
> is time consuming and difficult. I never feel like touching other
> people stuff. You can often see it in a wiki where old information is
> rarely deleted.

I also felt like it. We all know that we can unroll changes, but what I 
don't know is, whether everyone can do it. It should be more obvious how 
things can and will be undone if people are too bold. Another suggestion 
that should be visible on top of an edit-page.

I also think we should have a mixture of pages that only a few people 
can edit and freely editable pages. But I strongly think that it is too 
early to make that distinction. We first need more people who edit at all.

Ralf