I will make no further replies on this subject.
On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 19:51, Banlu Kemiyatorn
<object@gmail.com> wrote:
> What's the big deal about making nightly dumps of the SQL, sans the user
> account data.
No big deal if you make it available publicly and documented and have
storage and integrity (if the database was designed to support
integrity records then this is not necessary)
"mysqldump" is a most excellent tool.
> Sure. But with dedicated, either web-based or desktop, software, you don't
> necessarily need to have separate documentation for simplest stuff. Like
> markup, or what content is required during input. You just need to present
> the fields and tell the user "these fields are required, this field means
> this, this field means that", et cetera.
As long as you sacrifice the flexibilities.
Flexibility is not sacred.
Let's keep everything in a text file, shall we?
But if that still cause a
lot of problem with anyone then just use a php bot to post it. Simple
enough and you still can track changes and can manually add extra
fields through the wiki interface w/o any dedicate log required in the
database.
Um, okay :-)
> Why don't wikis themselves use other wikis for storage?
Why do you want a wiki at all if you just want a storage?
I have no idea. Why do you want a wiki to describe entities with properties? :)
> Maintenance is an issue with wikis as well; in both cases time and will is
> required.
Of course but if you actually follow the thread the point was clearly
made that we don't have to maintain the Wiki at all as it will be
maintained by people who aren't interested in GNUstep project, hence,
we will have more man power to actually work on GNUstep.
I did not read the entire thread; I'm certain you are familiar with "tl;dr".
If you can find people uninterested in GNUstep to truly maintain a GNUstep software index, that's excellent :-)
> Please do note that I'm looking at it this way: What will people find easier
> to use? What will guarantee that more people will use the system properly?
> What can have more consistent input and presentation without involvement of
> additional editors that constantly verify user input? What is more prone to
> spam?
Easier to use? I think it must be a wiki + php front ends since there
are more options available for different kind of usages.
You mean like an external link to a wiki page? Agreed, having a secondary presentation is good. After a user finds the program, then getting more info about it is important!
>>
>> In comments and post alert for needs review.
>
> So, more eyeballs is the solution? You're counting on people's eagerness to
> help. If more people were so eager to help, GNUstep would be much farther
> along the road to Cocoa compatibility (I don't know about OpenSTEP so I
> can't comment on that) than it currently is. It's already quite good -- but
> if people were eager to give up time and help, then it would be further
> along.
If you put one or two persons who should code or learn to code for
GNUstep to maintain a full features web app then there's even less
people to help with the actual product.
Same if you put people to maintain the wiki. Disinterested people are just that -- disinterested people. :-)
Just like people who like maintaining wikis can't work in Objective-C, there are people who like working in PHP that can't work in Objective-C.
Also, it is wrong to assume that someone interested in GNUstep is interested in working *on* GNUstep.
> Doing good user input sanitization and not letting user input too much (e.g.
> extra markup) means user will not be able to mess things up. <snip>
> Less cleanup is needed, need for cleanup is more easily recognizable, and
> you can more easily verify quality of user input. For example, you can
> reject "%)($"'$" as project title more easily <snip>
Clean up is just a matter of revert, but as I said that bot with front
end would do the job with extra benefits and possibly less code.
In my statement, I made a point of people not entering bad data in the first place. One may want to make a good move and enter info about "HelloWorld123.app", but messes up the wiki page by using incorrect markup, or by not consistently using upper/lowercase, etc. In that case, cleanup is not something a bot can do, and it is something a human must evaluate carefully.
I do trust Wiki People to certain level especially for the capability
to learn, to be obsessed and to get involved. I don't trust a system's
judgment as much. Note that I don't tell you to trust or not to trust
anything.
I can tell you I don't trust any users -- and I don't like the idea of anyone having to sanitize user input :-)
>
> You keep repeating the "less flexible" as if it is a bad thing in this case.
> It is not. Having a consistent, easily browsable list is preferable in case
> of software.
I don't think I say it is bad and I also don't say it is good as well.
What I tried to explain was that your solution wasn't better in all
scope.
With this, I agree.
> Please take a look at Apple's highly successful App Store. <snip>
And do they improve the quality of their users for their roles as a
good community members by doing that? Or just suck their money as
their customer are losing ability to realize the important of freedom
and how to maintain it?
What I see is that customers enjoy it enough to be willing to even fork over the money and the freedom. Increasing user satisfaction and bettering his experience does not mean we have to take away his freedom, or vice versa.
Besides, you're deliberately diverting the subject to the importance of freedom, which is not discussed here, and which is something I agree with you on. (Mostly.)
You meant "Using a wiki alone for everything"
This is how I understood you. My apologies if I did not understand you.
I sure can tell you that everything can be done with a wiki but why
would I do that.
It appears that indeed I did not understand you correctly. Hm.
It's good to make an opinion but it is not good to judge that I want
to do everything by a wiki based on only that I suggest to use it at
the core of the system and ignore a few points I made. So if I did
that please also let me know.
I guess I should not have drawn conclusions. Nevertheless, I believe making the wiki the core of the system is incorrect as well. It would be a nice supplement, but not a good primary source of information about projects.