zwike seems a step backwards IMHO (was:Re: zwiki.org seems down so a few questions)

[kevin at teamindecisive.com]

I would agree. We are still transitioning, but it isn't easy to navigate.
The yellow color + whatever color the text is is hard to read. Compare to
the old wiki with standard white background and black and orange text,
very easy to read. It seems to have taken a giant step backwards in
useability (learning curve) for both contributors and users.

And with this message from Lulu, it begs the question why even have the
wiki? If everything is going to moved from the wiki to the website, why
have the wiki? What's the point of the wiki? See below...

--Kevin

>>>The website and the wiki have grown together and the wiki faster, as we
>>>have had more people being able to contribute.
>>>Authentication is completed. We are working on cacheing issues at
>>>present on the site.Soon it will be opened up to all.
>>>
>>>With two areas of content, we must be careful not to duplicate it.
>>>
>>>to this end:
>>>
>>>Proposed change to the FrontPage
>>>
>>>== About Ubuntu Linux ==
>>>
>>>We can add a link to the About Ubuntu section on the site.
>>>
>>> == Teams ==
>>>
>>>We have an area under the community link -
>>>http://www.ubuntulinux.org/community/teams/
>>>so we need to move this Teams content from the Zwiki to this location.
>>>
>>>== Documentation ==
>>>
>>>We have a Documentation area on the website -
>>>http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/documentation/
>>>
>>>so as soon as you are happy with it, we should move content from the
>>>wiki - http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/DocumentationArea
>>>
>>>== Website ==
>>>
>>>People will soon be able to add what they want to the site....
>>>thoughts?
>>>best,
>>>lu


> On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 11:06 -0700, Simon Michael wrote:
>> Quick answers:
>>
>> >'''Other Languages: {de} [wiki:GermanWebsite Deutsch] | {es}
>> >[wiki:SpanishDocumentation Español] '''
>> >
>> >
>> Zwiki doesn't have special multilingual content features yet, and no-one
>> has really built a zwiki with multilingual content. I'd start with
>> manual links. RemoteWikiLinks might let you write links like [de:page
>> name]. (de is a page pointing to a separate wiki.) We could add some
>> logic in the skin to add appropriate links when translations exist.
>>
>> >And lastly how do we do [[TableOfContents()]]?
>> >
>> >
>> Zwiki has a more powerful embedded scripting language called DTML. This
>> is what we use for such things on zwiki.org and zopewiki.org. But it's
>> not enabled on ubuntulinux.org and it's not clear yet whether it will
>> be. If not,  it would be feasible to add some limited tags like these,
>> it would just take work.
>
> 'a more powerfull shripting language' sound like a great thing for a CMS
> - but not a wiki.
>
> I cant see how the new wiki is ever going to be able to create
> documentation which is usable/easy to navigate.   If there was a
> standard bit of DHTML to do this, and DTML was turned on - this would be
> a step in the write direction - but I again I think we are going away
> from wiki territory towards CMS.
>
> I was hoping we could use the wiki to develop a complete set of usable
> documentation, rather than a scratch pad for stuff to be moved into the
> 'official' documentation.
>
> Is it even possible to hand build internal links in pages - again a step
> in the correct direction but hardly very user friendly.
>
> I am sure there are lots of great features in zwiki - but they seem to
> be moving away from the idea of wiki - quick and easy / accessible for
> new users - and towards cms - flexible but with a learning curve.
>
> Just my opinion, what do others think.
>
> Ben
> --
> Ben Edwards - Poole, UK, England
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