Software architect working in Symbian/S60 area since 2000 and still being enthusiastic about mobility. Please visit my introduction page on Forum Nokia Champions web page.
Forum Nokia Wiki - the responsibility of contributors
tote_b5 | 09 April, 2007 23:59
As Ron from Forum Nokia announced, Forum Nokia Wiki has been launched just a week ago. We, Forum Nokia Champions, were asked to fill the Wiki with contents a few weeks earlier so it wasn't news to us when it was launched. Nevertheless, I thought it was a good thing to have a centralized knowledge base online available to anyone wishing to find answers to their technical questions. Ideally it's going to be updated regularly with high- and low-level information alike (e.g. architectural vs API-level) sharing all the knowledge that lots of developers have gained on many areas that have anything to do with mobile development. I believe it was a good step waiting for being made by Nokia.
However, users of a wiki system must be aware of that there are some rules that every contributor should follow. Because one side of the coin says that a wiki can be edited by anyone, the other side, though, suggests that it ought to be done well. For example,
You know, there're a lot of people who don't know that wikis provide means to ease what I call elegant contributions. For example, MediaWiki, a web based wiki software used by e.g. Forum Nokia Wiki or WikiPedia, provides watchlist, feeds, notification mechanism for regular contributors to make it easy for them to follow-up the changes they made. Each article can be watched so that any changes are visible when one is checking to see if an article has been further improved since the last check. Feeds enable you to check it out what the recent changes were, for example. Although automatically not enabled, but e-mail notifications can also be requested upon any changes to any articles.
MediaWiki also lets you initiate a discussion over a topic of an article so that people can come to a conclusion over a debated topic without changing the content of the article in question. This is the reason why there is a comment page attached to each article in MediaWiki. If those people who changed my articles had been aware of this feature (or if they'd cared), then their contributions wouldn't have left mixed feeling behind.
Of course, it's not only bad things that happened to the articles that I published on Forum Nokia Wiki, but the vast majority is useful additions and corrections. In addition, I'm so much amazed of the growth speed of the wiki and hope that it will be at least close to this in the future, too. But I also see that there're still lots of things to improve - Nokia Ron and his team and the future board of administrators will probably spend lots of hours with figuring out how FNWiki suits their users' needs in the most convenient way.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Original from mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com.
Tote
However, users of a wiki system must be aware of that there are some rules that every contributor should follow. Because one side of the coin says that a wiki can be edited by anyone, the other side, though, suggests that it ought to be done well. For example,
- Most people know that copyrighted stuff shall not be added to the wiki, unless the author of the material in question has approved of doing so.
- Then it also has to be considered if the article to be added is really useful or not. Typically, "how to"s greatly improve the usefulness of a wiki, because what they explain is usually not mentioned in any off-line documents. As opposed to detailed API-documentation that should rather not be added to wikis (imho), since most developers interested in APIs already have a comprehensive API reference off-line.
- We have to be catious on adding new things so that they're in a readable format meaning that it can be digested easily. For example, I have seen articles that not only lacked formatting (I mean, at all), but they used internet-slang, like 'r u nuts?' (emphasis on one-letter words). I'm pretty sure that it's obvious to everyone why this style should be avioded in wikis.
- Finally, a very-very important thing: since anyone can edit any other people's article in a wiki, special care must be taken to change other people's contribution elegantly. For example, my articles have already been:
- Re-categorized - by removing a category which the article belonged to on purpose
- Re-formatted - so that external references (i.e. links) have been removed
- Truncated - some parts have been removed that should have stayed intact.
You know, there're a lot of people who don't know that wikis provide means to ease what I call elegant contributions. For example, MediaWiki, a web based wiki software used by e.g. Forum Nokia Wiki or WikiPedia, provides watchlist, feeds, notification mechanism for regular contributors to make it easy for them to follow-up the changes they made. Each article can be watched so that any changes are visible when one is checking to see if an article has been further improved since the last check. Feeds enable you to check it out what the recent changes were, for example. Although automatically not enabled, but e-mail notifications can also be requested upon any changes to any articles.
MediaWiki also lets you initiate a discussion over a topic of an article so that people can come to a conclusion over a debated topic without changing the content of the article in question. This is the reason why there is a comment page attached to each article in MediaWiki. If those people who changed my articles had been aware of this feature (or if they'd cared), then their contributions wouldn't have left mixed feeling behind.
Of course, it's not only bad things that happened to the articles that I published on Forum Nokia Wiki, but the vast majority is useful additions and corrections. In addition, I'm so much amazed of the growth speed of the wiki and hope that it will be at least close to this in the future, too. But I also see that there're still lots of things to improve - Nokia Ron and his team and the future board of administrators will probably spend lots of hours with figuring out how FNWiki suits their users' needs in the most convenient way.
Keep up the good work, guys!
Original from mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com.
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Re: Forum Nokia Wiki - the responsibility of contributors
tote_b5 | 11/04/2007, 00:48
Thanks, Ron! However, I'm not the person who enters into an endless fight over a wiki article. And although I agree with these moderation options above in theory, maybe we could just let them decide whose argument is stronger. You know, just as long as it doesn't affect the wiki's quality.Tote
Re: Forum Nokia Wiki - the responsibility of contributors
feenix | 15/04/2007, 12:49
I also have been worried about the Wiki. There is quite a lot of content already but most of it is in the "how to draw a line on the screen" area which is only useful to beginners. We already have examples in SDK's, why do we have to have them on the Wiki too? I want more of the undocumented stuff. More of the hard-to-do stuff. That's what we really need but we're not really getting that since Symbian/Nokia would be the only ones that could really improve the documentation.
Also there seems to be no thought process going on when many people send code examples. There is no consistency, even within a single person's articles. Tabs and spaces are mixed, variables are this and that. Many pieces of code are probably taken from somewhere else since I can't think of anyone who would write code that inconsistently. Hope that they have permission to put that code in the Wiki if it really isn't theirs.
Wikis are great tools for some things but if they're not managed right they'll become a dump site for anything people want to write. And for some people the most important thing is to be seen, so quantity goes over quality.
I also got so tired of the bad grammar that I just spent some time fixing some of the pages to have better wording. It's much nicer to read well written text than a comma separated list of words without any coherent meaning. I think I'll continue on this mission in the future too, in addition to trying to write stuff that's not that easy to find.
Hopefully someone at Nokia will also think this is nice and reward me for this O;)
Also there seems to be no thought process going on when many people send code examples. There is no consistency, even within a single person's articles. Tabs and spaces are mixed, variables are this and that. Many pieces of code are probably taken from somewhere else since I can't think of anyone who would write code that inconsistently. Hope that they have permission to put that code in the Wiki if it really isn't theirs.
Wikis are great tools for some things but if they're not managed right they'll become a dump site for anything people want to write. And for some people the most important thing is to be seen, so quantity goes over quality.
I also got so tired of the bad grammar that I just spent some time fixing some of the pages to have better wording. It's much nicer to read well written text than a comma separated list of words without any coherent meaning. I think I'll continue on this mission in the future too, in addition to trying to write stuff that's not that easy to find.
Hopefully someone at Nokia will also think this is nice and reward me for this O;)
Re: Forum Nokia Wiki - the responsibility of contributors
tote_b5 | 15/04/2007, 22:44
That's right! I can see (at least) the following two things that would greatly improve FN Wiki in my opinion:1. To work out some rules that would be mandatory for everyone to follow. Formatting, submitting useful articles, making modifications on other people's articles, etc. The page detailing these rules must be accessible by everyone, it should be very easy to navigate to.
2. Make a group of moderators whose daily/weekly task would be - among others - to moderate content (surprisingly). If an article doesn't meet the most important criteria defined in above-mentioned rules, then some action should be taken (reject article, asking author to review her article and make modifications on it, etc.).
These restrictions should be applied very carefully so that we don't really limit the freedom of wiki contributors.
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Software architect working in Symbian/S60 area since 2000 and still being enthusiastic about mobility. Please visit my introduction page on Forum Nokia Champions web page.
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Re: Forum Nokia Wiki - the responsibility of contributors
Nokia Ron | 10/04/2007, 20:12
Some plans I would like to make once I have an administration board
The option to request an article to be moderated so no changes can be made without approval
The option to have the board to decide on changes, for example if two people keep changing it back and forth no one wins, an impartial panel will decide what was most correct or proper wording.
So far I feel there have been great submissions, 1kb is a typical double spaced type written paper, and we have over 350 articles over 1kb in size. This is superb and shows how much a community Nokia developers are.
Ron