From Teaching Open Source
I caught your comments on Talk:Introduction to Free and Open Source Software about how to treat the textbook within the wiki. I understand what you mean, and I think I know the consequences and how they'll play out in the conversion-to-DocBook bits, but I'd like to discuss that a bit more. I also think I understand where you are coming from in terms of this space as a wiki overall -- for example, I really like that you keep a list for reference of MediaWiki resources. In the Fedora Project wiki, we try to build on the same resources, with our local additions or exceptions -- like patches to their code, we patch the process if needed.
Have you seen the Fedora wiki pages that we used for the common editing syntax bits for the textbook? They are useful in the conversion to DocBook, so are one reason we used them. Also, a few of us editors helped write and use those, so we're familiar with them. The notes for the conversion process and the Fedora page links are at Textbook wiki2xml conversion sprint 20100326.
The reason I think I've missed what you are doing is that Teaching Open Source project overall is a mailing list-based group. For us to establish common standards and such for the wiki, we'd usually have that conversation there instead of e.g. User: pages. I know that is different from other MediaWiki-based communities. For now, while we have so few writers and editors of the wiki, and nearly all of them (are you?) on the mailing list, and that has been the protocol so far, we should continue our discussion there. Does that work for you? TeachingOpenSource Mailing List for reference.
Thanks for your thoughtful work on the wiki, it is much appreciated. I'm glad you want to get it lined up with the textbook work. With regard to this space as a general wiki, I fully agree with following the WikiMedia standards for how a wiki is run ... with the possible exception of the usage of mailing lists. ;-)
--Quaid 01:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to take this a little out of the order in which you presented your comments (Courteously done, by the way. Thank you. Veterans on some projects seem to have a hard time perceiving newcomers as intelligent folks. The vets here seem to be quite welcoming.), but I do intend to comment on most of your points.
If a neophyte were to discover the existence of the Teaching Open Source project outside of the communication media of the project, s/he may try searching for the project. Both Google and Yahoo respond with the the teachingopensource.org URL, one with www. and one without. That URL responds by displaying the Wiki. The first suggestion under "Get Involved" is "Join and use this wiki"; third is "Join the mailing list". I've seen this sort of disconnect between a project's veterans' tribal knowledge and their public documentation several times. Perhaps the veterans need to discuss re-ordering the suggestions on the wiki and making special note that the mailing list is the communication channel of record. I gladly fall into line with the veterans of any project I join. They obviously have more invested than I until I spend some time contributing.
In general, I've tried reading mailing list archives to come up to speed, but that means I have to spend a lot of time with issues that have been fully resolved. Since the wiki seemed to suggest it was the central repository of consensus, I chose to explore it first. My intention was to get up to speed on where the project was so I would more likely be able to, at least, ask intelligent questions and make productive suggestions. Then, I would join the mailing list, watch the current discussions, and move forward with the team from there.
The rest of these comments I WILL bring to the mailing list, one by one.
As to creating a textbook, I haven't gone too far into those pages, yet. One of the first things I would hope to encounter is a statement of the project work flow structure. Textbook Project describes project personnel organization, but not the data organization. If there are discrepancies between the various data formats, what is the authoritative source? Textbook_Release_0.8 lists two HTML editions and a PDF copy. Is there an svn repository? If yes, does it contain wiki or DocBook or ??? formatted data? You seem to indicate here it is in the wiki in some DocBook generating superset of xml or wiki syntax.
As to bringing the experience of working on other projects to this project (I've touched Linux From Scratch and Inkscape, but have yet to earn beginner status on either project.), I think stating the work flow and data structure norms of this project as they have come to be would be useful somewhere near the first point of probable contact by someone who came from somewhere else.
Thank you for providing my needed veteran's view. I'll see you on the mailing list.
NeoPhyte Rep 01:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)