Re: [dita-fa-edboard] Removing the book hierarchy on DITA Wiki pages

[Bruce Esrig <esrig-ia@esrig.com>]

I missed all the intervening discussion, but I'll state an opinion based on 
the messages I've seen.

[ Aha ... after writing the following, I remembered the idea of offering 
some pre-defined tags. Has an list of tags that provides good coverage 
already been defined? Is there a mechanism in place for distinguishing the 
recommended tags from potentially-similar user-defined tags? ]

I think that pure user-contributed wikis are unmanageable. User-based 
tagging is too unreliable a mechanism for real information retrieval. If 
you don't care what results a user is going to get (for example, on 
flickr), user-based tagging is not so bad.

The remedies are one or more of the following:
  - supervise the tagging
  - supervise the article structure to ensure adequate cross-references, 
including a related links section
  - provide a hierarchical (or at least systematic) alternate

Not knowing the plans that have been discussed, I can't say whether 
eliminating the book hierarchy is a good idea, but I'd advocate having a 
remedy in place rather than going with pure user-contributed content and 
tagging.

Best wishes,

Bruce

At 04:01 PM 10/16/2007, Carol Geyer wrote:
>DITA XML.org EdBoard:
>I've been doing some 'book' and 'sitemap' experimentation since our call last
>week. If the EdBoard feels Drupal's 'book' hierarchical navigation is a
>negative feature, we can change it.
>
>I believe the best solution would be to create new 'page' nodes for all the
>current Wiki pages, then delete the current 'book' nodes. 'Page' nodes don't
>support outlining, so users won't be confronted by that 'Parent:' drop down
>menu on the edit page.
>
>Recreating the pages is not hard, just tedious. If we can get a volunteer or
>two to take this on, the conversion can be accomplished fairly quickly. (I
>don't think there's a way to automate this.) I'm happy to work with someone on
>this.
>
>As for the sitemap, we'll either be able to list all wiki pages on the 
>site map
>in alpha order (or by creation date) or just have one link to the main wiki
>outline page (or maybe the main wiki page and the sections).
>
>Are we sure this is what we want to do before we put in the time to make the
>change?
>
>Pros:
>-more closely mimic traditional wikis
>-one less thing users need to do
>-doesn't force users to choose one primary location
>-eliminates risk of users putting pages in wrong order
>
>Cons:
>-makes sitemap less meaningful
>-removes automatic navigation to subpages (links at the bottom of the parent
>pages)
>
>
>If we are in agreement that ditching the 'book' will add to the site's
>usability, then we should do it--now before the site grows larger. What do you
>think?
>
>
>--Carol
>
>
>
>_________________________________
>Carol Geyer
>Director of Communications
>OASIS
>+1.978.667.5115 x209
>
>Register now for the Open Standards Forum:
>"Enabling Transformational Government Through Web Services and SOA"
>29-30 Oct 2007  *  London
>http://events.oasis-open.org/home/forum/2007
>
>
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