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

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

Hi Su-Laine,

Yes, this could have been one of the things I missed ... what is the 
maintenance plan for the tags?

Wikipedia wouldn't fit my idea of a pure user-contributed wiki since some 
of the users take on administrative roles, and there is an editorial hierarchy.

Let me ask about the tag maintenance that ordinary users perform on 
Wikipedia. What sort of normalization results without administrative 
intervention? Are the discussion pages or a parallel set of pages used to 
administer categories? For example, if there's a taxonomy page, are the 
items in the taxonomy actually transferred to tags, or do they simply sit 
there as a static assertion of a theoretical best practice?

What behaviors are we expecting on the OASIS DITA site?

Best wishes,

Bruce

At 06:54 PM 10/16/2007, Su-Laine Yeo wrote:
>Hi Bruce,
>
>Can you clarify what you mean when you say that pure user-contributed
>wikis are unmanageable? There are hundreds of pure user-contributed
>wikis that work well, the English Wikipedia being the best-known
>example.
>
>All categories on Wikipedia are created by the same unwashed masses who
>write articles. You don't need anyone's permission to create a category.
>Unlike with Flickr tags, however, Wikipedia community members constantly
>attend to ensuring that categories are named consistently, and if
>someone creates a bad category there are processes to get it renamed or
>deleted: (e.g.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/200
>7_September_9). I agree that if that kind of regular grooming didn't
>happen, categories would be chaos in no time. Grooming does take time,
>and is one of the costs of a system based on a spirit of "ask for
>forgiveness not permission."
>
>Su-Laine
>
>Su-Laine Yeo
>Interaction Design Specialist
>
>JustSystems, Inc.
>Office: 778-327-6356
>syeo@justsystems.com
>http://na.justsystems.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bruce Esrig [mailto:esrig-ia@esrig.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 3:40 PM
>To: Carol Geyer; 'DITA Editorial Board'
>Subject: Re: [dita-fa-edboard] Removing the book hierarchy on DITA Wiki
>pages
>
>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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