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

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

Drupal also supports categories inside of categories. See
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy for details. 

Let's concentrate on identifying a few tags (Neil's 'usergroup' is still the
only one there), then we can address options for arranging them, okay?

--carol

-----Original Message-----
From: Su-Laine Yeo [mailto:su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:07 PM
To: Bruce Esrig; Carol Geyer; DITA Editorial Board
Subject: RE: [dita-fa-edboard] Removing the book hierarchy on DITA Wiki pages

Hi Bruce,


I think the de facto maintenance plan is to regularly go into
http://dita.xml.org/admin/content/taxonomy_manager/7 and merge and
rename tags. 

On Wikipedia, most users cannot directly rename or delete categories.
They can suggest renaming/deleting and participate in discussions (which
are more or less votes) about whether the rename/delete should go ahead.
I believe you need administrative privileges to rename and delete
categories. Administrators determine whether the discussion reaches
consensus and then do the actual renaming or deletion. However they are
supposed to act according to community consensus and not their own
opinions - In theory and largely in practice, administrators don't
actually more editorial sway than non-administrators.

In a nutshell:
1) Wikipedia has guidelines for how to name categories
2) Anybody can create categories
3) Whether new categories stay or go is decided by community consensus
4) Administrators implement the decisions from #3, as routine
maintenance tasks 

If we do #1, #2, and #4, I think we can safely skip #3. 

To try to answer your question about taxonomy pages, Wikipedia has
"list" pages which sometimes but not always have corresponding
categories,  and I don't think there is an automated way to convert a
list into a category or vice-versa. Sometimes an appropriate category is
not an appropriate list and vice-versa, e.g. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization_FAQ#What_is_the_di
fference_between_a_list_and_a_category.3F

BTW one very nice thing about categories in MediaWiki, over tags in
Drupal, is that you can put categories in other categories. For example,
"Birds of Europe" and "Mammals of Europe" are both subcategories of
"Fauna of Europe".  That way if an article is in "Birds of Europe" it is
automatically considered to be in "Fauna of Europe" as well. The "Fauna
of Europe" category will itself belong to a series of higher-level
biology and geography categories, such that you can get to it from a few
clicks here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorical_index .
That page is also in effect a taxonomy page.

Cheers,
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: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 4:01 AM
To: Su-Laine Yeo; Carol Geyer; DITA Editorial Board
Subject: RE: [dita-fa-edboard] Removing the book hierarchy on DITA Wiki
pages

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/20
0
>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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