Re: [gentoo-dev] [Gentoo Phoenix] an official Gentoo wiki

[AllenJB <gentoo-lists@allenjb.me.uk>]

On 04/04/10 23:45, Zeerak Mustafa Waseem wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 04:13:19PM +0100, AllenJB wrote:
>> The unofficial wiki may have been created because there wasn't an
>> official one, but that doesn't mean it's any less of a community in its
>> own right.
>>
>> Starting the official wiki by effectively ripping off others work and
>> attempting to destroy existing user communities is NOT the right way to
>> go about things, in my opinion (and losing the editing history of those
>> articles in the process).
>>
>> You should first try to start your wiki/community and make it a
>> community in its own right, rather than trying to steal/destroy/rip off
>> existing communities.
>>
>> My personal goal is to continue to maintain an existing community full
>> of useful documentation, already concentrated in one place. The
>> unofficial wiki avoids duplication by pointing to existing documentation
>> where ever possible.
>>
>> The search problem is already dealt with by Google, so that's no reason
>> to go about ripping off other peoples work.
>>
>> With your aims in mind, I don't see the point in duplicating existing
>> material, creating TWO places you have to check to see what's been updated.
>>
>> If an "official wiki" starts up and becomes a major documentation centre
>> for user contributions, then I may consider moving my articles over, but
>> until that time I currently intend to maintain them in place, with their
>> complete history in tact.
>>
>> AllenJB
>>
> 
> You're absolutely right, it is a seperate community, and reading your replies I can't help but think "Is the url really that important?". After all regardless of where the articles that you've written, you still would be the writer. You could still take part in the various discussions that may arise on the articles.
> 
> The way I see it is that when the official wiki comes up, it will only be a question of time before the pages covered in the unofficial wiki are covered in the official one, particularly if it'll be mainly user-driven and people stop thinking about using the unofficial wiki, as there is a wiki and the answer isn't there. So when they find the answer, they add it.
> Personally I'd prefer to be part of the change rather than resisting it.
> I can understand reluctance to join a project you aren't certain will succeed, though.

The way I see it, the "official" wiki has to earn my respect as a
project. The unofficial wiki already has already been through this
process. It's no different whether I'm trying a new piece of software or
a new distro.

It's not the URL that bothers me. I will, as I have said, quite happily
move the articles I've written over, relicensing what I can if
necessary, if/when I believe that the community would benefit.

My problem is with the attitude of "let's start the official wiki by
taking the content of the unofficial wiki, regardless of the wishes of
the active contributors of those articles".

> As another note, the license of gentoo-wiki doesn't stop anyone from copying but is incompatible with the license on the docs (was mentioned in a thread recently) so what is in gentoo-wiki won't be copied, but at best/worst rewritten. 
> 
> As an endnote, none of the above is meant as provocative or offensive, so in case it does offend; you have my apologies (it seems like a touchy subject for you so I thought I'd make it clear :-) )

Yes, the license may allow you to do this, and legally you might be able
to do so under the license. But the legal license and ethics/morals
involved in such action are different things.

As I see it, the purpose of licensing my articles under an open license
is to allow them to be contributed to and read without issues in the
eventuality that the current wiki is lost for any reason (tho this is
highly unlikely to happen again in the forseeable future as I and others
now actively backup the content of the wiki, and the server maintainer
has much better full backups in place) or the event that I am "hit by a
bus".


If those who wish to run an official wiki can see no sensible starting
point other than copying the content of the unofficial wiki, then I
would bring into question what the point of an official wiki would be,
and why should the Gentoo developers psend time and resources on
duplicating the efforts of the community when there is a huge long list
of other things they could do that would provide services to the
community that are not already catered for.

AllenJB