[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Wiki page for Freeciv manual

["T.J.T van Kooten" <thomas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Proper documentation is indeed a must. Going by the results of the 
poll CMA is a good example. Most people seem to be unaware of this 
feature because (a)the important info is buried away in a readme, (b) 
isn't mentioned in the official manual (this is were a wiki system could 
help) and (c) isn't properly explained in the game itself either (we need 
more help popups).  

And we don't need to the start from scratch. Information we have at 
present could serve as a starting point for the wiki. 

However this as much a social problem as a technical problem. I've 
been checking wiki's a bit and the main advice i've read about 
succesful wiki's is that a small group (3-5 people) should try and build 
the main system. Write and update the main pages, set up a main 
structure that's easy to understand for the casual user, don't be too 
critical about new user entries and give credit were credit is due. After 
that the initial founders start to become maintainers. Seeing as I'm not 
a programmer I would gladly help out with that.

The technical side poses challenges as well of course. But i think a 
wiki would work better then the current system were we just hope 
someone gets around to writing some documentation. 

Thomas (CapTVK)

> On Sun, May 11, 2003 at 03:14:18PM +0200, Reinier Post wrote:
> > 
> > Alternatively we can add wiki-like features to the existing manual.
> > Perhaps that is even better.
> 
> I think documentation needs to be improved in quantity, accessability,
> integration, localization. That means (to me) better structure of web
> doc, adding docs only available as text right now, easy ways to
> translate it part by part (not big html pages as it is now). I was
> dreaming about an xml system to achieve this, but wasn't able to
> present anything material yet.
> 
> Maybe a wiki can help, at least with quantity ... I don't know with
> the other goals.
> 
> Whatever wiki we use, it is IMHO necessary to integrate the existing
> information there. Do everything in one place ... oops, wrong firm.
> 
> A good prove of the lack of docs is here:
> 
> http://www.freeciv.org/poll.phtml
> 
> Christian
> 
> -- 
> Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
> * * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.
>