"Fred wrote: There are few things regarding any open source software that can't be figured out by using some creative googling. Fred
Great speculation, Fred. Yes, we Googled and found a *book* (no web sites) that at least one person on this list has used and found to be supportive of the types of inquiries and problems I shared:
http://www.packtpub.com/MediaWiki/book "MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide" by Mizanur Rahman.
I'll let you all know how it works for me. Thank you, Chad and Dave! Aside: Dave, "How can anyone be expected to run a catalog with 79 (!!!) different baseball cap styles?" to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle - see http://sanmar.com/sanmar-servlets/CatalogBrowser?v=new&id=126
However, regarding the specific MediaWiki struggles I shared, I've found no satisfactory Google responses yet. I said so in my first post, but the admin quashed it. Too long? Some other discomfort? Who knows why my first post was rejected by the list-serve admin. So, instead, I re-wrote a shorter inquiry. Now, we can endlessly guess at what details I originally offered to share up front in this thread. Any other guesses from others?
Angela, Thank you very much for offering your experience and insight, details in response to the 4 samples of the type of challenges I'm experiences. However, I either cannot even get to the screens you describe as working for you, or I cannot produce the results you imply should be available or that I want to accomplish. I appreciate your trying, but short of on-site troubleshooting, I don't think either of us knows exactly where our attempt to coordinate goes awry.
Here's an example of my frustration finding MediaWiki documentation: What are "Categories" and why? http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories is meaningless to me since it does not explain what [Category] is used for, how it works, what are it's features and benefits. It's like teaching someone how to drive a car and explaining the steering wheel like this: "turn the steering wheel by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise". Hello, isn't there something missing in that? Such as: it's attached to a rolling car and you actually want to move forward or backward AND change general direction to get to a destination, probably on roads of some kind? So, I'd like to know what I can do with Category schemes. Can I easily design a Category scheme later in life and apply it with a macro, globally? Or, do I have to manually categorize each page? Can I categorize by selecting from a schematic clickable menu I build on my site?
NOWHERE on that page (above) is there a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory and I would not have found more had I not exited from MediaWiki/WikiMedia altogether and wandered around Google a bit. But, Fred, please note that the two Category articles I found here are TOTALLY UNRELATED to each other and absolutely no help in intelligently planning and building and maintaining and rebuilding a MediaWiki implementation using Categories.
So, I search WITHIN Wikipedia for [how to use wiki categories] and it barfs up nothing, suggesting that I jump ship into Google or Yahoo search. I graciously accept Google and find ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization (which Wikipedia couldn't find on it's own?) which also leads me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization_FAQ !
I answer my own question:
"No."
Remember the question?
"Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?"
So, I'm printing my own, including further reading on Categories at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy ... this has l-o-n-g day written all over it!
I'll read the book mentioned above and continue to print and read hundreds of web reference pages daily, and continue to develop, develop, develop. My US TMEP Wiki Project is up to ~569,072 words, ~4,593 [Edit]able headings, and it all fits on a 125mb USB flash drive WITH Apache, MySQL, PHP and more using WOS for development (WOS from Cornelius Herzog at http://www.chsoftware.net/en, thank you very much)!
- Peter Blaise
Peter,
I believe that the book will answer a lot of the questions you have mentioned. It has a pretty good explanation of namespaces and categories. By the way they are basic ways to 'organize' bits.
The online "documentation" is good but there are holes. You just have to keep looking, searching and asking "why?".
Generally this works well.
As for the hats, that is the least of the problems <G>
DSig David Tod Sigafoos | SANMAR Corporation PICK Guy 206-770-5585 davesigafoos@sanmar.com
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Monahon, Peter B. Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 12:33 To: mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?
"Fred wrote: There are few things regarding any open source software that can't be figured out by using some creative googling. Fred
Great speculation, Fred. Yes, we Googled and found a *book* (no web sites) that at least one person on this list has used and found to be supportive of the types of inquiries and problems I shared:
http://www.packtpub.com/MediaWiki/book "MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide" by Mizanur Rahman.
I'll let you all know how it works for me. Thank you, Chad and Dave! Aside: Dave, "How can anyone be expected to run a catalog with 79 (!!!) different baseball cap styles?" to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle - see http://sanmar.com/sanmar-servlets/CatalogBrowser?v=new&id=126
However, regarding the specific MediaWiki struggles I shared, I've found no satisfactory Google responses yet. I said so in my first post, but the admin quashed it. Too long? Some other discomfort? Who knows why my first post was rejected by the list-serve admin. So, instead, I re-wrote a shorter inquiry. Now, we can endlessly guess at what details I originally offered to share up front in this thread. Any other guesses from others?
Angela, Thank you very much for offering your experience and insight, details in response to the 4 samples of the type of challenges I'm experiences. However, I either cannot even get to the screens you describe as working for you, or I cannot produce the results you imply should be available or that I want to accomplish. I appreciate your trying, but short of on-site troubleshooting, I don't think either of us knows exactly where our attempt to coordinate goes awry.
Here's an example of my frustration finding MediaWiki documentation: What are "Categories" and why? http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories is meaningless to me since it does not explain what [Category] is used for, how it works, what are it's features and benefits. It's like teaching someone how to drive a car and explaining the steering wheel like this: "turn the steering wheel by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise". Hello, isn't there something missing in that? Such as: it's attached to a rolling car and you actually want to move forward or backward AND change general direction to get to a destination, probably on roads of some kind? So, I'd like to know what I can do with Category schemes. Can I easily design a Category scheme later in life and apply it with a macro, globally? Or, do I have to manually categorize each page? Can I categorize by selecting from a schematic clickable menu I build on my site?
NOWHERE on that page (above) is there a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory and I would not have found more had I not exited from MediaWiki/WikiMedia altogether and wandered around Google a bit. But, Fred, please note that the two Category articles I found here are TOTALLY UNRELATED to each other and absolutely no help in intelligently planning and building and maintaining and rebuilding a MediaWiki implementation using Categories.
So, I search WITHIN Wikipedia for [how to use wiki categories] and it barfs up nothing, suggesting that I jump ship into Google or Yahoo search. I graciously accept Google and find ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization (which Wikipedia couldn't find on it's own?) which also leads me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization_FAQ !
I answer my own question:
"No."
Remember the question?
"Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?"
So, I'm printing my own, including further reading on Categories at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy ... this has l-o-n-g day written all over it!
I'll read the book mentioned above and continue to print and read hundreds of web reference pages daily, and continue to develop, develop, develop. My US TMEP Wiki Project is up to ~569,072 words, ~4,593 [Edit]able headings, and it all fits on a 125mb USB flash drive WITH Apache, MySQL, PHP and more using WOS for development (WOS from Cornelius Herzog at http://www.chsoftware.net/en, thank you very much)!
- Peter Blaise
_______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
On 10/04/07, Monahon, Peter B. Peter.Monahon@uspto.gov wrote:
"Fred wrote: There are few things regarding any open source software that can't be figured out by using some creative googling. Fred
Great speculation, Fred. Yes, we Googled and found a *book* (no web sites) that at least one person on this list has used and found to be supportive of the types of inquiries and problems I shared:
http://www.packtpub.com/MediaWiki/book "MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide" by Mizanur Rahman.I'll let you all know how it works for me. Thank you, Chad and Dave! Aside: Dave, "How can anyone be expected to run a catalog with 79 (!!!) different baseball cap styles?" to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle - see http://sanmar.com/sanmar-servlets/CatalogBrowser?v=new&id=126
However, regarding the specific MediaWiki struggles I shared, I've found no satisfactory Google responses yet. I said so in my first post, but the admin quashed it. Too long? Some other discomfort? Who knows why my first post was rejected by the list-serve admin. So, instead, I re-wrote a shorter inquiry. Now, we can endlessly guess at what details I originally offered to share up front in this thread. Any other guesses from others?
Angela, Thank you very much for offering your experience and insight, details in response to the 4 samples of the type of challenges I'm experiences. However, I either cannot even get to the screens you describe as working for you, or I cannot produce the results you imply should be available or that I want to accomplish. I appreciate your trying, but short of on-site troubleshooting, I don't think either of us knows exactly where our attempt to coordinate goes awry.
Here's an example of my frustration finding MediaWiki documentation: What are "Categories" and why? http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories is meaningless to me since it does not explain what [Category] is used for, how it works, what are it's features and benefits. It's like teaching someone how to drive a car and explaining the steering wheel like this: "turn the steering wheel by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise". Hello, isn't there something missing in that? Such as: it's attached to a rolling car and you actually want to move forward or backward AND change general direction to get to a destination, probably on roads of some kind? So, I'd like to know what I can do with Category schemes. Can I easily design a Category scheme later in life and apply it with a macro, globally? Or, do I have to manually categorize each page? Can I categorize by selecting from a schematic clickable menu I build on my site?
NOWHERE on that page (above) is there a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory and I would not have found more had I not exited from MediaWiki/WikiMedia altogether and wandered around Google a bit. But, Fred, please note that the two Category articles I found here are TOTALLY UNRELATED to each other and absolutely no help in intelligently planning and building and maintaining and rebuilding a MediaWiki implementation using Categories.
So, I search WITHIN Wikipedia for [how to use wiki categories] and it barfs up nothing, suggesting that I jump ship into Google or Yahoo search. I graciously accept Google and find ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization (which Wikipedia couldn't find on it's own?) which also leads me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization_FAQ !
I answer my own question:
"No."
Remember the question?
"Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?"
So, I'm printing my own, including further reading on Categories at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy ... this has l-o-n-g day written all over it!
I'll read the book mentioned above and continue to print and read hundreds of web reference pages daily, and continue to develop, develop, develop. My US TMEP Wiki Project is up to ~569,072 words, ~4,593 [Edit]able headings, and it all fits on a 125mb USB flash drive WITH Apache, MySQL, PHP and more using WOS for development (WOS from Cornelius Herzog at http://www.chsoftware.net/en, thank you very much)!
- Peter Blaise
MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Look at a random Wikipedia article to see categories 'in action.
I would hazard a guess that the reason Wikipedia's search didn't find anything was because you did not elect to include the Wikipedia: namespace in the search.
Please don't SHOUT, it only gets people's backs up. We're all, aside from a select few, volunteers, and don't have to help you at all. The text found when you type Special:Version into the search box and click go says "MediaWiki is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details."
On 2007.04.10 15:32, Monahon Peter B. - Peter.Monahon@USPTO.GOV wrote:
... 4 samples of the type of challenges I'm experiencing. However, I either cannot even get to the screens you describe as working for you, or I cannot produce the results you imply should be available or that I want to accomplish. ...
Unfortunately, there are always going to be holes, especially things that are confusing to a novice.
A lot of your criticisms are valid; there are topics that need connecting, areas that need background articles, etc.
Since, as a new user, you are in the position of having these holes be rather more obvious to you than to experienced users, you can help by documenting the problems you have, and you are in an ideal position to help plug the holes when you do achieve some insight.
That is not to say that this is not great software. Why would you be here otherwise?
And one of the things that makes it great, is that everyone can pitch in to make it better in their own way.
I think one of your example problems was with the sidebar.
Here is an example of a new user trying to close that documentation hole.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual_talk:Navigation_bar#Problem_changing_th...
There seems to be a lot of possibly useful stuff on these talk pages.
Maybe this can help you, and maybe you can see a way to make it easier to find, or to clarify the related page.
Regards,
Jim Laurino
Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
It's like teaching someone how to drive a car and explaining the steering wheel like this: "turn the steering wheel by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise". Hello, isn't there something missing in that?
You don't learn to drive by building a car. If you want to learn how a wiki works, use a wiki - don't install and administer a wiki until you have learned that much. There are plenty of wikis out there - Wikipedia has essentially every feature you will find in Mediawiki.
I learned to use a wiki before I installed one. That made life a lot easier.
Believe me, I can understand your frustration with open source software. It is universally poorly documented. It helps to think like a programmer to understand what is documented and sometimes you have to open up the code to make sense of it. Life's like that - programmers write code, they don't write documentation.
However, I cannot accept your attitude, since it sounds like you think someone owes you something. If you want a product that comes with full support, find someone you can pay to get it. Please don't whine to the volunteers, that will be very counterproductive.
Mike
".. Life's like that - programmers write code, they don't write documentation.."
Programmers who do not, can not or will not document haven't earned their chops. If someone is coding a system to track their groceries at home and they don't want to document then fine. Any time someone is working on any system, open-source, closed-source, free-ware or charge-ware, documentation is part of the job.
DSig David Tod Sigafoos | SANMAR Corporation
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Michael Daly Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 15:04 To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configure instruction manual?
Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
It's like teaching someone how to drive a car and explaining the steering wheel like this: "turn the steering wheel by rotating clockwise or anticlockwise". Hello, isn't there something missing in that?
You don't learn to drive by building a car. If you want to learn how a wiki works, use a wiki - don't install and administer a wiki until you have learned that much. There are plenty of wikis out there - Wikipedia
has essentially every feature you will find in Mediawiki.
I learned to use a wiki before I installed one. That made life a lot easier.
Believe me, I can understand your frustration with open source software.
It is universally poorly documented. It helps to think like a programmer to understand what is documented and sometimes you have to open up the code to make sense of it. Life's like that - programmers write code, they don't write documentation.
However, I cannot accept your attitude, since it sounds like you think someone owes you something. If you want a product that comes with full support, find someone you can pay to get it. Please don't whine to the volunteers, that will be very counterproductive.
Mike
_______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
On 11/04/07, Dave Sigafoos davesigafoos@sanmar.com wrote:
Programmers who do not, can not or will not document haven't earned their chops. If someone is coding a system to track their groceries at home and they don't want to document then fine. Any time someone is working on any system, open-source, closed-source, free-ware or charge-ware, documentation is part of the job.
(sigh)
MediaWiki is a volunteer effort, and while we can complain about the quality of the people we get - and if you ask any of the junior committers, they will assert that I do so all the time - for the most part, you usually get something positive. We are, of course, in no position to reject useful contributions, even if they are not documented properly.
While a good developer recognises that documenting his or her code is to everyone's benefit, we don't just have good developers; we also have people who apparently don't write a lot of code at all, or are not experienced enough to appreciate many things that can be taken for granted in a more professional context, and we have to work with them.
Rob Church
Rob,
I agree that 'volunteer efforts' will end up 'doing with' but I also note from the tone of your post (and from looking at some of your code) there is a recognition that documentation is an important part of the process. Having worked on other open source (and hence volunteer effort) projects I get it <G>.
I always find it hard not to reply when it is stated that 'programmers don't document'.
Thanks for the reply
DSig David Tod Sigafoos | SANMAR Corporation PICK Guy
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Rob Church Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 7:48 To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wiki setup-and-configureinstruction manual?
On 11/04/07, Dave Sigafoos davesigafoos@sanmar.com wrote:
Programmers who do not, can not or will not document haven't earned their chops. If someone is coding a system to track their groceries
at
home and they don't want to document then fine. Any time someone is working on any system, open-source, closed-source, free-ware or charge-ware, documentation is part of the job.
(sigh)
MediaWiki is a volunteer effort, and while we can complain about the quality of the people we get - and if you ask any of the junior committers, they will assert that I do so all the time - for the most part, you usually get something positive. We are, of course, in no position to reject useful contributions, even if they are not documented properly
While a good developer recognises that documenting his or her code is to everyone's benefit, we don't just have good developers; we also have people who apparently don't write a lot of code at all, or are not experienced enough to appreciate many things that can be taken for granted in a more professional context, and we have to work with them.
Rob Church
_______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Dave Sigafoos wrote:
Any time someone is working on any system, open-source, closed-source, free-ware or charge-ware, documentation is part of the job.
Nice philosophy, but even in the real world (pro, big business coding on mega projects) documentation gets short shrift. Management sees code working, it doesn't see documentation working.
As far as open source goes, - it's a hobby, not a job.
Mike
Nice philosophy, but even in the real world (pro, big business coding on mega projects) documentation gets short shrift. Management sees code working, it doesn't see documentation working. Mike
I have seen great systems put together and wonderful functionality that management falls in love with, showers awards on its developer and recommends everyone use the new great tool. Then I see that one guy, only one guy, really knows the system. As the system gets used more and then becomes a critical piece of infrastructure, management gets worried, what of he leaves? They demand documentation, the programmer laughs. "Its self documented!". The guy eventually leaves but says he'll be available by phone if anyone needs help. Some poor soul is put in change of the system. Every day he wonders what to do if something breaks. He tries to understand the system but without docs there is little he can do. He tries reading the code, which is somewhat documented, but there is a lot of it and its not clear what calls what when. One day a system monitor goes off. "Malfunction in goobledegook". The poor soul has no idea what it is. Calls the developer who is happy to help. Things get fixed. Now the poor soul waits for the next failure, or worse, needs to update the OS the system is running on. Management begins loosing faith in the once great system and begins looking for a product with similar functionality from Microsoft. Management is now willing to be enslaved because they did not require their programmers to professionally document their work.
Documentation MUST be part of any system that is to be used by anyone other than the developer. It must be readable and complete. You expect your car to come with an owners manual, your garbage disposer, your washing machine and your iPod, none of which you ever plan to read. Why should code that others will use, especially when it is professionally developed, be any different? Short shrifting documentation is unprofessional and any good management should not stand for it.
Sorry for the rant... -Jim
_______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Bravo Jim .. I am standing and clapping <G>
DSig David Tod Sigafoos | SANMAR Corporation
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Sullivan, James (NIH/CIT) [C] Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:45 To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Any leads on a basic wikisetup-and-configure instruction manual?
Nice philosophy, but even in the real world (pro, big business coding on mega projects) documentation gets short shrift. Management sees code working, it doesn't see documentation working. Mike
I have seen great systems put together and wonderful functionality that management falls in love with, showers awards on its developer and recommends everyone use the new great tool. Then I see that one guy, only one guy, really knows the system. As the system gets used more and then becomes a critical piece of infrastructure, management gets worried, what of he leaves? They demand documentation, the programmer laughs. "Its self documented!". The guy eventually leaves but says he'll be available by phone if anyone needs help. Some poor soul is put in change of the system. Every day he wonders what to do if something breaks. He tries to understand the system but without docs there is little he can do. He tries reading the code, which is somewhat documented, but there is a lot of it and its not clear what calls what when. One day a system monitor goes off. "Malfunction in goobledegook". The poor soul has no idea what it is. Calls the developer who is happy to help. Things get fixed. Now the poor soul waits for the next failure, or worse, needs to update the OS the system is running on. Management begins loosing faith in the once great system and begins looking for a product with similar functionality from Microsoft. Management is now willing to be enslaved because they did not require their programmers to professionally document their work.
Documentation MUST be part of any system that is to be used by anyone other than the developer. It must be readable and complete. You expect your car to come with an owners manual, your garbage disposer, your washing machine and your iPod, none of which you ever plan to read. Why should code that others will use, especially when it is professionally developed, be any different? Short shrifting documentation is unprofessional and any good management should not stand for it.
Sorry for the rant... -Jim
Sullivan, James (NIH/CIT) [C] wrote:
As the system gets used more and then becomes a critical piece of infrastructure, management gets worried, what of he leaves? They demand documentation, the programmer laughs. "Its self documented!".
Anyone who's worked in the IT business for more than a few years has likely seen this. Management is at fault for not making documentation mandatory and for allowing themselves to be so dependent on one programmer to this degree.
However, in the real world, management is never going to fund the documentation effort and the backup staff. They are not going to take a project that is inevitably late and over budget and spring for the extra time & $$$ to get the documentation done.
Documentation MUST be part of any system that is to be used by anyone other than the developer. It must be readable and complete.
I agree. I fought that battle for decades. However, it just doesn't happen in a world run by petty spreadsheet pushers disguised as senior management. It's less likely to be done in a world of volunteer effort where coding produces instant gratification and documentation is a drudge.
Nerds as a group have poorer communication skills than the general population. You're fighting an uphill battle just to get them to learn how to write proper English. I looked at some of the Apache code recently, trying to understand how some undocumented feature worked. The code was filled with variable names like: r, s, t... "Self documented"? Yeah, right. They can't write, they can't type and they can't spell. Hence, they produce write-once code that no one else will understand without considerable effort.
One of the most abominable code standards that results in unreadable code is the product of one Charles Simonyi (formerly of Microsoft). His coding standards in MS software are crap. He is currently a paying passenger on the Space Station. You don't get paid for real quality in the computer business. But some get paid billions.
Mike
On 10/04/07, Monahon, Peter B. Peter.Monahon@uspto.gov wrote:
However, regarding the specific MediaWiki struggles I shared, I've found no satisfactory Google responses yet. I said so in my first post, but the admin quashed it. Too long? Some other discomfort? Who knows why my first post was rejected by the list-serve admin. So, instead, I
A decent explanation was given the first time; this is wikitech-l, the mailing list for internal developer discussion of technical issues related to the Wikimedia Foundation.
General MediaWiki support posts need to be made to mediawiki-l, which is a list set up for that purpose. You'll find considerable more help in the list archives there.
Rob Church
mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org