Re: c.l.c wiki update
- From: Giannis Papadopoulos <ipapadop@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 16:22:03 +0200
Steve Summit wrote:
Netocrat wrote:
Now that basic support for moderation exists, feedback, particularly from regulars, and in particular from Steve Summit as FAQ maintainer and copyright holder, is solicited: * do you support the proposed charter and model of a limited editorial group? * do you support the proposed content guidelines? * is it acceptable/desirable to host the comp.lang.c FAQ on such a wiki? * any other issues/concerns.
In my turn, I also thank you for having such a positive stance for a wannabe c.l.c wiki.
My first comment is that the question of openness versus control is an extremely important one. Much virtual ink has been spilled of late about the alleged unreliability of Wikipedia; that debate seems to have spilled over even into the sacred, narrow-topic realm of clc. Clearly it's appallingly irresponsible for Wikipedia to be openly edited by anyone, even unregistered anonymous users -- but let's think about that for a moment.
It's also clearly the case that Wikipedia has been as successful as it has been *because* it can be openly edited by anyone. It's eminently debatable whether unregistered anonymous users should have equally free reign, but it's undisputable that Wikipedia would never have achieved its current momentum if it had been equipped all along with a proper editorial review board and article approval process. Wikipedia is as successful as it is -- and as accurate as it is -- not merely in spite of its open policies, but because of them.
Although openness would be a major benefit, we ought to think about people that think they know C, and might try to contribute, whereas they are propagating errors and misunderstandings.
In Wikipedia it works, because it has many editors, maybe more than a language-specific wiki (such as the proposed one) will ever have. So a more restrictive stance seems to be the way to go, at least for the time being. However, no rule is meant to last for ever.
Moreover, your C FAQ has reached another level of perfection - after so many years of dedication, corrections and additions - and it would be very precarious to leave it open for everyone.
A C Wiki, with its smaller scope and more constrained subject matter, could probably get away with a little more control (aka closedness) than the every-topic-is-fair-game Wikipedia, but I suspect it will still be important that it be relatively open, where by "relatively" I mean "more than would seem prudent". If it is open, yes, it may suffer from some of the same kinds of transient inaccuracy that Wikipedia is notorious for. But if it is closely controlled, and no matter how well-intentioned that control is to prevent vandalism and ill-informed speculation, the project will be at significant risk of never getting off the ground at all.
However, if it manages to get off the ground IMHO it would be a major contribution.. And I think it worths the risk.
On the specific question of "seeding" a C Wiki with the comp.lang.c FAQ list, I'm still of mixed mind. On the one hand I do hold the copyright and can do almost anything I want with the content, but on the other hand Addison Wesley also has a vested interest and a particular copyright notice they'd like to retain, so it probably won't be possible to just release the whole FAQ list under the GFDL. But I'd like to see if we can do something, because while on the one hand I am (I confess) still possessive enough about the thing that I'll have some qualms about throwing it open for anyone to edit, on the other hand I've been wondering how I'm ever going to cede control over it, since I don't maintain it as actively as I once did and I'm certainly not going to maintain it forever. I've been wondering if it's time to fork it, and doing so in the context of a C Wiki might be just the thing.
We can search some other ways to have GNU FDL and copyrighted material in the same place. I don't think that this is out of the question. It could, for example, have the copyrighted C FAQ question and answer, and after that the FDL part that either complements the answer or gives other directions, hints etc.
At the very least we could certainly seed the FAQ List section of a C Wiki with the questions from the existing FAQ list, bidirectionally cross-referenced with the "static" answers I maintain, with the more dynamic, Wiki-side answer sections serving to amplify or annotate or extend or eventually supplant the static ones. But that would be kind of an awkward split, and I can probably see my way clear to having the Wiki-side answers seeded with the existing static answer text also, as long as it's possible to tag those pages with a different, non-GFDL copyright notice. I'll keep thinking about this, and maybe raise the question with the editors I've been talking with at Addison Wesley lately.
FDL is extremely versatile. I am not a lawyer or a patent-guy, but I think that after some careful discussion, there might be a way.
A couple of other notes:
I'm glad to see the Wikimedia software being used, rather than something being written from scratch!
It is tested and it works and it is now the heart of the c.l.c wiki thanks to Netocrat and Flash Gordon.
They're hinted at in the existing topic outline, but it would be lovely to have a collaboratively written, Wiki-mediated language tutorial, a language reference manual, and a library reference manual in there, too.
Yes, that would be nice.. However, the main focus is the FAQ (the first step is the start for even the longest journey - isn't that a chinese saying?) just because currently there aren't many people involved...
At any rate, let's see some more discussion about the Wiki idea! I think it has a lot of promise, which is why I'm blathering at length about it in this public post, rather than just sending an email reply to Netocrat.
Steve Summit scs@xxxxxxxxxx
.
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