Wiki Questions

N

nexus

I'm new here and I want to start contributing to the wiki. (My access request is pending.) I contribute to other wikis, most notably the Gentoo wiki. I enjoy writing technical articles.

I have a few questions:
  • Maybe it's different when I actually get the ability to create articles, but from the outside looking in I don't see anything that says "contributions are under X license." Is the FreeBSD wiki's license spelled out anywhere?
  • Would it make sense to have a FreeBSD wiki specific Forum Section, under Miscellaneous perhaps?
  • I see a stuff in the wiki that looks like random notes. What kind of depth is the wiki going for?
  • Is there any sense in writing command specific articles, or does the community take the position "that's what man pages are for."
Thanks!
 
wiki.freebsd.org is mostly for developers notes, sometimes it has good references/information for users. It's not organized, and not cleared up. Every once in a while, it will have useful pages for current projects.

In these forums, I can't get a clear answer either, on whether text here is opensource. It used to be stated, that it was under something like a BSD documentation license. It probably belongs to FreeBSD, while they likely wouldn't complain if you used your own text elsewhere. They suggest to write your stuff someone else, and to link to it. Possibly, because text here isn't only limited to documentation purposes. It would make sense, if FreeBSD owned it, and allowed you to license passages you select to open source. Couldn't get a clear answer on that either.

http://freebsdwiki.net is still around which uses BSD or CC licenses for documentation.
Also, https://www.unitedbsd.com/t/wiki has a wiki for all BSD's. Not sure of its license for documentation contributions.

nexus said:
Is there any sense in writing command specific articles, or does the community take the position "that's what man pages are for."
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Do it. Man pages are good, but other kinds of documentation help a lot.
 
nexus said:
> I don't see anything that says "contributions are under X license." Is the FreeBSD wiki's license spelled out anywhere?
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We have never gotten a consensus on how exactly it should read, and whether the overall project Code of Conduct should apply to it.

We also never spelled out what the terms for making contributions are. Back N years ago when the wiki was started, such things were not as important as they are now.
nexus said:
  • Would it make sense to have a FreeBSD wiki specific Forum Section, under Miscellaneous perhaps?
Click to expand...
About a year ago myself and several others tried to create a bridge between the forums and the wiki users, to avoid the "silo effect" that is so noticeable. After a while the effort faltered. Some people on the FreeBSD Discord are still interested (see Documentation/Wiki). I would like to see someone pick that work back up. I am simply too tired to do it all myself.
nexus said:
  • I see a stuff in the wiki that looks like random notes. What kind of depth is the wiki going for?
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Again, the wiki evolved, it was not designed, and it shows it.

As I have said in multiple status reports, the wiki needs new blood. The current hang-up is whether a non-committer will be able to administer accounts. (In the past, access to the infrastructure has only been granted to people with commit access rights.) At the moment, we have exactly one person who has admin rights on the wiki, and that's me.

I continue to repeat that I think the wiki could be a good resource. It currently is not. The state of it reflects the fact that many people do not see it as valuable, and as a result, it is not valuable (enough).
 
linimon@ said:
the wiki needs new blood
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While I understand that this is somewhat subjective, can you describe in general terms, the domain and role of a FreeBSD wiki. Both in an ideal sense and in a sense that looks achievable to you in the near future given some new blood and effort?
 
linimon@ said:
I continue to repeat that I think the wiki could be a good resource. It currently is not. The state of it reflects the fact that many people do not see it as valuable, and as a result, it is not valuable (enough).
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I agree that the wiki should be cleaned up. It feels like a disorganized notebook. I think it could be a great repository for miscellaneous information, tutorials, and development info, if, and only if, it is cleaned up to a point in which it doesn't look like my notes folder. Is it open for non-developers to create accounts? I at least might want to clean up some of the outdated stuff.
 
Erichans said:
While I understand that this is somewhat subjective, can you describe in general terms, the domain and role of a FreeBSD wiki. Both in an ideal sense and in a sense that looks achievable to you in the near future given some new blood and effort?
Click to expand...
I do not have a summary of the ideas that have been kicked around on the Discord, sorry.

This is exactly the type of thing where someone new needs to pick up the baton.
 
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