Re: Fwd: [Wine] Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB

[James Mckenzie]

David Gerard  wrote on March 8th:
> 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> > Would you be willing to clean out the ash and trash that will show up with an open Wiki?
>
> I already said I would, yes - that the only reason for not just
> starting one is to avoid massive duplication of effort.

If we move to an open Wiki, be prepared to be very busy.  I've seen spambots get past most, if not all, of the verification systems and bomb away.  I've read where several systems had to shut them down for fear of being sued.  At the present time, we have verification for exactly that reason.  To keep the spam out and to pre-edit those entries that do not provide all of the information needed.
> > I don't have the time to do this and it REALLY sounds like you are volunteering since you are pushing this issue so hard.  See there are VALID reasons for doing things the way we do them.
>
> I'm sure there are.

I would love to see a Wiki, with pre-editing of the entries.  This is possible, but would not address the problem you raised.

James McKenzie

Fwd: [Wine] Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB

[David Gerard]

2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> David Gerard  wrote on March 8th:
> > 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> > > Would you be willing to clean out the ash and trash that will show up with an open Wiki?
> > I already said I would, yes - that the only reason for not just
> > starting one is to avoid massive duplication of effort.
> If we move to an open Wiki, be prepared to be very busy.  I've seen spambots get past most, if not all, of the verification systems and bomb away.  I've read where several systems had to shut them down for fear of being sued.  At the present time, we have verification for exactly that reason.  To keep the spam out and to pre-edit those entries that do not provide all of the information needed.

I come from years of fighting vandals on Wikipedia. I know a thing or
two about the field ...

You're conflating a few separate things in your reply:

* The spammers are mostly dealt with by requiring a login to write
stuff *and* having a submission address or (better) form for those who
can't be bothered creating yet another website login.
* "I've read where several systems had to shut them down for fear of
being sued" - [citation needed]. Sec 230 has proven enough to
completely protect Wikipedia in actual court cases, not just in
theory.
* Entries that do not provide all the information needed - that's
quality control, which is part of the editing process.

- d.

Fwd: [Wine] Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB

[Ben Klein]

2009/3/9 David Gerard :
> 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> > David Gerard  wrote on March 8th:
> > > 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> > > > Would you be willing to clean out the ash and trash that will show up with an open Wiki?
> > > I already said I would, yes - that the only reason for not just
> > > starting one is to avoid massive duplication of effort.
> > If we move to an open Wiki, be prepared to be very busy.  I've seen spambots get past most, if not all, of the verification systems and bomb away.  I've read where several systems had to shut them down for fear of being sued.  At the present time, we have verification for exactly that reason.  To keep the spam out and to pre-edit those entries that do not provide all of the information needed.
>
> I come from years of fighting vandals on Wikipedia. I know a thing or
> two about the field ...

AppDB is not an encyclopaedia.
> - Entries that do not provide all the information needed - that's
>
> quality control, which is part of the editing process.

Even the user you quoted from wine-users said a Wiki is not the way to
go. And the "problem" he's talking about is quality control - tighter
quality control than a Wiki can offer.

Regarding his form submission problem, it sounds like his browser was
(not so) helpfully filling in his old data into the form when it
loaded. I'm aware that AppDB and bugzilla have some interesting issues
with forwarding the user to the correct page after a form has been
submitted, but this would not have prevented him from submitting new
test data.

Fwd: [Wine] Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB

[David Gerard]

2009/3/9 Ben Klein :
> 2009/3/9 David Gerard :
> > 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> > > If we move to an open Wiki, be prepared to be very busy.  I've seen spambots get past most, if not all, of the verification systems and bomb away.
> > I come from years of fighting vandals on Wikipedia. I know a thing or
> > two about the field ...
> AppDB is not an encyclopaedia.

And, of course, I didn't say it was, so your point is very unclear
indeed. I would have thought the above was fairly obviously answering
the question of wiki spam control, and noting that I know a thing or
two about the area; in this case, the relevant point is that Wikipedia
is a wiki rather than that it is an encyclopedia.

If you're going to pick random unrelated tangents out of what I write,
it won't really enhance communication.

- d.

Fwd: [Wine] Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB

[Jerome Leclanche]

You cannot compare AppDB to Wikipedia nor anything like that. You
cannot compare wiki vandals to spambots either.
That's outside the point, anyway. The real problem here is this, a
wiki fits a need where most content can be added and changed by anyone
and everyone. This is not the AppDB's goal. You are setting sail for
administration-hell. Nevermind having one volunteer, you would put
more workload on current maintainers, and it would certainly not
attract many more.

There's been discussions on ways to improve the AppDB recently, I'm
sure you followed them. Things are working out, there are just a few
points to fix; how it can be confusing for users submitting test data,
and how it can be confusing for users reading test data. There is no
actual problem with the data itself most of the time.

I liked the proposal for getting some kind of Application Wizard that
would automatically give the app a rating, etc. I'd also like, as a
user but also as a maintainer of external resources, to have a nice
organized page for tips/hacks/patches/what-not in order to get an app
to work.

Here is a common example. I play WoW and just installed Ubuntu to
ditch my Windows install. I want to get WoW working. My first reaction
is to google or ask around and I'll get linked to wine. This is the
first page I will see:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=1922

That's confusing, I have multiple versions of the game, but for WoW I
should only have something like "WoW without any expansion", "WoW: The
Burning Crusade" (1st expansion) and "WoW: Wrath of the Lich King".
Additionally, the most recent version is in the middle of the others;
I might not read, click the first link and get way-outdated data from
wine 0.9.39.
Solution: Have an obvious "Recent version(s)" link, and a more obscure
"Old/Archived test data" if need be archiving it.

I then land on this page if I get it right:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=14154

Woah this is just huge. No way I'm reading it all. I have dozens and
dozens of workarounds - am I gonna have to use them all or something?
I want to get everything right on the get-go but this is very
discouraging.
If you know how it works it's actually pretty neat, but this is kind
of unreadable. A few solutions:

Have a bunch of section. Maybe something tabbed or something, when I
look at a page for the first time I don't want to see something
extremely long. Moving the comments out of the page, but with a very
obvious link would be nice.
What I'm thinking is some kind of tab UI between the breadcrumb and
the top of the test data.

Test Data  ||  Known bugs (8) ||  Workarounds  ||  Comments

What I'm doing here is just splitting the page in 4. Everything should
fit within 1 or 2 screens, much more readable suddenly. "Known bugs"
could probably have a maintainer-written note on anything that doesn't
belong on bugzilla (such as bugs happening on Windows only) and voila.

See, no need for a Wiki.

Jerome L.

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 4:47 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> 2009/3/9 Ben Klein :
> > 2009/3/9 David Gerard :
> > > 2009/3/8 James Mckenzie :
> > > > If we move to an open Wiki, be prepared to be very busy.  I've seen spambots get past most, if not all, of the verification systems and bomb away.
> > > I come from years of fighting vandals on Wikipedia. I know a thing or
> > > two about the field ...
> > AppDB is not an encyclopaedia.
>
> And, of course, I didn't say it was, so your point is very unclear
> indeed. I would have thought the above was fairly obviously answering
> the question of wiki spam control, and noting that I know a thing or
> two about the area; in this case, the relevant point is that Wikipedia
> is a wiki rather than that it is an encyclopedia.
>
> If you're going to pick random unrelated tangents out of what I write,
> it won't really enhance communication.
> - d.