Re: [pgsql-www] We need an Advocacy wiki - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

On Sat, 4 Aug 2007, Magnus Hagander wrote:

> AS Greg already suggested, perhaps we just need a "better way" for
> people to request permissions? (For example, right now it just says
> "contact greg or neil", but it doesn't tell you how - not even an email
> address...)

Fixed; there's now a new page at
http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Editing_Guidelines that explains
what to do (which our moderaters should look at now that I've made them
more public--I left the e-mail addresses somewhat obfuscated similarly to
the mailing lists).  Like Greg Stark's story, this was a sore point for
me.  The week I wanted to start editing I tried just e-mailing GSM for
approval, but it was during a time when he was unavailable.  I waited a
few days while unsure if I'd even contacted him correctly, then e-mailed
Neil, then finally got in; had I not been really motivated I would have
just given up long before getting permissions.

Despite all that, I waste enough of my time cleaning up after spammers,
vandals, and idiots on other wikis that I'm still on the side of those
here suggesting this particular resources should stay controlled in this
fashion.  Clearing up the instructions solves most of what bugged me.

What I'd suggest is turning those who can approve edit rights into a
mailing list (so the note on the new page I made can say "e-mail
dev-wiki-edit-request@postgresql.org" or something instead of mentioning
multiple names) that forwards the request to everyone who has approval
permissions.  Then expand that list a bit so that's it's more likely it
will hit someone who can do the approval in a timely fashion; first person
to grant the rights cc's the list and the requester saying it's done, and
barring the occasional harmless race condition dupe the whole thing would
be simple enough.

If Josh or others really need a true open wiki without such an approval
process, I'd suggest popping that into another database and create another
Wikimedia instance for it.  I think having that all mixed in with the
content on the developer's wiki will just make tracking edits harder for
both groups.  Having a "Recent changes" page that's small enough to browse
easily is helpful for the scale of people involved in these pages at this
point, and I do browse that section of the Developer's Wiki to see what's
been going on.  I know I'd be bothered if that got filled with booth work
edits instead--and the booth workers would have an easier time policing
their area if the developer edits weren't in their way.  Plus, if it gets
nailed hard you can just save the important stuff and nuke the whole
temporary wiki rather than be compelled do a time-intensive cleanup;
losing the history isn't as good of an idea for the developer's wiki.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD