Thread: Online comments system

Hi,
I'm part of the KDE documentation team, and we've recently discussed ways of
allowing users to more easily contribute to the KDE documentation. We're
interested in the comment system that you use on the PGSQL website, since it
provides a way for users to add to the documentation, with the potential to
merge the additions into the official doc later.

I'd be grateful if you could tell me your experiences with the comment system:
Do users contribute? Are the contributions useful? Is the system easy to
administer?

Also, is there some information online about the technical side of the system?
Is the source code available?

Thanks in advance,
Philip

On Wednesday 05 October 2005 16:47, Philip Rodrigues wrote:
> I'd be grateful if you could tell me your experiences with the comment
> system: Do users contribute?

yes. spammers contribute more though :-)

> Are the contributions useful?

some of them certainly are. i noticed someone just submitted several example
functions into the online docs, those are certainly useful for others and
probably would be good to incorporate into the docs.

You will have to deal with spam though. At first it wasnt a problem. Then we
had to set up keyword blockers (mortgage,poker,etc...) soon we will be
integrating one of those "type in this image" systems... spam sucks.

> Is the system
> easy to administer?
>

Yeah. We have a web interface to approve comments and also a mailing list with
links to administer comments.

> Also, is there some information online about the technical side of the
> system? Is the source code available?
>

The source code is available from our project page:
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgweb/projdisplay.php
look under the portal module.

please direct any follow up questions to pgsql-www.  Thats where all of the
web stuff is actually worked on, so the folks who know the system all hang
out there.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> On Wednesday 05 October 2005 16:47, Philip Rodrigues wrote:
>> Are the contributions useful?

> some of them certainly are. i noticed someone just submitted several example
> functions into the online docs, those are certainly useful for others and
> probably would be good to incorporate into the docs.

We usually try during each release cycle to make a pass through the
interactive comments of the previous release's docs and incorporate the
useful stuff.  Of course "usefulness" depends largely on the opinions of
whoever's making that scan.

(Memo to self: it's getting to be time for that again.)

            regards, tom lane

Thanks for the pointers - I'll talk to pgsql-www if I have any more questions.

Yours,
Philip