[Fwd: Wine-Wiki.org]

[Scott Ritchie]

On Sun, 2005-01-23 at 17:28 -0700, tony_lambregts at telusplanet.net wrote:
> Francois Gouget wrote:
> > 
> >> Can you please add Wine-Wiki.org to the list of Compatibility site. We 
> >> have been growing greatly, and if it was on the site, it would help 
> >> everyone.
> > 
> > 
> > It seems that Wine-Wiki.org is basically redoing the Application 
> > Database and IMHO it's a shame for two reasons:
> >  * building and maintaining an application database takes a lot of work 
> > and it's a shame to duplicate that work.
> >  * users need a clear place to go to when they need information about 
> > running their application in Wine. Multiplying places where they can 
> > find this information does not help them, it only creates confusion.
> >    (due to contradictory and/or out of date information)
> > 
> > Also it's not like the Wine project is not responsive to patches. So I 
> > don't see what kind of information would justify creating a separate web 
> > site and could not go either directly in the Wine documentation or on 
> > the WineHQ's site.
> > 
> 
> It seems the main reason for these other sites creaping up is that there is or 
> was a deficiency in wine or our web sites.
> 
> Franks corner seems to have grown out of the lack of information in the AppDB. 
> This is a very good site but in theory all the information at this site should 
> be available in the AppDB since Frank is an administrator of the AppDB.
> 
> It seems that Winetools and Sidenet have grown out of the difficulties or 
> problems configuring Wine. The fact that winecfg is not up to snuff and the 
> documentation on configuring wine is out of date and currently misleading 
> certainly does not help the situation. It seems the users love these tools but I 
> would prefer that they were part of the code base or better yet not nessasary.
> 
> I am not sure of the purpose of the wine wiki but from what I have seen it seems 
> to be that it is duplicating "once again" the information that should be in the 
> AppDB or our Documentation.
> 
> I am not opposed to these sites. I am just a little sad that they somehow seem 
> to be nessesary.
> 
> The bottom line here is that anyone who wants this to be linked can submit a patch.
> 
> --
> 
> Tony Lambregts
> 
> 
> 

A Wiki can thrive alongside good documentation.  While the documentation
is general in nature, the Wiki can explain particular issues for certain
users.

A good example would be the distribution specific stuff already in the
Wine Wiki - some of that stuff really shouldn't be in the main
documentation like the User Guide.

A very good example of this working model in progress is that of Ubuntu
Linux itself.  They have good documentation, but also a good wiki and
user forums.

I brought up the issue of the need for user forums a long time ago (and
pointed out that's exactly why forums at Franks Corner had sprouted up).
Hopefully we'll get AppDB working to fill most of this niche, although
frankly I wouldn't mind having user forums like the Ubuntu ones to
replace the mailing list.  Posting and browsing threads on forums is a
lot easier than combing through a bunch of messages in my inbox, and
today's forum software lets you read/post messages by email anyway.

Needless to say, I'll be reading through the wiki to see what can be
updated in the documentation as I'm going through it.

As for my thoughts on winetools, see my next email.

-Scott Ritchie