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

[David Gerard]

The current appdb system doesn't actually work. Example below.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fcmartins <wineforum-user at winehq.org>
Date: 2009/3/8
Subject: [Wine]  Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB
To: wine-users at winehq.org


Well, I can certainly confirm there is a barrier for drive by
submissions. As a matter of fact the barrier is even bigger than one
might anticipate (as an occasional user):
- sometime ago I submitted test data for a game. It was rejected with:
Please fill the "What does not work". I had written something like:
"I've done only initial gameplay". I believe the reply was implicitly
there, so IMO it was a unneeded barrier. Anyway, I tried to oblige
with a more explicit reply, and guess what: the submission was not
working: After submit, the form came back with the old data!! So,
another barrier. Furtermore, I sent an email to webmaster with the
issue, but never heard anything back.

As you can imagine, this has lowered my willingness to submit test
data, and lack of updated info for newer versions of wine is THE major
problem with appdb.

On the positive side, I had two comments in Sacred deleted by the
maintainer as a cleanup, and I felt the deletes were appropriate and
educative.

Anyway, I think appdb mostly works and putting a wiki as a full
replacement would be a mistake. As it is, appdb has maybe a tiny bit
too much structure and bureaucracy, but going to the wiki and loose
all the structure would be silly.

The UI and function of appdb is mostly quite good: I would look for
small tweaks lowering the barrier for contributions: some areas could
work like a wiki: the description, screenshots, and an always present
howto. The howto should be always editable and invite people to
improve it with their own tweaks, minimising the user having to go
through the comments to find a possibly inexistent needle.

I would definitely look into a simpler form to submit test data, but
above all, I would look into having one of those wine appdb love days
(weeks) were test data is put up to date, e.g. for a forthcoming 1.2?