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

[James Mckenzie]

David:

Would you be willing to clean out the ash and trash that will show up with an open Wiki?

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.

BTW, I am a maintainer of exactly ONE application.  I've worked with this application and would really like to get one feature working.  Why am I supporting that application?  This is because the author refuses to release source code and he will not be building a Mac/Linux specific version.

James McKenzie

-----Original Message-----
>From: David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
>Sent: Mar 8, 2009 6:59 AM
>To: Wine Develop <wine-devel at winehq.org>
>Subject: Fwd: [Wine] Re: The pros and cons of a wiki AppDB
>
>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?
>
>