Home Stretch for the New Wiki

[Kyle Auble]

Hi everybody, I just wanted to update you all on the state of the wiki.

This email may seem long but it isn't too dense; feel free to skip the 
numbers, but for anyone that might appreciate some figures, the old wiki 
had...
Total pages:                         841
(Less) system pages:                ~150
Actual pages by us:                 ~690

These consisted of...
Redirects                            ~45
Homepages                           ~150
Categories                           ~25
Content pages:                      ~470

Of the content pages, we had...
English pages:                       384
Translations:                        ~86

Of the translations, between 20-26 were immediately disqualified (either 
as less than 50% actually translated or a translation of an English page 
we rejected). Alex H mentioned that most of the translations probably 
weren't worth migrating, but we thought we should leave that up to 
potential translators.

For those remaining English pages...
Already ported in some way:          153
Rejected as not worth porting:       169
Still unfinished:                     62

Of these last 62, we actually have relatively clear plans for how to 
port ~25 of them, leaving just 35 or so as truly up for grabs. 
Furthermore, we've tried to leave a quick note on 
http://oldwiki.winehq.org/PageMigration for every page that still needs 
a decision. And of course, people are free to override our rejections if 
they really want to keep a page (we left an explanation for every 
rejection at the top of the relevant page)

While some of those last 35 pages are really just a matter of policy 
(e.g. do we want a page for every command, even if it's a stub?), many 
of them have at least one or two technical notes that seem to supplement 
the API documentation. These are the ones where we would really 
appreciate input or decisions from developers, particularly whether 
anything is worth moving to the Developers' docs.

Finally, as Rosanne and I made alternating edits, we discussed a few 
points that we think are worth keeping in mind for the future:

1. If a page is experimental / dev-oriented, try to make that clear from 
the name, text, and possibly a bold note (for example, a lot of users 
were apparently misinterpreting "WineOnWindows" as a stable feature they 
could use)

2. If you're using a distro/OS with its own wiki page, keeping an eye on 
its page for incorrect or outdated info would be great, even if only 
every few months. I updated several of them last year, testing what I 
could and researching docs on and outside WineHQ for changes, but it's 
no substitute for someone that knows first-hand what each one requires.

3. If you don't agree with a change, don't be afraid to revert it and 
start a discussion for the page, especially now that we have the talk pages.

4. The wiki is a natural place for things like to-do lists and transient 
notes, but if the same information can be easily written so that it's 
just as useful 5 years from now, aim for timelessness. If more of the 
wiki ages well, it should be easier to keep track of the things that may 
bit-rot.

5. Finally, if you want to start a new page, check to see if you could 
somehow add your info to existing pages first. Obviously we don't want 
the pages to get too long and it's totally subjective in the end, but it 
seems the more the pages spread out wildly, the more likely they are to 
wind up orphaned and abandoned.

Have a good start to your spring everybody,
Kyle