Re: "Extreme Documentation" [was: INFO on add-ons]

[Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@glug.org>]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> writes:

   Not what I meant---that is implied by "wiki".  What I am concerned
   about is that wikis grow organically according to the needs of their
   current users.  This does not necessarily address the needs of
   someone new coming in from outside the community, not as well as an
   intelligent single author/editor can.

it does address the newcomer needs if the newcomer takes a positive
attitude and contributes to the wiki.  the first contribution can
sometimes be simply a question that opens the eyes of others.  it is
easy to (none too subtly) dismiss emergent intelligence (especially if
you spend your days in an institute of policy and planning, which
presumably holds some kind of centralized (single root) model as tenet
:-).  that is an attachment that i can't help you with, however.

   Also, wikis and FAQs address the past and the common use.  They do
   not provide much if any support for innovative users and developers
   as such---but once again, an intelligent author/editor could do
   wonders with that material, I bet.

we have the internet and public publishing.  that's all that's needed
for you (or anyone innovative) to write a "blue sky" page, and seed it
w/: M-x index-wiki, M-x wiki-crawl-bot, M-x wiki-comp-lit-review, M-x
wiki-self-IQ-test, etc.  true innovation does not need as much hand-
holding as you would suggest; it might even suffer from it.

   Finally, a pointer from the official documentation to the wiki is
   useful, but users will justifiably consider that a "punt" by the
   developers.

exactly!  this is how users and developers work together.  so much nicer
than harping on some poor fool w/ write privs is to be foolish and free
amongst all your friends (some of whom enjoy/abuse write privs ;-).  if
some people practice excellence and demonstrate intelligence, hey that's
a bonus.  i'm glad to see that happening, anywhere.

thi