[mythtv-users] Mailing list and a Wiki... and a dessert topping

[Pete Hartman]

At 02:55 PM 5/18/04 -0500, you wrote:
>First off, the name... "wiki" - reminds me way too much of "ewok" and
>brings to mind silly creatures partying in the trees... Hmmm...  Silly
>creatures... Heads in the sky...  Okay, I don't think you're all space
>cadets, but it really is a stupid and objectionable name.

The net has left you way behind.  There are more wiki sites out there than 
you can shake a stick at.  You might have some chance to convince someone 
to use a different tool than a wiki, but a wiki is a wiki, and you're not 
going to change how it works.

Google some on wiki if you want to understand this more fully.

>As a newbie, I went to the "wiki" and found it unusable.
>TitlesLikeThese remind me of filelike.ths type of limitations/standards

I fail to see any similarity.  The problem is that TitlesLikeThese are 
proper variable names (aka WikiWords) and cannot have spaces in 
them.  However, anyone reading the various "Good Wiki Style" documents 
should know how to refer to a WikiWord without resorting to leaving the 
bare word just lying there.  There's no "limitation" there--it's a style 
thing and if you have a problem with it, fix the document yourself by 
reading up on good style and participating.

(for the record, the Wiki I have most experience with, Twiki, uses 
[[WikiWord][Wiki Word Text Name]] tags to eliminate this problem.  For all 
I know, they all use the same syntax)

>- stupid and an unreadable mess.  If your intent is to help newbies it
>needs some serious work.  Before anyone else says it, I don't like any
>of the w!@$'s I've seen out there, it's not just this one.

Ah, the voice of objectivity :-)


>                                                         The problem
>with allowing anyone to edit something is that *anyone* can edit it, and
>thus mess it up for everyone and decrease the SNR.  Centralization vs.
>flexibility is always a trade off, and I'm sure I don't need to go into
>too much depth about that here - I think this is too much of an extreme
>on the flexibility side.

Care to provide an alternative yourself then?

>There is a need for more specialized HOWTO's, but from what I've seen of
>w!@#s I don't think that's the answer.  I don't, unfortunately, know
>what the right answer is, but if I find it, I'm not going to call it
>"wiki".

Get back to us when you've found it and named it :-)


See also what you've already included:

> > Why is everything titled with NamesLikeThis ?  Can't it even deal with
> > spaces?  It's very randomly structured, and I certainly don't see how
> > it's useful.
>
>The answer to this is simple.  If you don't see how it is useful, then
>you have one of two choices.  1) ignore it, and don't use it.  2) help
>fix it, and make it something that you would use.