Wiki Wardening

WikiWardening > WikiWardening | WikiWardens

Purpose

Early 2007, a new attempt is made to push the wiki forward and drastically enhance both the documentation quality and the wiki health state as a whole. This page serves as a fast moving memo for WikiWardens to coordinate their work. It has no special structure, no rules, will be heavily edited, and most discussion started here will certainly be DeleteWhenCooked. Still, ideas and discussion that are worth keeping may be moved to another page if there is a need for that (like WikiWardeningHistory). We should try our best to keep this document to a reasonable size and try restructure it from time to time (note it's already quite big and indigest, so hang on!).

If you see anything in the documentation or in the wiki that should be addressed, report it here, or contact a WikiWarden.

Tickets watching

Short term objectives:

• 2320: Upgrade MoinMoin ( pending resolution: see UpdatingToMoinMoin1.5 )
• 2672: Cards and transclusion behavior
• 1962: Transclusion hasn't worked so well so far, lack of manpower
• 2705: wiki.mb.org: Need new interwiki link for MusicBrainz codes sources
• 2625: wiki.mb.org: Need new interwiki links for other Wikipedia (fr, de, ...)

Transclusion improvements:

• 1489: Wiki transclusion data in wrong place
• 1112: Wiki Transclusion should check for correct WikiName and Revision Number
• also read some of the comments @ 1962:

Low priority and questionable enhancements:

• 1799: WikiDocs does not produce valid XHTML
• 1530: Show transcluded wiki page in user profile in main site.

Long term objectives:

• 849: Provide translations for key documentation

WantedPages

Problem

In its current state, WantedPages is unusable. When this effort started, we were above 1100 links. Now below 850.

Objective

Further bring it down (possibly ~500/600 links) by fixing bogus and misspelled links. Once it's there, keep it under surveillance. Note that creating documentation for valid WantedPages is not a WikiWarden task: everybody can and should do that.

Recommendations

• A lot of links in there are "just bogus" (accidental CamelCase, wrong use of brackets ["ASIN"], etc). All of these should be "fixed" (edited so that they don't link anymore).
• Some links in there are typo-ed, and should be properly edited to point to the correct page.
• Some links are outdated (page has moved), they should be fixed also
• broken sigs: some WikiZen have troubles spelling their own names :-) (Ruaok, among other) - help them for their own good!
• missing redirect: some WikiZen have a personal page, but use a differently named wiki account. Create the redirection page for them.
• Jazz/Label/* created quite a lot of bogus links, as they often contain records catalogs, with camelcased names. These pages will eventually disappear. Meanwhile, you can inhibit the links

Just don't "inhibit" anything you see! Specially:

• don't inhibit sigs for wiki editors without personal pages (they might want to create one later)!
• Never create empty pages. A wanted page is much better than a contentless stub.
• think twice before inhibiting things that looks like BadWikiName of otherwise valid WantedPages.
• when in doubt, just leave them alone!

Tips

• to inhibit a camelcased link, use !BogusLink. not relevant; MediaWiki doesn't use CamelCase links
• to inhibit a bracketed link, use entities instead of brackets: ["Bogus Link"], or just use nowiki tags: <nowiki>[[Bogus Link]]</nowiki>

A short WikiZen lecture ;-) on WantedPages: Sometimes a wanted page serves a purpose: It carries the information that there is something that people refer to, but nobody has taken the time to explain what it is, yet. It also helps to create the intertwingled links for a page that does not exist, yet. This way once the page is created, it is already well intertwingled. In rare cases a wanted page can even give a very realistic notion of a 'blank', or taboo, or untold story. IIRC SunirResigns on MeatBall was a very interesting example of this (I don't know if any trace remains of it).

WikiWardens on this

• dmppanda
• murdos
• slowly retreating, but still annoying everybody with his obscure sociological ideas: ;-) DonRedman

Monitor incoming pages

Problem

Pages are created by everybody, from WikiMasters to WikiNewbies. The later usually don't use categories, don't sign their edits, don't intertwingle things, use BadWikiNames, don't check spelling, introduce bogus links, or even create completely useless pages.

Objective

Monitor all page creation: immediately check the spelling, and at least mark these pages with the relevant WikiTags:

• NeedsEditing
• NeedsIntertwingling
• NeedsRenaming
• NeedsRestructuring
• NeedsUpdating
• CandidateForDeletion
• DeletedPage
• {{Stub}}

Recommendations

A Wiki lives because it's growing. Be kind to WikiNewbies and don't discourage vocations by being a WikiBitch. Help new users and enhance existing content integration and formal quality, but don't pass judgment on content or clumsiness of the editors. Remember you're a WikiWarden: above all, do no harm.

WikiWardens on this

• dmppanda
• murdos

DeletedPage

Problem

We have quite a lot of pages completely useless or irrelevant to MusicBrainz.

Objective

• They should be removed, and if any, all the links to them replaced by proper links to other resources (eg: WikiPedia).
• Update and simplify the informal "deletion mechanism" (that we inherited). Update the relevant documentation.

Recommendations

• Please don't delete pages that present historical interest. These are handled differently. They need
  • A good status notice that puts the page into context. If you cannot provide this, ask some elders.
  • A category history

• Please don't delete personal pages, even empty, even abandoned for years, even orphaned (though you may eventually edit them to at least be of CategoryPerson). They serve as a witness of people who contributed to MusicBrainz in the early days. It is ok that the wiki evolves without them, but it's not ok to erase these people from our history. Maybe a short sentence like "XY was a contributor to this wiki in its prehistoric times (i.e. before migration to MoinMoin)" is better than a completely empty page.

You may want to take a look at AbandonedPages and OrphanedPages (and also to Category:Stubs) to find CandidateForDeletion. Also, you may want to review pages that don't directly pertain to MusicBrainz (pages on foreign technologies/random topics for example). Most of them should be superseded by their equivalent (better and maintained) pages at WikiPedia.

Tips regarding page deletion:

• if you're sure a page should be deleted, add a DeletedPage tag somewhere in it, with some arguments
• if you think, but are not sure a page should be deleted, use CandidateForDeletion instead
• subscribe to this page, so you are notified of changes on it and can answer people
• wait a month. If no one reacts negatively, either change the tag from CandidateForDeletion to DeletedPage and wait a bit more, or if it is already a DeletedPage, bug a wiki administrator (listed here) so that they can delete the page effectively

If you are a wiki administrator and are deleting a page, please:

• do a full text search on the wiki to list all links pointing to the DeletedPage: something like [[FullSearch(linkto:DumbPage)]]
• replace all links by their proper replacement: if there is no legit replacement, then this page probably shouldn't be deleted!
• DontDeleteWikiDocsPages! You must not do it, it would break WikiDocs. Luckily you can't, since WikiDocsPages are delete protected. If you are in doubt check if the page is in the WikiDocsTransclusionTable. To deal with a WikiDocs page listed in DeletedPage you'll have extra work to do (and you'll need a TransclusionEditor and a member of the AdminGroup)
• triple check that you're doing the right thing
• delete the page

Right now, there are a bunch of pages in DeletedPage. They wait for review from DonRedman and others, and they may be deleted at the end of April 2007. Please also monitor CandidateForDeletion.

Important note: some/most/all of these pages are not ready to be deleted. Some of them still have a lot of links that point to them, some of them are even WikiDocs pages! They are there because we think they should be deleted - in a month, before doing so, and if no-one vetoes on their deletion, a preliminary work will have to be done prior to their actual deletion.

You do not expect me to give you an ok for each and every page, do you? MB has enough bureaucracy already. I have commented on some, where I disagree. I believe there are some more that could be left if you look at them from a different, gentler angle. --DonRedman

hé :-) I believe this is why DeletedPage is a good process. This leave time to take a second (or third) (gentler) look at things and change mind. -- dmppanda 19:35, 06 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiWardens on this

• dmppanda
• murdos
• DonRedman

Pages that should point to Wikipedia instead

See DeletedPage above. Maybe maintain a list of these here.

Jazz

Problem

This is my mess. There are several problems with the Jazz/Label/* pages which include:

• bogus camel links (see WantedPages)
• pages appear orphaned

Objective

• Migrate all relevant data into MusicBrainz (now that we have labels!).

Recommendations

Just ignore these pages whenever they appear (but in WantedPages)

WikiNewbies

Create a page for WikiNewbies with good practice guidelines on this wiki. This may be GoodWikiStyle, but it needs enhancement.

With a (short) checklist of things to verify (intertwingling, categories, spelling, etc).

WikiCategories

Objective: Establish WikiCategories to be used everywhere in the wiki

Please see and comment WikiCategoriesDiscussion

WikiWardens on this

• murdos

Historical pages

Depends on WikiCategories

Create an entry point like HistoryOfMusicBrainz for historical pages. Create special categories for historical proposal, historical guidelines, ...

Note: there's also a page with a similar name: MusicBrainzHistory that we should maybe rename (but this is a WikiDocsPage)

Promote transclusion

I'm not sure WikiDocs and transclusion are directly related to WikiWardening: a TransclusionEditor sure need to be a WikiWarden of his wikidocs pages, but a lot of wikipages don't need to be WikiDocs. Might be related to restructurating/documenting distinction. -- murdos 16:52, 05 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure. And we definitely need to separate documentation efforts, and restructuration/wardening. Though, I think both belong here, because of a simple fact: we don't have arms enough to afford the separation... For now, all manpower is here I guess :-) -- dmppanda 19:33, 05 April 2007 (UTC)

For reference, previous wiki improvement attempt has been split in RestructureTheWiki and RestructuringTheDocumentation. -- murdos 00:07, 06 April 2007 (UTC)

Split documentation into responsibilities zones.

• dmppanda:
  • CategoryAnnotation: clean, transcluded
  • CategoryLabel: some work to do, transclusion ASAP

Raw ideas:

• suggestion for a new transclusion interface on 1962
• propose the use of "transclusion zones" and fine grained transclusion rights management

Open Questions

• Category nesting (murdos).
• think of a masterplan about categories.
• *really* investigate transclusion behavior and hacks to be able to easily do full searches on transcluded documentation rather than on wiki content

Raw ideas and various things todo

• Promote the use of cards (don't forget that Cards on navigation don't really behave nicely)

But don't overuse them ;-)

• Build templates for cards
• niceify the documentation! Random ideas:
  • use some specific style to make nav and intertwingling cards look a bit different (dirty hack: call the card from within a styled table)
  • use "smileys" to underline semantic value of things
  • use different icons in the head of pages, that "reflects" the part of the documentation we are in (eg: categories or "topic").

• investigate Cards/Intertwingling ideas (think WikiPedia "portals")
• differentiate restructuring tasks (defining categories, renaming, ...) and improving content tasks (updating docs, ...)
• find some documentation about FullSearch macro (where the heck is it located?)

• HelpOnSearching, or you want more? If think we should also document the different behavior between FullSearch(linkto:Page) and FullSearch(Page): the first works on generated content (after macro expanding), although the second seems to work on text source. Both have inconvenience... :| -- murdos 00:07, 06 April 2007 (UTC)

• move my ass to have Label doc in a decent state
• discuss if we want to addto ".+Future" pages, or if we want a new category.
• investigate the behavior of Cards with arguments, and how to use that for status card differentiation depending on the caller page in transcluded pages.
• discuss if the current structure used on annotation is a good thing (or not) that we could reuse as a "template" for a number of other things (Artist, Release...):
  • all pages have the category of the topic (eg: CategoryAnnotation)
  • Navigation and intertwingling cards.
  • Pages declined following:
    • Mainpage (eg: Annotation)
    • FAQ (eg: AnnotationFAQ, plus category FAQ)
    • Howto (eg: HowAnnotationsWork, plus category Howto)
    • History (eg: AnnotationHistory, plus category History)
    • Discussion (eg: AnnotationDiscussion, plus category Discussion)
    • Future (eg: AnnotationFuture, actually plus category Discussion, maybe Development or something else)
    • Edits doc
    • AdvancedRelationships documentation (not for Annotation obviously)
    • Additional documentation specific to the topic

• Add an historical notice, rename and/or reuse/update pages of previous wiki restructuring attempt: BigMess, StatusOfThisWiki, RestructuringTheDocumentation, RestructureTheWiki
• Use WikiDocs related pages for WikiDocs work
• Think about translating documentation. This is a long term objective. Here's a partial copy of a private mail by DonRedman, with some interesting thoughts:

  I believe this does not make sense before MB has language sub-communities. MB is still too small for that. I would not start to translate documentation. This is an enormous, tedious, and never-ending task, and in the worst case nobody will use your work. So, if you *want* to start this, I'd suggest you build up a French sub-community first. With some nice welcome-pages and stuff. *Then* if there are a few people around (not under six active and over a dozen casual contributors, a few active French forum threads, and a feeling of "we") the french pages will probably start to grow all by their own. That is the moment to recognise. Then you push a lot of energy and enthusiasm into it.

  [...]

  French and German are best candidates for this, although French are less used to do everything in English (which is an advantage here).

• Update WikiDocs related pages (attachments, includes, cards, etc. Also see MoinMoin 1.5 migration) (dmppanda's mess)

Things here for some reason :-)

Orphaned redirects (non personal pages)

Some of them may be used by tagger clients:

• CapitalizationStandardFrisian
• DanishCapitalisationStandard
• ArtistNameStyle
• ChoralWorksNamesTranslations
•  !SpecialUUIDs
• AR