It's a MESS!

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:00 pm

ATM i'm doing it manually: writing a bot to dump all the files into mediawiki costs probably more time than copying things over manually. I dont know anything about existing conversion scripts/tools or so i guess (in combination with the lack of replies) that we're stuck with manual labour.

In the meantime i've been going through the remaining list and noticed we have a few pages that are a bit doubtful:
(delete means something along the lines of "to be buried with the old wiki")

AsmExample: one big list of includes - delete?
The TODO List: works like a category. Since the todo's dont work in mediawiki anymore this page becomes pointless - delete?
NasmAllInOne: one big list of includes - delete?
GasAllInOne: one big list of includes - delete?
Who Helped with the faq: highly dependent on user pages, dated - keep?
ToDo: Stub/Template for ToDo list - delete?
Can I use NEW and DELETE in my kernel: Redirect-style stub - delete?
CremeDeLaCreme: Stub - move to Q.P.?
DesignAllInOne: big list of includes. sortof same purpose as Kernels - delete?
Dev-C++: Stub - move to Q.P.?
ExternalSearchPlugin: PHPWiki page, is there any reason this is not in questionable pg - move to Q.P.?
all in one: Big list of includes. IMO a horror - delete?
(i have not checked all articles)

Can we reach consensus on that?
In the meantime, some ideas about what to do with the stubs and user pages would be welcome.

I've also altered the template to collect all pages into [wiki]Category:Pages For Review[/wiki]

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:51 am

The TODO-List and the ToDo page are basically a hand-made category, and could be replaced by one. (Category:ToDo)

AsmExampe, NasmAllInOne and GasAllInOne could also be replaced by categories (Category:Nasm, Category:Gas, Category:Assembler).

ExternalSearchPlugin could be dropped IMHO.

The include lists - DesignAllInOne and all in one - are superfluous if we get the structure of the new Wiki right. I would say drop them for now.

I also have no problem with dropping stubs. We're refactoring the thing anyway, and stuff like "Can I use NEW and DELETE in my kernel" were basically only kept for "downward compatibility" with old links, which are now broken anyway.

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:40 am

After an afternoon's work, here's the last remaining bunch

I nominate for deletion:
- The TODO list - see above
- ToDo - see above
- CremeDeLaCreme - Stub
- Using GCC Under Unix and Linux - Stub
- Using GCC Under Windows - Stub
- HighMemoryArea - Stub
- Introduction - Superseded by Introduction
- QuickGuide - To be superseded by Manual Of Style
- Tell me about OPIC - Stub

Things i'm indeterminate about:
- Who helped with the FAQ - Are we going to drop the credits or not?
- OsdevingTogether - Ah, the Community OS. The ONE topic i find too hot to come close

- WabiSabi - On the edge of being a stub, kindof offtopic
- And then there are the user pages.

So, what's it gonna be?

~ · Post by ~ » Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:45 pm

The forums should be a testbed for "temporal" posts and replies. From there and from the questions asked, something concrete could be organized in a wiki.

Edwin · Post by **Edwin** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:23 am

This thing is meant to be a FAQ, not a wiki. So the discussion about what the right naming conventions in the wiki are, what the right lay-outs are..., who cares? As long as it is readable, understandable and correct, it will do.

ehird · Post by **ehird** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:57 am

I'm not sure /why/ the wiki is being converted.

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:46 am

There were once two wiki's. One was the OSFAQ, at mega-tokyo, the other the OSDev Wiki, over here. When MT decided to move the operating systems over here, we had the situation where there were 2 wikis at one site, with overlapping contents, which is just stupid.

There will still be FAQ pages, there will still be tutorials, but it is a wiki, as we have since long got more information than common questions.

To allow information to be found, AND to keep things readable and understandable we need some conventions. Search for Solar's posts in this subforum and read the Manual of Style thread to see what purpose it serves.

ehird · Post by **ehird** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:04 am

Ah, right, I don't know much about the history of this place: I visited MT a few times while it was up, and because of the "goodbye" message on there it made it sound like osdev was a new forum founded after MT ended. So, it's been around while MT existed and also had its own wiki, and now there are duplicates. I get it now

oscoder · Post by **oscoder** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:13 pm

Could we perhaps have an FAQ section on the wiki? That might make it a little less confused....

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:31 pm

oscoder wrote:Could we perhaps have an FAQ section on the wiki? That might make it a little less confused....

If you have any ideas, be my guest

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:35 pm

I think there is a distinction between FAQ and the Wiki. For one the actual comprehended meaning of them. Maybe we could included the most FAQ into a section on the Wiki, and possibly end up making a lot of links from the FAQ to entries in the Wiki.

The collection of information(aka the Wiki) is a unlimited potential of information, while the FAQ should answer the most frequency asked questions which could be derived from the forums here. The FAQ should change with time as new technologies come and go it would simply reflect the up to date most frequently asked questions.

We should set a limit to the number of FAQ items so that only the most important ones are listen and hopefully in a perfect world in the correct order of number of times asked, but that is just impossible. But with out a set limit the entire collection of information would turn into a FAQ except with out priority to the number of times asked.

So the FAQ is a specialized form of a collection of information, and in our case can be made with out redundancy by using links into the existing collection of information where appropriate and even in cases for extra information.

There were once two wiki's. One was the OSFAQ, at mega-tokyo, the other the OSDev Wiki, over here. When MT decided to move the operating systems over here, we had the situation where there were 2 wikis at one site, with overlapping contents, which is just stupid.

There was really just a FAQ being a specialized form of a collection of specialized information using Wiki software. While the later is a collection of specialized information. The specialized form is simply just a different format from the specialized collection of information by sorting based on the number of times someone asked a question relating to information that could be specialized specialized information in the specialized collection of information.

I confused myself. ..

And to note "Wiki" has nothing to do with collection of information (at least directly) but rather ease of editing if I remember correctly. So we need a FAQ and a collection of information in which the FAQ is answered with, and we derive the sorting of the FAQ from the forums or other mediums where questions are asked for our very specialized topic.

COLLECTION<->FAQ<->FORUMS

With out the forums (or other mediums that may be used) and the collection of information the FAQ does not exist. The mega-tokyo actually stored the collection of information in the forums themselves if anywhere in the scope of mega-tokyo.com, and of course out of scope in other places such as the well known osdever.net

Which also at the least partially answers Solar's original concern (from what I understand) which is how does a beginner spend more energy on learning something rather then looking for it.

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:08 pm

To determine what a frequency asked question is in a systematic way we could query the entire topic list from the development sub forum.

Then we have all the words pulled out and find all the nouns. Such as:
GDT,IDT,page,device,grub,boot,loader,cdrom,cd-rom,bootloader,fat16,floppy,ext2,loopback..

Then create links between redundancys such as "cdrom" and "cd-rom", or "bootloader" and "boot loader".

Find verbs such as:
modify,change,debug,fix,help

You you then create a list and count of.

(modify,change) (GDT) 34
(debug,fix) (bootloader) 192
(none) (nasm) 13
(help) (syntax,nasm) 98

Of course you rank a higher weight for single noun entries versus more and produce a list of FAQ that should be answered and updated.

So now you have to finish the other ninety percent of the project. =)

OSDev.org

It's a MESS!

FAQ and Wiki

determining what is a frequency asked question