Library Project Proposal 2004/04/19

Background

Back in February, when we first created the Library Project^?, we said that the immediate goal was to focus just on the design group documents, not the whole wiki. So far, very little effort has gone into improving the organization of the wiki as a whole. However, as a result of the design group work, we have a couple new tools that could easily be applied to the rest of the wiki, namely:

• the glossary structure -- see Glossary Home
• and the PageInfo forms -- see AboutThePageInfoBox^? and AboutPageTypes^?

We've made no organized effort to let people know about those tools, but people have started to use them anyway. They seem to be working smoothly, so I think it's time that we started encouraging everyone to use them.

Proposals

I propose the following actions:

1. We give a show-and-tell presentation of the glossary at one of the Thursday staff meetings, with the following goals:
   • let people know the glossary is there, and give them a feel for what's in it
   • show people how to create new entries
   • show people how to reference entries
   • encourage people to create and maintain entries
2. We actively encourage people to try using the glossary as a means of solving terminology problems. To get people started, maybe ask that each person create a couple new glossary entries, and include those entries on a document that they maintain on the Chandler web?
3. We make a clear policy that says that all pages on the Chandler web should have an owner who commits to maintaining them. We agree that the Chandler pages don't have to be keep in perfect shape week-to-week, but that at each dot-release we'll review every Chandler page, and the owner of each page will be responsible for making sure the info on that page is up-to-date.
4. We add a "MaintainedBy" field to the GlossaryForm.
5. We change the Chandler WebTopicEditTemplate, so that all new pages on the Chandler web automatically have:
   • A PageInfo box
   • A page type header bar: %OSAF_PAGETYPEHEADER%
   • A title line: "---+ Untitled"
   • A terminology section, which includes an example term from the glossary
   • A note to the author, to be deleted when they edit the page, that reminds them about the policy described in point number 4 above: author commits to maintaining the page, otherwise put it on the Jungle, not Chandler
6. We give a show-and-tell presentation about the PageInfo box and the page type header, explaining how these things work, and explaining the "new" policy described in point #4 above.
7. We establish a process for dealing with requests for new PageTypes and new page type headers
   • One person (Pieter?) owns the process
   • Requests are kept track of somewhere
   • The total number of types is kept small. Not every request is granted. No one person decides what new types get added. There is some peer review before a new type gets added.

Further proposals:

• We create a new wiki-web for archiving old documents. Suggested names: "Obsolete", "Attic", "Historical", "Graveyard", "Prior Art".
• We make it a high priorty task to fix the wiki navigation bar at the top of each page.
  • Have a meeting where Jurgen explains what our redesign constraints are. (Suggested participants: Jurgen, Ducky, Mimi, Pieter, and Brian).
  • Collect proposals about how to improve the nav bar.
  • Pick a proposal and implement it.

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• BrianDouglasSkinner - 19 Apr 2004