Wiki style FAQ proposal

[Manolis Kiagias]

Hiroki Sato wrote:
> Manolis Kiagias <sonicy at otenet.gr> wrote
>   in <483C7AD4.5090409 at otenet.gr>:
>
> so> Gabor Pali actually had the nice idea that the wiki could have two areas, like a "CURRENT" and "STABLE" branch. More people could contribute in the current branch, and then the maintainer(s) could move what would be considered more valuable content to the 'stable' branch. This would also mean there is enough quality control and the whole thing does not become disorganized.
>
>  Two quick questions.  You mean wiki holds entire copy of the FAQ
>  entries?  My understanding is that we have to edit "CURRENT", move it
>  to "STABLE", and move it to the static version out of the wiki
>  ("STABLE") finally.  Is that right?  I vaguely feel this needs a lot
>  of care and prevents quick update.
>   

The 'current' will only be for new content or even categories, for 
entries that have not been checked for correctness / validity and so on. 
The 'stable' branch will have more or less established categories and 
entries (which will be updated regularly) and when new stuff from 
current gets reviewed and considered important, it should be added to 
stable.  The idea here is that current will be more or less open to 
contributions from everyone. Seasoned maintainers will be able to change 
articles in stable directly. We will not have an MFC for everything. 
This would really slow it down. Of course, it still is a lot of work.
>  The second one is that which do we publish as one the average user
>  should read.  If all the three have whole copy of FAQ entries with
>  some difference from each other, the user (and even committer) will
>  get confused.
>
> --
> | Hiroki SATO
>   
In my opinion, the sgml FAQ should be limited to questions about the 
project and maybe not so quickly changing technical stuff. The idea here 
is the sgml FAQ is used for distribution as an offline document (CDs 
printouts etc) and the rest should be referred to the online FAQ. There 
will be some duplication in the FAQ and the wiki, but the user should be 
encouraged to use the wiki unless there is no option (e.g. no network). 
As I see it we would have:

- SGML FAQ: Distributed on CDs. Printing possible. Project info and some 
technical info. Intended  mostly for offline use
- Wiki 'stable': Intended for most people. Answering a broad range of 
technical questions and also linking to other documentation
- Wiki 'current': For people willing to contribute new entries and also 
for searching up to the minute stuff where 'stable' is not there yet.