Rails wiki - call for action

[Matt Aimonetti]

Just about every rails developer is familiar with the problems of the
current Rails Wiki, many of which stem from an overwhelming lack of
wiki gardening:

* outdated content
* difficult navigation
* lack of code highlighting
* poor search capabilities
* inability to lock or highlight particular content

As our first major new project, the Rails Activists will help the
community improve this situation by revitalizing and relaunching the
Rails Wiki. After chatting with some of the key people in the Rails
community, we believe we’ve identified a good place for wiki efforts
to focus in the context of the larger effort to improve Rails’
documentation (which you’ll be hearing more about in the coming
weeks):


The Rails Wiki focuses on the community aspect of documentation which
may frequently change.
How do you add attachments?
Generate a PDF?
Handle background jobs?
What about authentication and authorization? ...etc
These are all things that Rails doesn’t provide a conventional
technique for handling.
Through code samples and plugins, the Rails community has provided
solutions to these issues (and many more).
The Rails Wiki will be the best site to collect this community
knowledge and make it accessible to all Rails developers.

It's time to get started and if you are reading this post, it means
you are interested in helping.
We’d like to recruit a small team of passionate activists who we will
work with and support in bringing the Rails Wiki up to the standard of
this vision.
We’ll help this team tackle all aspects of the problem:

* Come up with and implement a software strategy to more
functional, better-looking wiki
* Set the initial content structure and information architecture
* Mine any useful content from the old wiki
* Roll out and maintain the new wiki

Still Interested? Great! Then please respond to this message and let
us know how you can help. If you’re passionate about making the Rails
Wiki better, we want you on this team.

- Matt

[Trevor Turk]

On Jan 13, 11:35 am, Matt Aimonetti <mattAimone...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Still Interested? Great! Then please respond to this message and let
> us know how you can help. If you’re passionate about making the Rails
> Wiki better, we want you on this team.

I'd be happy to help with general gardening, and I could write some
content around file attachments, background processing, and... err...
some other stuff...?

- Trevor

[Thomas Meeks]

The wiki could definitely be an incredibly useful resource, I'd like
to help it get there. I'm willing & able to do coding, content,
editing, deployment, and maintenance. Pretty much anything that needs
to be done -- and there's definitely a lot to do!

I wonder if there is a way we could get the wiki to utilize all of the
excellent blog content out there? More than footnotes, but not just
copying articles. Thoughts about what to do are jumping into the brain
now.

Anyway, sign me up.

Thomas Meeks

[Will Weidendorf]

I would be more than happy to write content with anything regarding
beginner/introductory tips and tutorials, web services related
content, and where ever else I could be of help. Also, I can give
some time to helping design and implement the wiki software as well.

-Will

On Jan 13, 12:35 pm, Matt Aimonetti <mattAimone...@gmail.com> wrote:

[BJ Neilsen]

I am willing to edit copy, write code, and do what it takes to help
out. Being a rails community contributor is something I'm very
passionate about and I hope this can be a way to do my part. Thanks!

[Helmut Juskewycz]

Although, I consider myself still a Rails beginner, I think I can help
as well.
Reviewing content (maybe a beginner perspective is a good start),
Spelling, Grammar, Structure, and maybe some of my little Rails
knowledge is worth an article.

Heli

[Chris Conrey]

I'd love to help in whatever way possible. I've done some gardening
in the past, particularly organzing some of the community pages (who
uses Rails, what comapanies use rails etc) and would love to do that
again.

On Jan 13, 10:35 am, Matt Aimonetti <mattAimone...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Just about every rails developer is familiar with the problems of the
> current Rails Wiki, many of which stem from an overwhelming lack of
> wiki gardening:

I think the most important thing is going to be getting the navigation
easier, as of right now its a mess. The outdated content will be
fixed if we can put a good team together to help keep it running
current.

[twmills]

I'd like to help with coding, developing a content structure and
writing content.

[Shane]

I am interested in helping out. My skills are lacking in the coding
arena, but I do enjoy dabbling and the wiki could be a great resource.

[danabrit]

There is a lot of work to be done here, and I'd love to be a part of
this daunting project. I think the wiki offers us as members of the
RoR community an opportunity to showcase the best of what open source
is all about: members helping members and working together toward a
common goal. There is so much great information out there, just
waiting to be processed, harvested, shelved, and offered up to those
who need it.

I've done some technical writing and editing in the past, and have
worked on several projects that basically involve assimilating and
distilling lots of information into usable formats. Those are skills I
would be more than happy to bring to the table, along with a
willingness to work (and some spare time - heh).

- Dana

On Jan 13, 11:35 am, Matt Aimonetti <mattAimone...@gmail.com> wrote:

[tomkarlo]

I'd like to help. I depended on online docs a lot when learning RoR
and I'd like to improve the state of the Rails Wiki so that it's a
more central repository for RoR developers and links in better with
the various resources around the web.

I have a few immediate suggestions:
* Create queues for pages that need to be gardened and show that
status on the page - differentiate between those that need editing or
reformatting, those with outdated technical information, and those
that should either be merged or deprecated
* Improve and conform page titles so they are easier to link to and
easier to search
* Improve and conform the formatting and content of the pages further.
Have some kind of overview at the top of the page (maybe in a sidebar)
with links to the content (and have more semantic structure within the
page.) Add a list of links with further relevant information at the
bottom of each page, both as a way to give credit but also so that
people will use the Wiki as the /first/ place they look.
* Eventually either embed or link non-text content such as railscasts
into the Wiki's fabric so that beginners get to learn faster

I can help with organization, editing, restructuring and some
technical issues.

Tom Karlo

[Adam Dalton]

Count me in as well.  One idea I'm throwing around is spying/observing one of the more popular and reputable blogs and making sure their content is included in the wiki.  For example, creating entries for all the envycast topics.  Could do the same for railscasts.  This could help to co-locate all the great resources available on the web to the rails wiki.

I think people keeping the wiki up-to-date on the most used gems and plugins would also be a good use of time and energy, while at the same time encourage participation in open source projects.

[Tyler Hunt]

On Jan 13, 12:35 pm, Matt Aimonetti <mattAimone...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Still Interested? Great! Then please respond to this message and let
> us know how you can help. If you’re passionate about making the Rails
> Wiki better, we want you on this team.

I'm glad to see the move towards the betterment of the Rails wiki, and
I'd love to see it become a cornerstone of the available Rails
resources. Let me know when and where I can lend a helping hand with
any copy editing or development tasks the project may have.

Tyler

[Matt Aimonetti]

* Create queues for pages that need to be gardened and show that
status on the page - differentiate between those that need editing or
reformatting, those with outdated technical information, and those
that should either be merged or deprecated

Going through the wiki I had a terrible hard time finding any valuable/up to date information.
Most of the content was related to Rails 1.x

Maybe we should start by going through the content and mark the content as obsolete and keep track of content that we want to keep.
I also found out that most of the up to date content was conflicting with the guides and was usually of lesser quality.

 

* Improve and conform page titles so they are easier to link to and
easier to search

Agreed, we should do that after we decide on the content structure and the home page.
Maybe we should start a new thread for that.
 

 

* Improve and conform the formatting and content of the pages further.
Have some kind of overview at the top of the page (maybe in a sidebar)
with links to the content (and have more semantic structure within the
page.) Add a list of links with further relevant information at the
bottom of each page, both as a way to give credit but also so that
people will use the Wiki as the /first/ place they look.

Agreed, that will mainly depend on the wiki software we use and the content structure we will adopt.
 

 

* Eventually either embed or link non-text content such as railscasts
into the Wiki's fabric so that beginners get to learn faster

Ryan is working on a project to list screencasts resources hopefully we will be able to integrate this new product with the main site.

- Matt

[Lake Denman]

I would be more than happy to help with this project in any aspects
that I might be used.
I have felt bad for the rails wiki for a while and I believe that the
reformation of the wiki has come at the perfect time and has the
potential for "great success!"
Count me in.

- Lake

[dbrezinski]

I would like to help clean up and add content about secure development
and deployment practices for RoR applications. Also, I am can review
content and code recipes for accuracy, language and correctness.

Dom

[Elomar França]

Hello,

I want to help the wiki. =D

I can go marking the content that need revision, updating code samples and writing something focused on beginners and about testing.

Best,

Elomar França
elo...@maisweb.org
maisweb.org/blogdoelomar
Mozilla Campus Rep.

[Brian Rose]

I'd be happy to help in any way I can, be it gardening or writing
content related to media handling, testing options/alternatives
(Shoulda/RSpec), Rails API information, etc. I relied greatly on the
wiki a few years back and know that, once properly revised, it can be
a great resource for beginners and experts alike.

Just let me know know where you need me.

Brian

[Doug Johnston]

I'm definitely willing to help this project wherever needed. Hearing
you talk about the project at sd.rb last week got me excited about the
Rails 3 merge and the push for involvement. I've been doing full-time
Rails for 3 years and have a decent amount of knowledge on most
topics. I have more intimate knowledge of ecommerce, authentication,
and general CMS-related topics (versioned models, tagging,
attachments, etc). Looking forward to being involved with the wiki
refresh!

- Doug

[Cadwallion]

I'm definitely interested in assisting the revitalization process.
I'm interested in technical documentation, editing, and revising the
system to be much more user friendly. Right now the wiki just screams
a lot of information at you, and doesn't really provide any direction,
especially beginners. There's tutorials, and then there's the Rails
API. There's no solid in-between stage levels of concentrated
documentation, although the Rails Guides project has definitely been
an excellent start, albeit a bit more on the beginner side than the
advanced side.

[David Trasbo]

I am a Ruby on Rails hobbyist developer, and I would be more than
happy to help making the Rails wiki a more orderly, beautiful and
useful place to read about Rails. Currently (unfortunately) the Rails
wiki lacks important things like easy navigation, code highlighting
and other stuff that has already been mentioned. I am willing to do
almost any kind of job within my reach, but among my more prominent
abilities is Ruby on Rails development, handcrafting of valid and
semantic HTML and CSS, and usability. Writing is no problem, either.

I'm glad to see that so many people has responded here, although it
doesn't make my own chances bigger. :)

--
David Trasbo.
http://twitter.com/datra

[Henrik Hodne]

I can help gardening the wiki.

- Henrik

[Matt Aimonetti]

Great, I think we'll get started pretty soon. We are going to use the google groups pages to work on drafts and list tasks. It's not the best tool ever but it should help.

I'll try to cast a vision for the wiki and we can discuss it and see how to implement it. (The activists spent a lot of time talking about what should be the wiki mission vs the guides vs the book)

- Matt

[Matt Jones]

That last line got me thinking - what *is* supposed to be in the wiki?
We've got RDoc for the code docs, the guides for getting started -
what's left?
Maybe we need a clear vision of what's supposed to be there (and/or
what we'd like to see)
before arguing about a solution.

--Matt