Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Large User-Maintained Documentation?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-smart-idea dept.

SysKoll asks: "I am working for a company that has release several open source contributions. Our flagship product, often updated, has thousands of pages of documentation that are constantly revised to stay relevant. Right now, users who find a doc defect send an email, and the doc is updated both on the web site and in the updates, but it can take weeks. I am trying to convince my upper management that the way to go is to turn the doc web site into a wiki-style community site, where registered users can annotate pages directly between official revisions. Does anyone know a large set of web-published documentation that is annotated using this kind of user feedback?"

3 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. TikiWiki CMS/Groupware by dheltzel · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Tiki (or here if that gets slashdotted) does this by using the app to creat the docs for the app. It's sort of recursive, but it works. Users can either modify the docs themselves, or add a comment to the page and let someone with more time/expertise update the actual page. The really shy folks can also send a private message to the page creator if they like.

    Disclaimer: Yes, I'm one of the developers and am trolling for new users. You can't blame a guy for trying, right?

  2. Re:PHP.NET by BrynM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think we may both be right, but may be looking for different things. I tend to learn more about coding from looking at examples - even wrong ones. To each his/her own. I'm off to go look at Eric Weisstein's MathWorld now. Thanks for the reference to it. It sounds interesting.

    --
    US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
  3. Stay Away From Wiki by marvinx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would recommend against using a Wiki clone. While it is great for the writer, it totally sucks for a reader.

    A Wiki is just like a giant bathroom wall. Tons of information, and completely no organization or flow. There is no editor marking which is good and which is bad.

    If you do go to a Wiki, you'll need someone there to continually categorize everything and organize it. Without a content manager, the Wiki becomes useless very quickly. Even though there might be tons of good information in there, no one will know how to find it.