[Pmwiki-users] suggestions for the new documentation structure

Robert P. J. Day rpjday
Mon Oct 18 09:34:55 CDT 2004


On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 08:40:08AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> >
> > > The outline you presented above is excellent for administrators, because
> > > it places things in the order an administrator might encounter them when
> > > setting up the software.  But it's not so good for authors--people who
> > > are writing wiki pages but not running the software--because they have
> > > to get past (or overlook) the installation and configuration details
> > > before they get to the sections on creating, editing, and other markups.
> >
> > i thought about that, but these days, what with more and more people
> > running their own boxes, a lot of these authors *are* the
> > administrators.  didn't used to be that way, but it's certainly
> > becoming more common.
>
> It may be more common, but I'm more concerned about the case where
> an administrator wants to have lots of authors on his/her site (who
> certainly won't be administrators).  Even though administrators are
> becoming more common, it will always be the case that there are orders
> of magnitude more authors than administrators.
>
> I don't want PmWiki to only provide documentation to the administrator--
> I think that PmWiki should also provide the administrator with
> documentation for his/her authors.

actually, i think we're agreeing here.  the outline i posted recently
has a fairly early section on installation, but i was imagining a
*very* brief section, just enough to get the wiki up and running,
that's it, so that a user could keep going and start adding content.

there would still be a need for a full-fledged admin document that i
didn't even touch.  but the reason i proposed that earlier ordering is
so that the trails would flow more smoothly -- one could read it just
by following the trail and get something simple up and running.

that early install section in no way was meant to replace the
administrator's document.

rday

p.s.  if you want, you can start a PmWiki2 group over at pmwiki.org,
and a ToC page, and i'd be happy to put up just the basic outline
under that (not the actual content, just the section and subsection
headings) and we can keep arguing ... uh, negotiating. :-)

the vast majority of the current doc content is fine, i just found it
hard to follow as it made me jump around more than i wanted, that's
all.



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