Re: wiki "abuse"

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 9, 2010, 18:43 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTin3tQHLbsP0qr2tO4KovCY+Sg=DrSvDGt4t1Amy@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.1008092004450.2983@bonsai2>

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 18:08, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Valeo de Vries wrote:
>
>> Banning users without letting on what the rules are isn't very polite,
>> or productive for that matter.
>
> When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Going about in Rome, spitting
> everywhere, is rude, even if it is considered polite in your home country.

Going to Rome and introducing yourself would probably be more analogous in this case, and then being kicked out when you find the Romans don't care :)

Anyway, people are wont to treat things they've seen in the past the same, and most wikis have and encourage user pages & associated talk pages.

If the Git wiki doesn't want them that could be advertised more prominently, here are some suggestions:

  * Change this to cite some community rules page or whatever, it's
    what users see when they sign up:

        https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/MediaWiki:Welcomecreation

  * Disable links to talk / user pages, e.g. I have this (incomplete)
    thing in a LocalSettings.php for a wiki that doesn't want talk
    pages:

        // No user/talk for anonymous users
        $wgShowIPinHeader = false;

        $wgHooks['SkinTemplateNavigation'][] = 'vfRemoveWikiLikeLinks';
        function vfRemoveWikiLikeLinks( &$sktemplate, &$links ) {
            // Remove talk page links
            unset($links['namespaces']['talk']);
        }

    I have some other stuff, but it's mostly specific to the Vector
    skin (the Git wiki uses monobook). You can also add a page view
    hook that redirects users visiting User_talk:* or User:* pages to
    some page explaining that they're not wanted using similar hooks.

    Having two red links on every page on the wiki saying

       "There is currently no text in this page. You can search for
        this page title in other pages, search the related logs, or
        *edit this page*."

    Is a pretty big invitation to edit your userpage.

  * Add something to your user / user talk page (since you're an
    admin) indicating how to contact you, e.g.:

        Hi. I'm an admin here. Please don't use this page to message
        me, but
        [https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Special:EmailUser/Dscho
send me an E-Mail]
        instead.

And I'm sorry that I called you an "out of control admin" in an earlier mail, that was uncalled for.

But I do think it's important that we as a project try to project a friendly attitude to newbies. Doing thankless admining is hard, but how we (people helping on IRC, the list, the wiki etc) talk to and interface with new people interested in Git can have a lot of positive or negative effect on the reputation of the project.

In this case it sounds like the problem can be solved in the long term with some software modifications to the wiki, I happen to have some experience with MediaWiki, and I'd be happy to help with that.