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foxbunny: I'm impressed, keep it up. I didn't have time to read through it completely, but it looks good on overview.
Please, everyone, don't be too afraid to change categories if you have a sensible reason to do so. The entire wiki structure is disorganized. I don't think you can really make it any worse by changing categories. ;-) Waiting for consensus on these issues isn't going to help, simply because most people don't really care enough to come to consensus. Do what works, and if people disagree, they'll say so!
for translation categories, I think I already described how it should be done: Have a top-level category for the language. Then put the organized subcategories of translations for that language in subcategories.
eg:
en
+ Howtos
+ General
+ Media
+ etc
+ FAQ
+ etc
fr
+ Howtos
+ General
+ Media
+ etc
+ FAQ
+ etc
de
+ Howtos
+ General
+ Media
+ etc
+ FAQ
+ etc
Of course, not all languages have all translations, so categories will not have a one-to-one correspondence.
Using this structure, there should no be translations for the wrong languages coming up in the wrong category. Therefore, translation pages can have titles that are only in that language. So the subcategory names in the outline above should be renamed for the French and German categories.
Dusty
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Although a quick solution shoud be made soon, we still need to agree upon the number of categories and as to what categories we need.
Do we classify articles first by their type (Guides, HOWTOS, etc) or we classify them by their topic first (Hardware, Software etc.).
I will propose this version:
EDIT:
Moved the categories to a new thread:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=205375#205375
One more thing to think about:
http://en.opensuse.org/Documentation
Please take a look at suse's docs. A nice thing about it is that all sections are accessible from the opening page. This is something I really admire about suse. It's documentation is excellent and accessible.
We could probably 'steal' some ideas from them.
I remember visiting ArchWiki about 6 months ago, and having a bit of trouble finding the articles, because there were no categories on the opening page.
EDIT:
Aw, aw, aw! I've just found out that some of the categories are locked. Although I won't change any English categories, it would be nice if you could unlock all of them so others can rearrange them. And please tell us how to request category locks once the structure is stable enough.[/b]
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Yes, categories on Main page wiil be appreciated.
I will try to apply foxbunny's categories solution to russian arch wiki.
foxbunny:
i think that it's better to sort articles by category, as we can classify almost all articles by category, but for type..
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i think that it's better to sort articles by category, as we can classify almost all articles by category, but for type..
I'm proposing that we have both types of classification.
I would also like to add [Customizing] under System administration (a category about compiling custom Kernels, tweaking for performance, etc, and rename User space [Customizing] to [Eye Candy] (about themes and eye candy for desktops).
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Yes, I understand what you've offered. But I said my opinion
By the way, how to add subcategories?
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foxbunny: Your category layout looks good; it may need tweaking, but an attempt to move the majority of pages into such a structure will be a good start. We can see what other categories are needed when there are misfits.
I'll look into getting admin access for unlocking categories.
Dusty
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foxbunny, did you forget about XServer category? And what about WM/DE? Are they in Software?
Dusty: what about displaying Categories Page on Main Page of the Wiki?
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Hi,
Compared to this wiki http://de.linwiki.org/index.php/Hauptseite with it's clear structure and not too much options on the left, I feel sometimes lost in the Arch Wiki. There are links to the forum and the main Arch site although you can navigate with the bar on the top (by the way: the right button says "Get it!" instead of "Get Arch" as other Arch sites). There are in my opinion too much options on the left for the user, there schould be a reasonable assortment which is of daily use.
hightower
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foxbunny, did you forget about XServer category? And what about WM/DE? Are they in Software?
Yes, they would be under Software. It may be another subcategory under [System Administration]>[Software]. I've edited the tree, so you can see for yourself. I don't think interfaces should be under [User's Guide], because installing them and most of configuration is still an administrative task. What do you think? Well, actually, I do agree that there is some user domain stuff in there, so we can add them in both SysAdmin and User's Guide sections.
See, I'm not such an experienced system administrator so I can't even imagine how many and what kinds of software administrative tasks there might be. Feel free to expand the tree whatever way you see fit. It was just a proposal anyway. One note, though: I think it would be best if the base categories would remain small in numbers.
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Thank you for your work. Now I really like it!
IMO administrative tasks are tasks which super user does, so interfaces are in [System Administration]
Only 2 words: Laptops (I think it is a real large category) are in Hardware? And may be rename multimedia to audio/video?
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Okay. Please use this thread:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=205375#205375
for further discussion on categories list.
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I could help to translate the wiki from english to spanish (es-ES).
What i have no idea is how to start, as there is no spanish category.
Feel free to contact me at dienadel@thegooglemailsystem, or here.
Bye
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Although having a better structure for categories is great, IMO there should be more focus on searching, since besides first steps the wiki is used mainly for specific stuff (at least I do). Placing the search bar in the top-center and making it bigger would give it the necesary emphasis.
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dienadel:
translate one page, for example ArchLinux. Put it into some category ("About ArchLinux" in your language words). Then edit this category, putting in its parent category as foxbunny's guide requests. So you will have this structure.
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Although having a better structure for categories is great, IMO there should be more focus on searching, since besides first steps the wiki is used mainly for specific stuff (at least I do). Placing the search bar in the top-center and making it bigger would give it the necesary emphasis.
IMHO, having nice ballanced category tree is no obstacle for developing a better search engine. And frankly, I don't think wiki writers and editors should be concerned with search engine. They should write, edit and organize pages.
I agree that most people quickly turn to search engines, but that's probably partly due to unclear wiki structure (which is what we are here to fix).
While I would like to see a better search engine as well, I will still suggest that you open a new thread with suggestions for a better search engine, explain what would make it better, etc. This thread is supposed to be for those that want to discuss the category list.
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dienadel:
translate one page, for example ArchLinux. Put it into some category ("About ArchLinux" in your language words). Then edit this category, putting in its parent category as foxbunny's guide requests. So you will have this structure.
Sorry, i have no understand nothing :-(
I know editing a page, but not creating a new traslating category.
I've created an account, and gone, for example to
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchLinux
Pushed edit. Must add a {{i18n_entry|Español|ArchLinux}} entry, and then go that link and put the traslated page?
My apologizes, but, i don't want to "crash" the wiki :-O
Thanks!
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1. Go to the name of your future page: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchLinux_(Spain)
The page is blank. Press Edit and translate it.
2. Add i18links to your page (about others) and to all others page.
That's it.
3. Now edit categories. "[[Category:General]]" change to another one that fits your needs. To what - see foxbunny's posts.
4. Edit your category page. To create parent of this category simply add [[Category:Name_Of_Your_Parent_Category]] to the category page. Doing this way you will reach the top of parent categories which is Spanish in your case.
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so can we go ahead and start editing pages? or should i wait until they're dropped into their categories?
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so can we go ahead and start editing pages? or should i wait until they're dropped into their categories?
Feel free to edit anything now, the edits will be carried over when the categories are moved. Maybe for now, don't add any new pages, since it may create work to change them to a new category... unless, of course, you put it in the right category from the start!
Dusty
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1. Go to the name of your future page: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchLinux_(Spain)
The page is blank. Press Edit and translate it.
2. Add i18links to your page (about others) and to all others page.
That's it.
3. Now edit categories. "[[Category:General]]" change to another one that fits your needs. To what - see foxbunny's posts.
4. Edit your category page. To create parent of this category simply add [[Category:Name_Of_Your_Parent_Category]] to the category page. Doing this way you will reach the top of parent categories which is Spanish in your case.
OK cheer; this afternoon i'll make my first wiki-crash... errr, no, my first wiki page ;-) Would be this the correct post to comunicate problems related?
Of course, i'll previously read the foxbunny's comments.
By the way, what's the correct way: what would i use: "Spanish" or "Español"?. For the people who speak spanish, note that i'm doubt in using "Castellano" or "Español"
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"Español".
Another useful link:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ArchWiki_Tutorial
I think that posting there to discuss happened problems is correct only if it relates to new structure of Wiki and other issues discussed in this topic. If some problems happened, try searching forums or post in "Forum, Wiki and AUR discussion".
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I have another question as well:
What about other localized wikis?
at archlinux.de we have an own wiki which is now being build up with Geman articles only.
Then there is
wiki.archlinuxfr.org as well as
wiki.archlinux.fr
and supposedly other wikis from arch communities all over the world which I presumably don't know.
Since most of the wikis are running on wikimedia, it would be no problem to integrate links as seen in Wikipedia (look like [de:Archlinux Installation] with "de" being a link to wiki.archlinux.de and that possibly for other Arch sites all over the world).
So we could roll out these languages from the main Arch wiki which already have an own wiki in their community with the only downside that people are getting on another domain when following these links to the localized wikis and of decentralizing Arch Documentation.
What is the general opinion to this trend at all?
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Are those wikis using the same texts as the main ArchWiki? If yes, it would be great to have the texts hosted here at main ArchWiki as well. On the other hand, if those are separate projects, those can't actually be called ArchWiki translations. Of course, linking to those alternate wikis is a good idea.
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Hm I think main part of the articles there are translations of relevant English articles, only stored in a separate wiki.
Something else: I started an edit in Talk:WikiTodo to coordinate work a bit.
Or is it a better idea to ask for help from sysadmins in here or even the bugtracker?
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Or is it a better idea to ask for help from sysadmins in here or even the bugtracker?
AFAIK, I'm the only active wiki admin, having just recently been granted these privleges. I don't pay much attention to the bug tracker, though I guess I can have Judd forward wiki bugs to me. If there's something that needs admin privleges in the wiki, either PM me or post somewhere here in the forums. I'm not overly familiar with the setup of this wiki, so providing lots of details is a good thing.
Dusty
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