Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 17:40:06 -0700 From: Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: JJ Behrens <jj@nttmcl.com>, Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org>, Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net>, Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com>, Drew Tomlinson <drew@mykitchentable.net>, bmah@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: organic documentation Message-ID: <200205040040.UAA27885@warspite.cnchost.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 03 May 2002 17:03:09 PDT." <3CD3253D.1500D66@mindspring.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Terry Lambert writes: > Bakul Shah wrote: > > > Aside from the classification problem (everyone has to classify > > > the same way for them to be able to get the information out), > > > the human factors argue that the depth should not exceed 3 on > > > any set of choices, before you get to what you want (HCI studies > > > at Bell Labs confirms this number). > > > > It is interesting to note that the plan9 people from the same > > Bell Labs are using a wiki for "information pertinent to > > installing, configuring, and using the operating system Plan > > 9 from Bell Labs."! > > > > http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/plan_9_wiki/index.html > > This is a perfect example of "everyone has to classify the > same way". Agreeing on common convention makes it easier to collectively evolve a document. True for most things done by a large and disparate group. Also note that a plan9 person seems to act as an editor and he does correct/omit/note wrong/misleading entries. Wiki just happens to be a very easy medium to share your tidbit of knowledge. > It also demonstrates the other problem of hierarchical > categorization, which is that it's impossible to get a single > document with all the information on it so it can be linearly > searched (e.g. via a browser "find text"). I agree with you here. Frequently I prefer downloading archived emails when I subcribe to a new mailing list and scan through it linearly. But there is nothing that says you can't provide a linear editing history of the wiki or whatever. > since what's an important keyword or key phrase to you is > often not important to the indexing software (simple indexing > fails to identify phrase matches at all, and you are stuck > with a phrase being treated as unordered keywords). This is an open problem. Unless search engines start "digesting" documents using something like frames (ala Marvin Minsky) to create a structured representation, you don't have anything better. There is only so far you can go with just numerology (counting words, counting links to a webpage and so on). > A good example of why simple indexing is bad is the search > facility for the FreeBSD mailing list archives. The facility > that's there is better than nothing, but it's unfortunately > less useful than google (for example) when looking up specific > topics and issues (e.g. try and find the OpenVRRP FreeBSD VRRP > implementation via the mailing list search -- it's in there: > google found it, but the local search engine didn't). A good search facility is always welcome regardless of how information is organized. As I see it, you first want to make it easy for people to contribute knowledge while minimizing the organization they have to know and follow. Wiki seems to strike a good balance but undoubtedly there will be better ways to do it. When there is a good enough collection, it does make sense to reorganize it in a better format. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200205040040.UAA27885>