[wp-docs] New page policy discussion

[Matthew Thomas]

On 2 Mar, 2005, at 1:42 AM, Carthik Sharma wrote:
>
> On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:24:44 -0700, Craig Hartel 
> <craig at nuclearmoose.com> wrote:
>>
>> Is this a dumb "policy"? I'm pretty much the one that suggested it 
>> and set up the reminder template that sits in most peoples' TALK 
>> page.
>
> I expected to address this question in this document here:
> http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-docs/2005-February/000007.html
> (please read the thread).

I expected to address the question by following up my last message on 
the topic ("Re: [wp-docs] New Codex Page for Forum Go-ers", 
2005-01-07). It seems the archive of pre-February posts to the list has 
been lost, but the salient point of my message was this:
>
> On 7 Jan, 2005, at 12:55 PM, Craig Hartel wrote:
> ...
>> I was suggesting that there be a note on that new page that all new 
>> pages should be created in the USER: namespace. In fact, I went onto 
>> the TALK page and did just that.
>> ...
>
> Cool. Given the huge amount of documentation we have, and the 
> incredible difficulty of editing Wiki pages after they're created, 
> putting each newly-created page through an approval process is 
> *exactly* what we need. ;-)

I planned to wait a month after the guideline change, so I could 
compare the number of pages created in the main namespace in the month 
beforehand with the number created in the month afterward. That way, I 
would have hard evidence for or against my hypothesis that the 
guideline change would maim the main namespace.

Unfortunately for that experiment (though, I think, fortunately for 
Codex), the wp-docs mailing list died shortly thereafter. So people had 
no choice but to ignore the guideline.

> I proposed something, as outlined in that thread, and then it was that
> many people involved in documentation did not respond to it, or
> provide suggestions for improvement.
>
> I understand that you had a discussion with some individual, but if
> that individual has a real interest in how documentation develops,
> then it might be good for him to provide feedback when asked, or start
> a new discussion regarding it.
> ...

I believe I'm "that individual", and I'm sorry, I didn't receive that 
thread at all (and so in the absence of a sufficiently flexible mail 
client, I can't reply to it either).

Anyway, if you wish to revive a review process for new Codex pages, I 
suggest first reading about what happened to Nupedia. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia>

-- 
Matthew Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/