Special Editing Option for 'Users'

[caf4926]

Is it or would it be possible for editing privileges to be given to certain users who although not mods, have extensive HowTo submissions / Guides - that may need updating / editing.

We already have all users editing the wiki.

Perhaps just make this possible in the HowTo's section and only for own posts.

You could even add 'Awaiting Approval' - to make it paranoid.

Maybe a better question is: Why does the open community have TWO
different places for guides, one in the forum (called 'HowTo') and
another in the wiki (called 'documentation')?

Which place has the best (most complete, up to date, correct and
moderator tried/tested/approved)?

Couldn't/Shouldn't the two places be rolled into one?

[Axeia]

In my opinion the how to forum is more for quick sharing on how to achieve something and the wiki is good for guides, step by step information to go from situation A to situation B.

I agree with caf4926 though, a secondary user group for those who'd like to maintain a how-to would be nice, although updates can be done in replies the question is how many scroll down to it as their might be a dozen less useful replies above it.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by Yosuf Mossad Mohammed Vitriolus

Maybe a better question is: Why does the open community have TWO different places for guides, one in the forum (called 'HowTo') and another in the wiki (called 'documentation')?

IMHO the wiki is preferred location for the community, but the syntax/edit functionality of the wiki is horrible (putting it politely). Hence we have decided to offer "How-To" sub-area for our forum membership, for if we did not offer this, some members who hate wiki syntax (but don't mind forum post syntax) would never post a guide. We had an incredible amount of internal discussion on this, before arriving at this approach.

Originally Posted by Yosuf Mossad Mohammed Vitriolus

Which place has the best (most complete, up to date, correct and moderator tried/tested/approved)?

Neither. They all can go out of date with time.

Originally Posted by Yosuf Mossad Mohammed Vitriolus

Couldn't/Shouldn't the two places be rolled into one?

In an ideal world, yes. But note the wiki are created by more than just forum members. But the How-To are created only by forum members.

My personal view (not a forum nor official view) is if some smart programmer could create a user friendly editor front end to the wiki, that allowed editting as easy as our forum editor, then most things would move to the wiki.

[kgroneman]

Just FYI I'm watching this thread to see if/how it develops. Granted,
the howto forum isn't working great right now and we (staff) have been
struggling to know how to deal with it.

--
Kim (1/23/2009 10:05:12 AM Mountain)

[hendersj]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:36:01 +0000, oldcpu wrote:

> My personal view (not a forum nor official view) is if some smart
> programmer could create a user friendly editor front end to the wiki,
> that allowed editting as easy as our forum editor, then most things
> would move to the wiki.

I believe there's a MediaWiki plugin for FCKEditor - ah, yes:

http://mediawiki.fckeditor.net

Might be worth looking at.

[caf4926]

Originally Posted by kgroneman

Just FYI I'm watching this thread to see if/how it develops. Granted,
the howto forum isn't working great right now and we (staff) have been
struggling to know how to deal with it.

--
Kim (1/23/2009 10:05:12 AM Mountain)

There are certainly quite a few using them though.

How is it you feel they are not working?

I was suggesting editing privileges of the content, but only the parts of ones own creation.

The two sections of Reviewed and Un-Reviewed seem fine in principle, but not many seem to be moved to Reviewed!?

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by caf4926

The two sections of Reviewed and Un-Reviewed seem fine in principle, but not many seem to be moved to Reviewed!?

I'm guilty there .... I have that on my too do list, but other priorities have surfaced, and I've had to push that on the back burner for now.

[caf4926]

Originally Posted by oldcpu

I'm guilty there .... I have that on my too do list, but other priorities have surfaced, and I've had to push that on the back burner for now.

You touch on another point I had in mind:
That managing / maintaining it, to the extent that it is a useful source for info takes time. A Huge amount being Your time 'oldcpu'.

We can't all be Mods. But could there be another form of management catagory for experienced users to manage their own HowTo's? Might save you some time too, though we couldn't move the post of course.

[whych]

Surely it would be better to write a howto doc to be distributed in the opensuse howto's? That way it becomes part of the distro documentation.