Wiki "home" page changes

[nebula]

I made some changes to clarify the home page. 

- I tidied up lots of wordings

- I moved "projects" to be closer to the beginning (because I think a new reader would be more likely to first want to see what a MIDIbox can do than be faced with 15 dogmatic links about DIY)

- I took the links to individual user projects off the home page.  They are already linked from the "user projects" page.  The home page has been getting far too busy - too many links and options make it less useful because it is not readable from top to bottom.  User projects are great, and important, but they tend to be more "specialized", and extensive background documentation is not available from TK or ucapps.

- I took the links to the core board parts list, ain parts list, and din parts list off the home page and instead added those links to the main pages for their respective boards.  Those 3 parts lists are the only ones of their kind I have seen on the Wiki, so it is not complete enough of a package to be on the home page.

- Plus some other stuff.

Please forgive me if anybody feels I have slighted them by trying to organize this.  I want to help make this documentation more clear, concise, and logically organized.

I would like to suggest, prior to adding links to the home page, to consider whether that link really belongs at the "top level" of the MIDIbox Wiki.  If you create a new page, think along the lines of "where will a user be when they want this information", and put links to your page there.

One thing that often bothers me about the MIDIbox forums is that newbs are often openly lambasted for asking for information that is documented somewhere, but they couldn't find.  This clearly demonstrates a need for a more organized Wiki.

What we lack, unfortunately, is a "talk" page attached to every entry like Wikipedia has.  This is really cool IMHO, because different people's opinions vary on matters such as this, and it's a convenient mechanism to discuss each page and provide rationale for why certain changes should or shouldn't be made.  In the absence of such a mechanism, this forum ("MIDIbox documentation project") is likely a good place for such discussions.

[Wilba]

- I took the links to individual user projects off the home page.  They are already linked from the "user projects" page.  The home page has been getting far too busy - too many links and options make it less useful because it is not readable from top to bottom.  User projects are great, and important, but they tend to be more "specialized", and extensive background documentation is not available from TK or ucapps.

Put back the user projects.

All MIDIbox projects are "specialized". The fact that "extensive background documentation is not available from TK or ucapps" is a great reason why user projects should be easily found on the home page. People have put a lot of effort into documenting user projects and making them available to others - these projects have earned their place next to TK's "official" projects.

If people find the original home page "not readable from top to bottom", then people ought to find another hobby, because the rest of the doco will be just as "unreadable", i.e. long and full of detailed instructions.

Perhaps I'm just having a rant because people can't even read and follow instructions in my emails, and I wonder if I should have bothered with putting so much into the wiki if it's going to be just as ignored...  ;D

[nebula]

As it stood only a small number of user projects appeared on the home page.  This means that a person could look at that page and think that those were all the user projects.

You raise a valid point that the projects have earned their place next to TK's official projects ... would you be open to the idea of me putting the user projects back on the home page, and changing the User Projects page to "Incomplete" or "Unreleased" User Projects?  At least that way things only need to exist once to be on "the" list.

If people find the original home page "not readable from top to bottom", then people ought to find another hobby, because the rest of the doco will be just as "unreadable", i.e. long and full of detailed instructions.

Yup, that sounds like a rant.  By that logic, the entire Wiki and web site ought to be turned into a big text file.  For that matter, we should get rid of folders/directories on our computers too.  The reality is that it is intuitive to group related information, then to "drill down" when browsing to find more specific stuff pertaining to what you're looking for.

I made the changes and posted in the most neutral way possible, looking for constructive criticism.  You're respected around here, and I also respect your opinion, but barking orders such as "Put back the user projects" makes me think that it is the people who let their egoes stand in the way of progress, rather than those who have trouble sifting through poorly-organized documentation, who should consider another hobby.

I wonder if I should have bothered with putting so much into the wiki if it's going to be just as ignored...

Dude, it's not YOUR Wiki.  It's a community thing.  I made some changes and then posted here so that people could see what I was suggesting, and we could have some rational discussion about it.  No info is lost, and if everybody hates my ideas/hates me/whatever, it can just as easily be changed back.

Quips aside, please let me have another go at it - let's see the feedback that appears in this thread over the next (roughly) 8-12 hours, and I will then devote as much time as necessary to try to meet the wishes of the community while trying to make some of this stuff easier to find.

Oh, and let's all be friends.

[Wilba]

Yet again I get misunderstood, and by another native English speaker even...

You raise a valid point that the projects have earned their place next to TK's official projects ... would you be open to the idea of me putting the user projects back on the home page, and changing the User Projects page to "Incomplete" or "Unreleased" User Projects?  At least that way things only need to exist once to be on "the" list.

My point was mainly that all projects, whether "official" or "user" belong in the same list, for the wiki browser to find easily, whether they are all on the home page or in a "Projects" page linked to from the home page. Reorganize, restructure, it's all good.

Yup, that sounds like a rant.  By that logic, the entire Wiki and web site ought to be turned into a big text file.  For that matter, we should get rid of folders/directories on our computers too.  The reality is that it is intuitive to group related information, then to "drill down" when browsing to find more specific stuff pertaining to what you're looking for.

You used the term "not readable". I agree the home page should be a little more structured, but  if you're going to exaggerate and call it "not readable" then I'll point out that people that really find it unreadable will find the rest of the wiki equally so.

I made the changes and posted in the most neutral way possible, looking for constructive criticism.  You're respected around here, and I also respect your opinion, but barking orders such as "Put back the user projects" makes me think that it is the people who let their egoes stand in the way of progress, rather than those who have trouble sifting through poorly-organized documentation, who should consider another hobby.

Sorry if being brief came across as barking orders.

It was a reply to your request for opinions.

Dude, it's not YOUR Wiki.  It's a community thing.

That's a misunderstanding (and related rant). I was referring to putting in so much effort into the wiki pages for the people who don't read my emails properly and wondering why I bothered.  ;D

kissy kissy make up now pretty please?  ;D

[nebula]

I agree the home page should be a little more structured, but  if you're going to exaggerate and call it "not readable" then I'll point out that people that really find it unreadable will find the rest of the wiki equally so.

Maybe i'm backpedalling here, i'm not going to bother to re-read my post but i'll tell you what i meant: the home page became a mishmash of unrelated info, including lots of stuff a person coming to the wiki wouldn't be looking for from the home page. 

Like many people, I find myself skimming documents until i find the section i want, and then looking more closely.  If I spend 5 minutes skimming a document and it didn't contain what I was looking for, that's 5 minutes I just wasted.  Had it been a number of smaller documents with appropriate titles, I could have determined very quickly that none of the titles pertained to my query.

Herein lies the problem:  People subconsciously get frustrated and tune out.  They go through the physical motions of reading (eyes continue, left to right, over the words), but they absorb nothing.  Ask them what they just read one second later, and they don't know.  Instead their mind is thinking (cue Homer Simpson voice) "I think I'd like some peanuts.  Mmmmmm, peanuts".

Ever turn your car radio to the news station so you can get the weather forecast?  You're listening, waiting .. news, news, sports, traffic .... waiting, listening ... next thing you know the weather forecast is over and, even though there were no audible distractions, you heard none of it.

It's difficult to tune your mind in to a bunch of disjointed information, maintain concentration, and eventually pull a relevant needle from an irrelevant haystack.

kissy kissy make up now pretty please?

okie doke. i'm going to bed. 

no harm no foul (even though i never really understood that expression)

when i wake up, i'll go to work, where i'll have lots of time to put the user projects back on the main page.  if you can't wait for that change, feel free to do it yourself, but ... i did put some hours into this and i have a vision, so i'd appreciate your patience.

nitey-nite

[stryd_one]

My Five Dollars and Two Cents:

I made some changes to clarify the home page. 

Thanks dude always encouraged :)  I also think that I like about 90% of what you've done in this particular instance, so thanks :D

I think that when you are making small changes, here and there, it is OK to just go ahead - and I don't want to discourage anyone from updating the wiki any time they see fit. I think the final rule is always that it can be rolled back to the original, so go crazy. Just don't take it personal if someone trashes all your changes ;D

That said, maybe when making such large, high profile changes, especially with regard to projects or documentation where any person has invested a good deal of effort, it may be best to put a quick post here to see if it's OK. I would maybe recommend making a copy of the page you intend to replace, and editing that and presenting it on the forum for opinions. We can come back to these ideas later....

- I tidied up lots of wordings

Cool. Linguistics are tricky in such a a varied international community, so any clarifications are good.

- I moved "projects" to be closer to the beginning (because I think a new reader would be more likely to first want to see what a MIDIbox can do than be faced with 15 dogmatic links about DIY)

The dogmatism is in such an obvious place with good reason ;) Without it, what happens is, people read half of it, get all excited about the fully sick MBFM, come to the forum asking questions that are answered later on in the page they are half way through reading, and then we tell them to read more, and they take it personally and get all offended, and then we have another thread where we explain at length that we really aren't bastards, just that we know the best answer is already written down ::) ;D

We'll come back to this subject later too...

- I took the links to individual user projects off the home page.  They are already linked from the "user projects" page.  The home page has been getting far too busy - too many links and options make it less useful because it is not readable from top to bottom.  User projects are great, and important, but they tend to be more "specialized", and extensive background documentation is not available from TK or ucapps.

I know what you mean, but I said I'd come back to this.... I think that before you slice a bunch of people's stuff up you prooobably should ask first. I do know what you mean, but yeh. That wasn't yours, hands off  ;D If you want some solid background documentation you can feel free to come and be my typist for a few weeks :P This is why editing on the wiki is encouraged.

I don't think that relegating pages to a deeper level in the tree due to lack of supporting documentation is the solution, I think increasing the documentation is the solution.

I don't think that relegating pages to a deeper level in the tree due to being of a specialised nature is the solution, I think that's the problem - people with specialised requirements will have looked a lot and are less likely to bury themselves in the wiki to keep searching - they need it up top.

- I took the links to the core board parts list, ain parts list, and din parts list off the home page and instead added those links to the main pages for their respective boards.  Those 3 parts lists are the only ones of their kind I have seen on the Wiki, so it is not complete enough of a package to be on the home page.

Agreed here.

Please forgive me if anybody feels I have slighted them by trying to organize this.  I want to help make this documentation more clear, concise, and logically organized.

No harm no foul ;) Hehehe

That's actually not what I meant to say, but I thought I'd add...it is like saying "No harm was done, so there is no problem to speak of"

I would like to suggest, prior to adding links to the home page, to consider whether that link really belongs at the "top level" of the MIDIbox Wiki.  If you create a new page, think along the lines of "where will a user be when they want this information", and put links to your page there.

True. I think that after some time to 'evolve' the wiki structure becomes obvious and links will naturally move to a more logical position anyway, as with your links mentioned above

One thing that often bothers me about the MIDIbox forums is that newbs are often openly lambasted for asking for information that is documented somewhere, but they couldn't find.

Unfortunately, sometimes we do roast someone who has searched and searched to no avail. Most of the time, the sad reality is that we roast people because the questions they ask make it obvious that they have not made sufficient effort in their search... It's usually easy to spot the people who posted before spending a significant time reading. Sometimes I get it wrong, and you'll know when that's the case, cause you'll see me apologise :) Most of the time, we end up defending ourselves. See I told you I'd come back to that ;)

This clearly demonstrates a need for a more organized Wiki.

That is true though, and help with that task is always encouraged, so thanks again :)

What we lack, unfortunately, is a "talk" page attached to every entry like Wikipedia has. <SNIP> In the absence of such a mechanism, this forum ("MIDIbox documentation project") is likely a good place for such discussions.

That's the idea!

i'll tell you what i meant: the home page became a mishmash of unrelated info, including lots of stuff a person coming to the wiki wouldn't be looking for from the home page. 

Well that depends on the person. What if they're looking for a sensor project or drum machine or algo sequencer? ;D

Like many people, I find myself skimming documents until i find the section i want, and then looking more closely.

You're assuming that the reader is already someone who wants to invest time in the midibox documentation like you do and like I do. Maybe they're checking it out to see whether they want to do that kind of reading or skip to the next site? I like your edits but I think that is the core failing in your adjustments - you've edited too much with your own perspective and not the perspectives of other possible readers.

Herein subconscious tune. Mmmmmm, peanuts

MMmmm peanuts.

What? Oh -

if you can't wait for that change, feel free to do it yourself, but ... i did put some hours into this and i have a vision, so i'd appreciate your patience.

This is where (See, I came back to it, eventually) a copy of the original is a very good idea - no harm editing the wiki but leaving it mid-edit in public spaces is a bit intrusive.

nebula

Midibox Addict

***

Posts: 109

I think that's a bloody good effort for a dude of 100 posts!!

[Wilba]

stryd_one, you of all people should know that post count has little correlation to ability or MIDIbox experience ;D

[stryd_one]

What? Peanuts?

[audiocommander]

Hi,

I just restored the Wiki to the version where the user projects are still in. I was a bit shocked to see so many informations missing and my first thought was that they'd gone missing accidentially.

if you can't wait for that change, feel free to do it yourself, but ... i did put some hours into this and i have a vision, so i'd appreciate your patience.

sorry, didn't see that before.

As it's a wiki, you can easily access your last version and update the page from there.

But I believe, it's not the right way of simply deleting information without providing alternative access points to the removed information.

I agree, we could group the items to subpages, so that there aren't so many links on the index page; but then again, this should be done carfully and by adding other starting pages (eg. Projects -> Sequencers -> ...) and not by removing them at all. Another thought is, that the usability will be reduced if all information is splattered all over different pages; esp. because there's a main menu missing in the wiki-software (yes, there's the trace, but as the trace is every time different, I don't use it very much).

An example:

The thing with the user projects is, that there aren't just userProjects on the starting page, but only those which are completed, which is a great pro for the community! And you can't tell which projects are completed from the userPages sub-page. If you see this from the eyes of a newbie-stranger: would you dig into the userProject-pages if you visited the Wiki for the first time? I wouldn't.

So, if we want to reduce the startPage, I propose to think about adding subpages, for example:

  - General (containing introduction, general, basics, books, soldering tipps, tools etc..)

  - Projects (containing synths, controllers, just completed ones)

  - Hardware (containing parts, modules)

  - Developers (containing app dev infos)

  - User Space

Regards,

Michael

[Durisian]

Having only recently started in midibox land, the hardest thing I found was... i'm not sure how to put it.... direction... in terms of what you need to know. It's really overwhelming, and I struggled to get my head around even the basics, I'm glad I stuck with it!!

Of course midibox is an open ended project, with almost infinite possibilities. So direction is not really possible. but here's 2c:

-A definite introduction, top of the home page. What is midibox, what can it do. Including examples of applications and hardware designs, not all, just 1 or 2, and just the basics.

Keeping tech talk to a bare minimum.

-it opens with a 'please edit me'. It's irrelevant for newbs. It needs to be said, but maybe it can wait till later. It's pretty scary when you read that the first time and wonder if you really want to try and build a project.

-The basics section needs to go under the MBHP section. Let's show people what it really is before teaching them to solder.

Just a few thoughts

[audiocommander]

Hi Durisian,

-A definite introduction, top of the home page. What is midibox, what can it do.

it's there, the first two links of the Wiki:

- What is a MIDIbox

- Introduction to uCApps.de (What can it do)

Let's show people what it really is before teaching them to solder.

Agreed; that means the projects have to go on top, right below the Introduction Links.

I always thought about some graphics or small example pics for the index page. I think this would help the structure, too. Maybe we could also introduce some sort of table to use a column-layout for the front-page?

For example like this wiki: http://www.macentwicklerwelt.net/doku.php

though it seems that <box> is not supported by our wiki :-\

Best,

Michael

Edit: it's a plugin

http://wiki.splitbrain.org/plugin:boxes

[nebula]

I had no time today.  So I'm not touching it for now.

I should have done this in the first place: I'm going to create an alternate home page called home_alternate, then canvass everybody here for input.  I think the Wiki home page might even benefit from a bit of "slickness", i.e. maybe a few pics or colours or logos or something.

I'll take my time with it, and work on it over the weekend. On Monday let's all have a look & discuss what's right and wrong with it.

Meanwhile, audiocommander, I was kind of thinking along the same lines that all pages can probably be pigeonholed into a few distinct "groups".  That's a great idea, because each group could get its own heading on the home page, with links to top-level concepts within that group.

Whew!

In other news, life is termporarily becoming a whole-lotta hectic for me, because I'm getting married next week.  I'm starting to tweak over it a little bit, I haven't been able to sleep much over the past few nights.  As soon as I post this message I'll be driving across international lines (Canada/US, hahaha) to pick her up, as I do every weekend, but unlike the rest of the weekends this will be our last as an unmarried couple.  And I feel it starting to turn me into a scatterbrained freak.

Peace out to all for now, and happy boxing!

[audiocommander]

Hey nebula,

I think I forgot to mention that I appreciate your work on the wiki v much :)

Don't stress yourself, it's a great idea to have a temporary page "home"; I will have a look too and help, but I'm also quite busy atm; I don't think that's very urgent; it's been a mess for years, so a few days more won't hurt ;D

All the best for your upcoming marriage!

cheers,

Michael

[stryd_one]

Congrats neb!

Take your time and work on a copy when you feel like it. There's no rush, but it would be a shame to roll back to the original and lose all of your changes forever.

[TK.]

I always thought about some graphics or small example pics for the index page. I think this would help the structure, too. Maybe we could also introduce some sort of table to use a column-layout for the front-page?

For example like this wiki: http://www.macentwicklerwelt.net/doku.php

though it seems that <box> is not supported by our wiki :-\

I like this layout and therefore installed the box plugin.

Now where I know how the plugin manager is working: are there more interesting dokuwiki plugins?

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Davo]

How about redirects?  There are an awful lot of things like "foo" and "foo installation" such that "foo installation" is only a few lines long and really should be a part of "foo".  This would call for redirects, or at least delete requests.

[ptitjes]

Now where I know how the plugin manager is working: are there more interesting dokuwiki plugins?

If you have graphviz installed on your server, DokuWiki Graphviz plugin would be very practical for documentation!

Also the tag plugin would be cool to better organize the wiki.

Finally another "code" box would be a nice to have (like http://wiki.splitbrain.org/plugin:code or http://wiki.splitbrain.org/plugin:code2)

Best regards, Didier.

[audiocommander]

I like this layout and therefore installed the box plugin.

yipee! :D

I believe a sidebar would be a nice thing to improve the navigation:

http://wiki.jalakai.co.uk/dokuwiki/doku.php

I'm not sure if this is the right one, because it uses namespaces to group items; it might be too much work to convert every document to use namespaces (and I remember Twinny said something about nonworking namespaces somewhen?). But if there's an option to have one editable sidebar (there are examples on sub-pages with an editable sidebar)... hmmm...

I also added a new page "start":

http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start

just some testings with boxes and how the formatting is in there, though...

Cheers,

Michael

[ptitjes]

I think there is little bug on the <box> plugin... It automatically inserts a <p> for the box content. So when you immediately put a list you have a carriage return before the list! (see http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start)

[audiocommander]

well, looks good anyway :)

I can imagine the starting page will be a lot clearer soon ;D

[stryd_one]

One thing I've noticed is that many ppl new to the wiki prefer not to use it because it can't host their images... If there's a way to upload images via plugin or something that would rock...

[audiocommander]

It's not that complicated finding a place for some electronics pics; there are a bunch of free image hosters. And the dokuwiki caches the images, so normally there should be no problem with broken linked imgs...

Maybe that's a bit friendlier regarding our space consumtion; if I'm allowing ppl to upload something onto our servers, I usually have the problem, that noone of them seems to be able to set the image compression to a reasonable value. You can't imagine how many megabytes a few jpgs can consume  :o

That would be a good topic for a "how dow I write an article on the Wiki" Wiki article :D

Enabling embedding of youtube vids would be nice, because that's not possible atm.

http://wiki.symplus.co.jp/computer/en/youtube_plugin

Though I don't know if that introduces any security leaks :-\

;)

Cheers,

Michael

[TK.]

Redirects: please specify the URL for this plugin

Graphviz: requires unix tools which we cannot install on our server

tag: installed

code2: installed

sidebar: installed

Uploading images: it's already possible to upload any file into the wiki media library, permissions are controlled via ACL (Access Control List).

Permission can be granted for groups and individual users.

Frequent writers should now be able to upload by default (please test! I'm not sure if I selected the correct group, as the name is not displayed), if somebody else needs access, just drop me a mail

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[TK.]

P.S.: Frequent Writers should see a new icon now:

just click on it to open the media file manager.

It's possible to create subdirectories for different projects (recommented!)

Files can be referenced with internal links: {{<filename>}}

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[Twin-X]

I can disable hotlinking to save bandwidth.

But i will not decide this. If hotlinking is disabled pic's cannot be viewed on other sites than midibox.org