Best place for user-submitted work/scripts?

[FeersumEndjinn]

Hi all,

I was just wondering how/if the Foundation will provide somewhere for average users to submit useful scripts and bits of code?

I know that we have the wiki, but I think from my previous electronics experience, a forum is much better as it allows much easier collaboration and addition to the code?

I just noticed that the forum doesn't yet have a sub-section for user-submitted work etc.

Many Thanks,

FeersumEndjinn

[RaTTuS]

the forum will be updated soon™

there is also the wiki

[texy]

The forum will be having a major overhaul/different software shortly. Perhaps the foundation has already got a place for it when that happens.

T.

[meltwater]

The forum in its current form isn't suited, particularly due to the editing restrictions this means you can't update your stuff to help users as you develop it.

Hopefully the new forum will allow this.

[ArborealSeer]

there's also been talk of an appstore of sorts down the line

[jamesh]

I'm not convinced a forum is the right place for this sort of thing. It's difficult to search, index and edit (whichever software you use). I tend to veer towards Wikis, but again, they are a pain to edit for code fragments/scripts, except when as part of documentation.

I'm not sure what to suggest.

[SN]

ArborealSeer said:


there's also been talk of an appstore of sorts down the line



The Pi Store!!!

Or the Pi Market!!!

Or even... The Bakery!

[grumpyoldgit]

I would add that the first Pis will shortly start plopping through people's letterboxes and there is nowhere the n00b punter can go that actually tells them what to do. The wiki is partially made but is geared towards hardware. The forum has snippets about the three OSs but the information is scattered all over the place and is geared towards people wanting to use Qemu and the other emulators.

Even looking for the initial id and password combinations requires a bit of a search. Knowing that you need to type in startx after you have logged into Debian is very well hidden. After that they are completely on their own.

I don't know what documentation RS and Farnell are intending to put in the box but the stuff on the Farnell site is also hardware orientated.

Is this new Pi forum already designed and ready to go or is it a matter of porting what is here and then starting to add new topics?

[rurwin]

JamesH said:


I'm not convinced a forum is the right place for this sort of thing. It's difficult to search, index and edit (whichever software you use). I tend to veer towards Wikis, but again, they are a pain to edit for code fragments/scripts, except when as part of documentation.

I'm not sure what to suggest.


A Wikidot.com wiki would answer all of those reservations.

See:

http://www.soronlin.org.uk

http://www.computing101.wikidot.com

cyclods.wikidot.com

But there are several RaspPi websites going up already; I'm a little reticent about starting yet another.

[lewmur]

JamesH said:


I'm not convinced a forum is the right place for this sort of thing. It's difficult to search, index and edit (whichever software you use). I tend to veer towards Wikis, but again, they are a pain to edit for code fragments/scripts, except when as part of documentation.

I'm not sure what to suggest.



Forums are hard to search because the typical poster doesn't know how to create Topics with the proper "keywords" in the titles.  But how is a wiki any better at searching if you have people who don't know what they are doing adding to or editing the content?

IMO, a properly constructed and well moderated Forum is a much better "place for this sort of thing".  A good example would be the XDA Developers Forum.  The structure of the Forum is very important in that it has to organized in such a way that you don't have to search the entire forum to find info on, say, "MIDI USB and the Pi".  You'd just search the "Hardware Interfaces" sub-forum.  Then you need to have good moderators to make sure posters title their post with good keywords and place them in the correct sub-forum.

Of course, one critical sub-forum is the "Flaming, Trolling and OS Wars" sub-forum and moderators ability to easily move warranted post to that sub-forum. <VBG>

[Jongoleur]

You know what its like in a Western - the Cavalry are out on patrol, the officer and the sergeant are lying behind a little bank surveying the landscape where the Indians are conspicuous by their absence, and the sergeant turns to the officer and says "I don't like it, its too quiet...".  Or perhaps you prefer the Startrek metaphor; never participate in an Away party as an ensign wearing a red shirt.

Whatever, all hell is about to break loose as the first Pi's end up in userland, and like the sergeant, all we can say is its too quiet.  Are the swans legs paddling madly out of sight?  We don't know, there's been no information since the "Pricing Updates" blog entry appeared last Tuesday and both Farnell and RS are keeping things closely pinned to their chests.

From something that was mentioned elsewhere (I can't remember who said it or in which thread), the revamped Forum is going to be a little further away than a few weeks, so nothing in particular will change forumwise when the Hardware hits the fan (as it were).

Grumpyoldgit makes the point that there IS info about, but its spread out and sometimed confused. A solution might be to pin a locked post at the top of the General Diecussion forum called, for example, "So You've Got A New Raspberry Pi?" into which the Admins can distil knowledge as it accumulates through the forums.  This might be hard work *sigh* but its better than leaving it open for all sorts of confusion to be posted.

As for somewhere to post scripts and code fragments, it actually takes quite a bit of organising and places that provide such a facility are highly moderated to screen malicious submissions.  Its bad enough bopping the moles in here.....

[lewmur]

lewmur said:


JamesH said:


I'm not convinced a forum is the right place for this sort of thing.

IMO, a properly constructed and well moderated Forum is a much better "place for this sort of thing".




I am assuming that the people from the Foundation are going to depend on "outside volunteers" to do the "moderating" and that their only job will be to "moderate the moderators".  With the number of people who have "expressed an interest" in buying Pi's, I suspect that the increase in forum traffic will require a substantial increase in the number of moderators with moderators assigned to specific sub-forums.

Another practice I've seen that seems to work is to have posters assigned different levels of privileges depending on their proven record of competence in either specific sub-forums or in helping others.   New members would only be allowed to answer or ask questions in the "noob" sub-forum.  The moderators would then be allowed to judge their competence and elevated their status as warranted.  (That should keep me pinned up in the "noob" section for quite a while.)<VBG>

Of course, anyone would be allowed to post in the "Flaming, Trolling and OS Wars" sub-forum.  That doesn't require any competence!

[johnbeetem]

IMO the Wiki is the perfect place for short scripts and code fragments.  The Wiki has the advantage (most of the time) that others can improve on the original contribution, keeping things up to date as the underlying hardware and software evolve.

For something large, there are plenty of hosting sites for open source software.  The Wiki can point to the hosting site.  A discussion group for a specific piece of software is probably better placed somewhere other than the Forum, with a pointer to it in the Wiki.

I expect the Wiki to improve dramatically as people get RasPis and get sick of answering FAQs in the Forum.

JMO/YMMV