Re: [tag] discussion threads in wiki

[Patrick Curran <Patrick.Curran@Sun.COM>]

OK - I see what you're asking - how to "structure" the discussion in the Wiki (what conventions should we adopt) in order to simulate the appearance of a threaded discussion. (So that we know what the subject is, who said what, and so on.)

Firstly, to address the "yellow bar" question, we have no control over this. These are present at the top and bottom of each page. We impose structure by deciding what pages to create, how any individual page is structured, and how we link pages together.

Wikis are by their nature somewhat fluid. Typically you start out with a minimal structure, and as content is added and "themes" emerge, someone (it's helpful to have a "Wiki-master") refactors the material, providing additional structure. This is the role that I hope Victor will play (with help from others).

On the specifics of emulating a threaded discussion model, I have to be honest and say that this may not be too easy with a Wiki. Lengthy discussions with many participants may be more fruitfully carried out over email. However, the conventions that we seem to be spontaneously evolving on the Issues for Discussion page seem to be working quite well. (Number the topics, use indentation to show when you're responding to a topic, and "sign" your comments.) Refactoring will be necessary as the page gets bigger. One obvious way to do this would be to put each topic on a separate page, and to create a master "index page" to link to them. I think we can let things evolve, and rely on Victor to impose structure as necessary.

Durand, Jacques R. wrote:

I think you answered most of my questions - I did not mean to extend the
yellow menu bar itself, but to add more of these bars in one page, if
that can help separate the conversations and index them better.

- a few more details that we don't need to address immediately though:
. should the signing of statements in a conv go at the end (like
currently) or at the beginning of each statement (which could help
identify who's talking more easily)?
. We need to identify conversations uniquely (by their root? currently
[1],  [2]...)), 
. and when a conversation gets too long, close it and continue in a new
one? (how to refer to the previous one?)

Thx,
Jacques 


-----Original Message-----
From: Victor.Rudometov@Sun.COM [mailto:Victor.Rudometov@Sun.COM] 
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:51 AM
To: Durand, Jacques R.
Cc: tag@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [tag] discussion threads in wiki

Hi, Jacques.
We can store discussions on different pages, or have them all together
in one with links at the top of the page to the proper place in the
page. Something like:
Links
link to discussin topic 1
link to discussin topic 2

Text
discussion topic 1
...
discussion topic 2
...

Yellow bars are used for wiki commands like edit page. I do not think
they are extendable. How do we want to extend them?

Creating new discussion by creating a new page or by editing some
existing page is not hard. But if someone will have any problems with
that I'll be glad to help.

Thanks.
Victor.

Durand, Jacques R. wrote:
  

Questions on the wiki:
 
How can we clearly separate discussion threads - e.g. there may be TA 
examples that could be individually developed and discussed - so that 
we get easy access and indexing of each thread ?
 
I see in the http://wiki.oasis-open.org/tag/IssuesForDiscussion, two 
panes horizontally laid out (each with its yellow menu bar). How easy 
could we extend these? And make a link to each one of these from  the 
front page? Or would we use a page like this for each discussion
    

thread?
  

 
Is creating a new discussion topic/thread something any one could do, 
or should the wiki master be the one to do that?
 
-Jacques