[p2p-research] Wiki Organization

[Alex Rollin]

Hello,

I've been fussing with some of the categories on the wiki.  There's a few
big important pages on there that get the lion's share of traffic so I'm
doing some work to copy what's working there and apply it in other areas.

I was wondering about something.

Do you think that we need to have "P2P Theory" and "Theory"?

Background:  Wikipedia assumes you know nothing.  Do we make the same
assumption?

With our wiki there's a chance to look at an article and pick out the "P2P
Perspective" but this isn't always clear, and it is by no means systematic
across 10,000 pages.

Let's use hyperbole to talk about a test case.

Let's say I hear about a new initiative of the United States' National Rife
Association.  The organization has heard from some gun owners that the group
has created a train-you-neighbor  program, free, and that you can train
anyone after looking at the website for 5 minutes.  When you finish, you go
online and sign a petition.

So, this program obviously has a P2P Perspective.  Gun owners training
neighbors...neighbors as peers, everyone helping everyone to better wield a
firearm.

When I put this on the wiki I can put the stub into a few different
categories.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Category:Articles
Category:Training
Category:P2P Training

Do you sense any difference between Training and P2P Training?

I think we need both.

There's a new initiative of the United States' National Rife Association.
 The organization has created a free training program.  Just sign up on the
website and in 5 minutes you are certified.  You can sign a petition that
you completed the program and that you support looser gun laws.

If this went on the wiki it would go in:

Category:Articles
Category:Training

So, I think we need both, and there's a place for curating the Category
pages for the P2P Foo categories to specify and differentiate.

This hyperbolic example does beg a question, though: Why would the second
article be on the wiki?  Ideas?

Your thoughts are valuable.  Please do let me know what you think.

One of the impacts of this is in regards to the structured taxonomy for the
site.  Our category system has exploded, and to no great end it would seem.
 50 categories have all the links, and the rest are flying solo.

Custom pages here and there are working as directories, but they can't keep
up with the number of growing links.  In general then, our categories need
to support or  high traffic sections and, if possible, aid navigation down
into those sections with subcategories.  Wikis, ugh.  But possible!

This also means that "Top Level" pages like "Manufacturing" and "Design" do
need to understand their important place in things as driving all the
traffic for a particular category and also serving as a set of directions
for how to add additional content.  Like my NRA story, there may be cases
where an article decidedly doesn't belong because it doesn't link.  But,
then, what if it can't be categorized?  I'm not a deletionist, don't get me
wrong.

If there are three design categories: Design, Open Design and P2P Design,
then I would tell you that my bet would be on the P2P Design category as
containing the 'stuff' most well-curated on the wiki, but this is not the
case.

In addition to this particular subject, I would add that most changes I'm
making are non-volatile.  Redirects where need, lots of useful additive
categorization.  Generally we should see a traffic increase as things move
on.  The greatest benefit, though, will be a clearer way of linking your
content on the wiki, and feeling confident about how to add links to
categories like design so that they get properly showcased.

By the way, this wiki is totally awesome.  Great work everyone!  :)

Alex

Help? http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Foundation_Wiki_Project_Leadership
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100603/ac5466a2/attachment.html>