cdent@blueoxen.org writes: (01)
% On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, John Sechrest wrote:
% > 1) does every page have a "did I answer your question" question? (02)
% Yes, but the data is gathered to a log that is not processed
% (it's on the list of the low priority things to do, which is
% crazy...) (03)
OUCH!
It should be a high priority process to get interactivity
into the system... Otherwise you just chase people away. (04)
% > 2) Are the other links generated automatically or by hand? (05)
% The links are generated from document id at the time of
% transformation in the presentation layer, but those document id
% references are put in by hand. (06)
So you could follow a template and put them in by hand into a wiki.
So there is nothing special there. (07)
% > 3) What programs can reason over the knowledge base? (08)
% None that I'm aware of, if by reason you mean something akin to
% the semantic web dream. (09)
Yes. Given that there is all this "knowledge" , what reasoning
can we have a program do over it? IE, find commonality. or find
questions that are not yet asked, but should be asked. Or to
find out information about the time vs content of the data.
or to build hit patterns/use patterns of how people use the data. (010)
% > 4) How do you export the knowledge base? (011)
% It is not currently exportable as there is no way to serialize a
% Document object (a Document is a text and all its metadata) in
% any reasonable format (you could Storable the perl object, or
% xmlify the hash which represents the object, but what have you
% got then, not much). (012)
I am not understanding. Can you give me an example? (013)
% > 5) What happens when you want to include images? (014)
% I'm not quite sure how this works, but the KB provides support
% for including image, audio and video objects with Documents. This
% feature has not proven sufficiently valuable in the context of
% the current system for it be used. (015)
I have found that screenshots drive up the quality of a help system
a good deal. (016)
I have also found that introductory/ broad overview videos are useful. (017)
I am surprized that this has not happened with KB. (018)
% > 6) What happens when you edit a page? how does the approval process work? (019)
% A designated kb editor has special permissions on the editing
% system (a Solaris box with Oracle and a bunch of code). They open
% up emacs and start up the editing mode and either choose to
% create a new text or a new version of an exiting text. That text
% is RCS version controlled. All texts have an owner that is
% designated during the creation time. The owner is a role account.
% A person operating as that role, or a specially designated
% editor, has the power to give a document a stamp of approval
% (soa its called in the local jargon, which confused me from my
% dns admin days) and "make it live". (020)
So there is no web editing to it, just go edit the file
as a text file. (021)
And permissions are just file system permissions. (022)
the SAO is what? A change to an index? A change to the file? (023)
% > 7) Can you assign permissions/access patterns to subpages?
% > is there a delegation process? (024)
% There is no such thing as a subpage. Everything is a single page
% (this is a central issue in my "you can't call this a content
% management system" problem). Access to pages are controlled by
% domains. Domains exist in a polyhierarchy and are usually
% associated with class C or class B subnets but can be controlled
% by single hosts or (coming soon) user based authentication can
% grant domains of access. (025)
% A document can have <kbsecure> sections or who attributes on many
% elements which control display of that thing to a particular
% domain. (026)
Hmmmm. So I can have the same page with two different views,
depending on how I get to it. (027)
% > 8) Can you simulate everything you need for KB with a wiki?
% > would it be harder or easier than the current KB? (028)
% No, but why would you want to? They serve different purposes,
% have different intentions. (029)
Ok.... Then let's list them. Let's take the next step and
see what the real core issues are. (030)
Let's suppose that I want to have a knowledge base at my university.
but instead of the heavy unix emacs solution, I just put up a wiki.
What would I gain? What would I loose? (031)
% The primary issue is probably content ownership and lack of
% sufficient metadata for management purposes. (032)
What do you mean by meta data? (033)
Is the meta data mandatory? (034)
How is the metadata computed over? (035)
% > 9) Can you simulate everything you need for a KB with a collection
% > of info files? What would be missing? (036)
% I've not explored this option well enough to comment, although I
% feel info, for reason I can't understand, to be horrible. (037)
Usually the reason that people don't like info is the interface.
However the underlaying structure seems to work very well, once
you get into the right frame of mind. (038)
% I think this is because I've always seen it as "The GNU project
% maintains documentation in the info format. This man page is no
% longer being maintained." Or something like that. To which my
% reaction is "eat me, give me my damn man pages." (039)
Yes, the switch from man to info was brutal for no good reason. (040)
% (This is not such a problem these days, but a few years ago it
% was.) (041)
yes. I agree. (042)
% > I am guessing that there is a lot of hand work and little automation.
% > Am I guessing right? (043)
% Content generation is hand work, but that's good. That's what
% makes the content have some semblance of quality and color. When
% the kb travels to conferences the thing that is stated over and
% over again by the audience is their surprise that IU actually
% managed to pull of the content gathering and generation. That's
% the hard part. The software, while complicated, is light in
% comparison. (044)
% Now that the kb is so embedded in iu's it infrastructure,
% changing it to meet modern external standards is rough. (045)
Yes. So If I wanted to put it up at OSU, I would have to hand crawl thru
everything to make it work. (046)
% >From my point of view I don't see much overlap between the kb (as
% IU's done it), wikis and info pages. They serve much different
% purposes and audiences. The historical context for the kb is for
% it to be a chromified faq repository. I'll let someone else jump
% in on wikis and info? (047)
I am missing something here. (048)
I agree that KB is a fancy FAQ repository.
But I can stuff FAQ's into many formats. Info does FAQ's. I have
a faq cgi that takes a FAQ format. (049)
And I could choose to stuff FAQ's into wiki. (050)
Are you saying that because it was not built for FAQ's, I should
not use it for FAQ's? (051)
.... that would never be the process of how we do things creatively... (052)
What I am saying is, IF we used a WIKI as a FAQ manager, what
happens to the process. Do we make it better or worse.
And if it is bettter, why?
And if it is worse, why? (053)
We claim that which software we use makes a difference in the
utility and quality of the process. (054)
For example: (055)
using a wiki for FAQ's is a problem because I am unable to create
lists, or trees of related information that I can turn
into subnodes easily. I can only do it by hand.
But I would like to group "like things" together.
And create a subnode. (056)
And when I am looking at lists in wiki's , I find that I want to look
at them from many views, which I have to do by hand
in a wiki. (057)
Can you identify any blips that would come up if you were forced
to use a wiki instead of KB. (058)
IE, you get new management. they say by decree that every thing
will be in wiki's. (059)
What would be the part of KB that would be missing that would make
you nuts. (060)
-----
John Sechrest . Helping people use
. computers and the Internet
. more effectively
.
. Internet: sechrest@peak.org
.
. http://www.peak.org/~sechrest (061)
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