[Radiance-general] Radiance wiki proposal

Wed Feb 5 14:51:08 PST 2014

Chris,

Sorry if some of us appear to be cynical, but I thinly you're off the mark
dismissing those with less enthusiasm as naysayers who "fundamentally
misunderstand or loathe the concept" of wikis.  I think I can speak for
everyone when I say that we would love for there to be the level of
documentation you propose. Unfortunately funding for documentation isn't
available, so it is generally a personal time activity.

As Rob pointed out (who, by the way, has been instrumental in making
Radiance available to Windows users and deserves all of our gratitude)
setting up and hosting a wiki isn't much of a hurdle, so a pledge to do
that isn't all that meaningful. Instead, a pledge to spend 200 hours this
year creating content for a wiki is substantially more meaningful, and
would likely be met with more enthusiasm.

As Axel pointed out in his 2006 presentation, most of the work of wiki
documentation is done by 1% of the users. It's nice to think if you build
it they will come, but unfortunately that has been demonstrated false (at
least for this community) and we'll need to do more than just "hope that
the community makes an effort to upload content."

Ultimately, the challenge you'll face in starting a successful wiki is
getting buy-in from a broad base of users and motivating 1% of the Radiance
community to contribute substantial time adding content. Unfortunately, I
think you'll have to rely heavily on the people you deem naysayers, because
they are the ones who have been in the community the longest. Your appeal
to the students in the community to do the heavy lifting seems misguided,
we spend significant time helping some students with their problems only to
never hear from them again after their dissertation is completed, so I
don't think they share your motivation.

Here's my 2 cents on what will make your efforts a success:
1 - Make a more meaningful pledge towards creating a wiki rich with content
2 - Proactively seek buy-in and support from everyone within the Radiance
community (not dismiss  people with less enthusiasm as naysayers).
3 - Work tirelessly to deliver content. Unfortunately you'll probably be
working alone at first.

If you decide to proceed by pledging a substantial amount of your time to
add content, I will pledge 40 hours of my personal time this summer to add
content.

Good luck and godspeed my friend,
Andy

On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Chris Kallie <kallie at umn.edu> wrote:

>  Thank you Andy and Greg,
>
> Please do consider the points I've raised in the last email, and let's
> hope that the community makes an effort to upload content. I am willing to
> partake in the organization and uploading of portions of the
> radiance-online content, but a plan of action would be a good first task.
>
> Also, there are numerous ways to set up a wiki. I personally like the
> homepage of http://wiki.blender.org/ and was able to teach myself
> everything I needed to learn through their intuitive structure. The
> software is provided freely by: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki--I'm not an advocate of any particular wiki distro, but some just work
> better and look prettier than others.
>
> Thanks to all!
> Chris
>
>
> On 2/5/14 2:18 PM, Greg Ward wrote:
>
> A hearty "second" to Andy's motion for a Radiance FAQ.  As someone who is
> frequently re-answering questions that have already been asked (but I've
> forgotten I answered them already), this would be my top priority as well.
>  Someone knowledgeable would have to dig through the archives and pull out
> the interesting questions, and I'm not the best person for that.  There are
> also the old-old archives that should be mined for still-relevant
> information, and these are better organized and therefore easier to delve
> into:
>
>  http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/digests_html/rad_dig_HOME.html
>
>  Cheers,
> -Greg
>
>  *From: *Andrew McNeil <amcneil at lbl.gov>
>
> *Date: *February 5, 2014 11:04:46 AM PST
>
>
>   Hi Chris, Rob,
>
>  radiance-online.org is set up as a community website for anyone to add
> and edit content. Danny and I are the only ones to have done anything, but
> that's not the intent. It's not quite a wiki because we feel it needs a bit
> more editorial oversight to remain relevant and accurate, but anyone can
> contribute regardless. Anyone should feel welcome to register, send me an
> email, and I'll promote you to author.
>
>  I also won't get in the way of, and may even contribute to, another wiki
> attempt. But i'd ague that an FAQ is more necessary.
>
>  Andy
>
>
>
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