eLinux.org:RPi Council

Because of the messed up stuff on the Raspberry Pi wiki, I have found it necessary to create a governing council for the RPi wiki. Please edit the below section if you'd like to become a member (alderman) of the council.

Note: This is official and is ok with the administration of eLinux.

Supplemental guidelines
''If anything is wrong with these guidelines please feel free to edit them. Thank you.''

Guidelines are made from consensus
All supplemental guidelines and decisions will now be made by the RPWC and eLinux administration.

Current council aldermen

 * President - Jeff
 * Trevor Gowen

Mahjongg
As he is not answering my requests for identity, he may be impersonating Mahjongg on the forums. I propose the account be blocked indefinitely because it clearly is copying the RPi forum mod's user name. --Jeff &bull; (talk)   RPWC President   12:26, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Verified thru PM. Case closed. :) --Jeff &bull; (talk)  RaspPi.png RPWC President  RaspPi.png 21:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Ghans
I propose that since he ruined a lot of formatting that he is not to edit the Raspberry Pi Wiki's formatting for 1 month. You can see clearly here. He, in fact, misguided everyone in best practices! I want you to go to Wikipedia and take a hard stare and compare the articles! They are misleading! He clearly cannot go on with this! Anyone else agree? --Jeff 02:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC) Edit: and also add a block of 1 month if he does not comply. --Jeff 22:39, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(Note: This decision must be concluded by Wednesday, October 3, 2012.)
 * Having compared Ghans' "Best Practice" with which, I believe, are the equivalent areas of Wikipedia and parts of the Help sections here I can see what you mean. However, using Wikipedia as a guide, one also has to assume that he was writing with the best of intentions. Unfortunately he does not reveal much about his background, experience etc. on his user page. However, having had the experience of encouraging "best practice" within a mixed group of programmer's of different backgrounds (scientific, computational) and training (formal, informal, none), I am well aware that when considering adopting such from a related area, one also has to consider the needs etc. of the intended users ie. adopt as much as is appropriate, adapt or reject the remainder. An analogy would be that when preparing a presentation one may end up with several versions depending upon the expected audience. Hence, whilst I am prepared to support your proposal, it is on the understanding that this is done so to allow us to begin to formulate more suitable guidelines, given that, eventually, hopefully, there will be younger, enthusiastic but less experienced contributers whom I would not wish to discourage. --TrevorGowen 14:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So you're a support? --Jeff 22:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Assuming I'm interpreting your update above correctly, to mean that he is requested to refrain from edits that change formatting aspects of the Raspbery Pi sections of the Wiki for one month and ignores that request, yes. Hopefully such a request will generate a response, therebye opening up a dialogue, which may resolve matters such that a formal block need not be imposed. --TrevorGowen 12:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I guess I will close this with a warning to Ghans. Block not implemented. --Jeff &bull; (talk)   RPWC President   12:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Shutdown of most other language "hubs"
Due to the importance of this topic, everyone is invited to post their opinions, even users that are not a council member.

These hubs serve no purpose but to point the respective language speakers to English pages. This is utterly useless. If I only spoke Greek, I would be able to understand the hub, but the hub's purpose is to link to other pages. Unfortunately I would ask a Greek community for help because the links are to ENGLISH pages! Why don't we just tell everyone a bold message: THIS IS AN ENGLISH WIKI! I propose to redirect all these pages to the English page; as for the template Hub Flags, I propose it be renamed as the RPi Hub header, or something like so. --Jeff &bull; (talk)   RPWC President   01:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

This shall be concluded on Friday, October 12, 2012 at 9:00pm (21:00) Eastern Standard Time, or whenever an obvious consensus closes.
 * Is this for real?... it goes against the actions of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, see http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1715. If they want to spread their Forum into multiple languages, then so should the wiki. SimonSmall 20:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * THIS IS NEITHER CONTROLLED BY NOR SANCTIONED BY THE RASPI FOUNDATION. Unless YOU want to make all the different language pages, you really need to knock some sense into yourself. --Jeff &bull; (talk)  RaspPi.png RPWC President  RaspPi.png 22:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Whilst it is my understanding that this section of the eLinux Wiki was created by members of the Raspi Foundation's forum (who, presumably, were already active contributors here), most of the non-english language pages appear to have been created in the early part of 2012 before the Raspberry Pi was generally available. As the number of active RasPi users grew, it was somewhat inevitable that contributions to this wiki area would increase. Unfortunately this has been at such a pace that, even where there had been significant translation effort in the early stages, at present, there appear to be too few people with the necessary skills to maintain those pages. I certainly don't have them (my French skills learned some 45 years ago are far too "rusty"). From the RPWC's president's comments above, I assume he's in a similar position. Hence, until such time that there are enough RPWC members with sufficient skills and "spare" time to properly check/moderate any translated pages, I agree that it is probably necessary to "shut them down". However, out of respect for the effort put into those early pages, I hope that such a shutdown will not result in complete deletion (where there has been significant effort), just in case their restoration becomes viable. --TrevorGowen 17:52, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I will only redirect them. Very well. I guess we have finally reached consensus. --Jeff &bull; <font color="#0645ad">(talk)  RaspPi.png <font color="#0645ad">RPWC President  RaspPi.png 02:50, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, yes the dictator reach a consensus. FR:RPi-Hub was maintained, I did some change as well as other during the last few months. Now what will happend when french speaking people go the this site. They will see an english only site and move on. Well Done!!

Papillon

If the non-English "hubs" have been shutdown/redirected/whatever, maybe the list at http://elinux.org/RPi_Hub#Translations should be cleaned up too? AndrewS 23:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

This isn't the RPi Forums
This will officially tell all that the RPi Forums are not how the RPi Wiki works! Closes whenever consensus is apparently reached. --<font color="#0645ad">Jeff &bull; <font color="#0645ad">(talk)   <font color="#0645ad">RPWC President   23:01, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Official language
Note: Due to the importance of this topic, all users, regardless of RPWC membership, may discuss this. As amending to the above, English should be the official language of the wiki. We are in Amnet/Engnet/Euronet, not Runet or Chinet, so let's just say ENGLISH really should be the official language. --<font color="#0645ad">Jeff &bull; <font color="#0645ad">(talk)   <font color="#0645ad">RPWC President   01:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC) (closes on Friday)

I strongly disagree with that opinion. If you do make all hub page point to english, what is the point of having translation? You are not alone on this planet. A hole bunch of people don't speak (read) english at all.

The point of having translation, is to offer the same information in different languages so as much as possible persons can read thing about the RPi. I know that it is not possible (practically speaking) to have all hub pages having the same exact information but at least the info is there in as much language possible.

If you make english to only language here (even if just for the hub) people will go else where for a wiki and all your good work will be of no use. Just look around http://frenchmagpi.site-mpe.fr/index.php/Accueil, the magpi is being translated to french, issue 5 is already published and issue 6 is in good progress.

In my opinion, "my language is the official one" opinion is selfish and close minded. The goal of a public wiki on the web like this one is to let people share as much as possible their information. Look at the succes of wikipedia, it is available in I don't know many language, there are pages on the same subject in many many languages that don't have all the same information but at least there is information for every one and a lot more people can find information than if just english is available.

It is ok to have the default page point to the english hub but keep the flag and translated hub available to all. Do not trow to garbage the work of all the people who translated (updated) the hub to there own language.

Papillon
 * Thank you for your comments - I've been waiting for further contributions to this discussion since, without proper feedback from the wiki users, this "council" has no mandate for its efforts. Personally, I do not like the term "official language", and feel it would be more appropriate to use the term "primary language". Whilst this wiki has "public access", it appears to be "privately hosted", hence I do not regard it as a "public wiki" like wikipedia. I've already indicated above that I do not wish the existing translation work to be "thrown away", however, some of the "translated hubs" appear to be "skeletal forms" with minimal content. As such they are potentially misleading as to the level and quality of content of this area of work. Should such pages be marked more clearly with their "translation status" (in their "native" language and English), and with the category "needs editing" (or similar) then I'd be much happier for them to remain linked to.--TrevorGowen 08:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not an English native speaker either - and I agree with the proposal of having English as the primary language ... but also with keeping of the already created translations and the hub - in maybe some form of "unofficial" sub-pages without guarantee that they contain the same/verified/complete information. If they really posses any valuable information rather than being just a fork pointing to English articles, they should be kept available (at least as read-only), otherwise it's rational to clean up. The term "official language" may not be the best choice, "primary language" sounds much better, but in my belief this is not about any selfishness, discrimination or anything else than an effort to keep this wiki well organized, readable, oriented on quality content, brief and clear. Maybe the language-hub can be placed somewhere at the bottom or as a sidebar menu (change to official wiki style?) with a clear marking, that its purpose is to provide extra space for smaller communities of people speaking other languages, and/or as some kind of mirrored clones with basic info from the main pages. Well, if that's what this wiki's objectives are... I understand very well that, this wiki may have a specific orientation and every contributor should respect the rules. Also, one wiki cannot meet everybody's wishes. There are plenty other options for specific language oriented wikis, forums, creating own, etc. On the other hand, if there is someone who would like to take over the role of an editor for a specific language and properly maintain the contents of that pages, I'm sure he will be greatly welcome. One more note - everybody should be aware that this is not a official Raspberry Pi Foundation's wiki. It is a publicly available private wiki (notwithstanding that it is created mostly by public community) for embedded Linux systems in general (correct me if necessary), where RPi is one of such systems/devices. It just happened to be the best available place for this purpose at the time, and thus the Raspberry Pi Foundation simply provided a link to this wiki (instead of creating its own, having to maintain it, moderate, etc.). We should be happy for having this place available for public collaboration. But without proper administration, it may easily become just a mess of unreadable contributions and literally lose its point... Who would want that? ;) --Pinoccio 14:30, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Wiki Design principles
All good things require a good design. To improve this site, we should (re)define / clarify its purpose. The following principles are suggested:

Users of the Raspberry Pi will be of three types (or a mixture of these); (a) competent Linux user, (b) experienced hardware and/or software modifier / hobbyist (c) beginner

Each page should consider WHY a reader would be using that page.

A competent Linux user would only want to know how to get the Raspberry Pi working and set up, and any 'peculiarities' relating to the hardware or Linux distribution. The hobbyist would additionally want to know how to use the GPIO ports and associated software, or how to modify / build the distribution or packages not included in that distribution. There should be clear pointers on the first page for the sections relating to these groups.

The beginner will need careful guidance in their first steps. For this, instructions should be clear:
 * they lead the user from what they know into what they don't, with each step being small and simple with the 'objective' clearly defined.
 * they use simple steps, and should skip optional complications that are not relevant to the current 'lesson', e.g. half of the raspi-config settings are 'advanced'.
 * they should include a link to complete documentation for the topic, with a warning that this may cover advanced material, e.g. full raspi-config instructions.
 * the writer should take into account that the site, and users, will be global, with english as a second language.
 * the writer should take into account the variations of hardware and distribution installed, e.g. the raspi-config utility is not available in many distributions.
 * the instructions should clearly state if they are specific to a particular set up, or are 'date sensitive' to changes.
 * pages should be separated into GUI and command line pages and flows.
 * instructions should be free from point-of-view opinions.
 * instructions should link to 'choice' pages that give pros and cons regarding that choice, e.g. which text editor should be used and if it is available / installable.

The beginner guidance should stop at the point where other sites can take over, e.g. once sufficient Linux has been covered, other Linux sites can provide more advanced or specific information. It should also be aligned to the objectives stated by the Raspberry Pi Foundation for why the Raspberry Pi exists.

Proposal, in absence of anything similar. SimonSmall 16:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly oppose this. We should NEVER split users into "social classes" and English is our official language, just as English is the Raspberry Pi's preferred language. I think this overhaul is too much right now. Why don't we focus on something else first? Also, you can't make proposals unless you already are a council alderman, in which case, as of my posting time, you currently are not. --<font color="#0645ad">Jeff &bull; <font color="#0645ad">(talk)  RaspPi.png <font color="#0645ad">RPWC President  RaspPi.png 01:40, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As you clearly don't know much about a wiki, I suggest you become more mature when you apply for alderman in the future. I have rejected your request for aldermanship. --<font color="#0645ad">Jeff &bull; <font color="#0645ad">(talk)  RaspPi.png <font color="#0645ad">RPWC President  RaspPi.png 01:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Explanation? Quote from above "If anything is wrong with these guidelines please feel free to edit them. Thank you." This raises two questions; (1) What is being done to fix the Wiki? (2) How will (the wiki) encourage new users to contribute, especially the enthusiastic but inexperienced who likely form the target demographic? SimonSmall 21:45, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That means minor changes, not major, overhauling changes. Also, nothing is wrong with the guidelines! --<font color="#0645ad">Jeff &bull; <font color="#0645ad">(talk)  RaspPi.png <font color="#0645ad">RPWC President  RaspPi.png 04:30, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

If you are interested edit here
Please indicate your interest in joining the council below here, along with a link to your userpage.

I have no interest in joining the council myself (just don't have the time), but I think any self-appointed "wiki council" should give itself some validity by spending some time coming up with practical guidelines / recommendations (without being too restrictive of course) rather than the "petty squabbling" that this page seems to be about so far ;-) For example maybe you could have a list of pages that you've already "cleaned up", so that we can at least see what "best practices" look like. And maybe you could come up with some guidelines for how pages like RPi_Hardware and RPi_Low-level_peripherals should document things which are different for the different revisions of RaspberryPi boards that exist? And Jeff, it might be useful to link to this page from your userpage :) AndrewS 23:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Some more things I've spotted after a quick poke around... AndrewS 00:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I see you reverted the change Ryanteck made when adding Rastrack, citing "Self advertising" - IMHO Rastrack is a useful link (it's been featured on the RPi blog) and shouldn't count as self-advertising. When deleting links from the wiki (e.g. if they're on "the wrong page"), maybe you could add them onto "the right page" at the same time? We do want the wiki to be newbie-friendly, don't we? :)
 * In terms of "guidelines", should all pages like e.g. Raspcontrol be renamed to e.g. "RPi_Raspcontrol" ?
 * Surely it'd have been better just to edit the existing RPi_Wiki_Best_Practice rather than nominating it for deletion (and removing all links to it) ? I'm afraid I'm not a wiki-expert so could you explain how it's "clearly misleading from Wikipedia's policies" and how the policies of Wikipedia are relevant to elinux.org ?
 * Is the RPi Model Wizard a joke? Currently there's only one model available to buy... (and even if there were two models on sale, the "wizard" seems pretty pointless IMHO)

Hope you don't mind me adding further comments here... Something else that it might be nice for the "wiki council" to clean up, is that there are several orphaned RPi-related pages (see here) so I guess it would be nice if either i) links were added back to those pages or ii) the content from those pages is moved/edited to more appropriate/relevant pages or iii) those pages are marked as "redundant info, please delete" or something ? AndrewS 01:45, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the info. w.r.t. orphaned pages. I'm still finding my way around here myself, but, being retired, I have more time to deal with such issues than, maybe, Jeff has. (That is, when I'm not trying things out etc. with my raspbery pi boxes). I'll take a look at them as soon as I get the chance. --TrevorGowen 14:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)