GnuCash Draft Concept Guide, or, Whose WIki Is This, Anyway?

[Christian Stimming]

Dear all,

last time this issue was discussed, the majority of replies agreed to have 
those pages removed and that's it. Hence, I now put this into action and 
deleted those pages from the wiki. Thanks a lot!

Regards,

Christian

Am Freitag, 1. Dezember 2017, 16:22:19 schrieb Geert Janssens:
> David,
> 
> I agree this wasn't handled as it should have been. My apologies for that
> even though I'm not directly responsible for it.
> 
> I was and still am in favor of removing these pages and I appreciate the
> creative solution you applied as a compromise.
> 
> I don't know why Frank decided to revert your changes without any prior
> discussion or why he insists on keeping those pages around. I'll let him
> clarify that part.
> 
> I understand your desire for more clear procedures. I don't know what to
> propose unfortunately. On my own here I have been considering what kind of
> policy could work for a group of volunteers who choose to spend their free
> time on the project.
> 
> What we have now (a weak consensus based policy) has worked most of the
> time. But it falls flat as soon as a conflict arises. Is this out of fear
> of losing a precious volunteer or rather because the other volunteers
> prefer to focus on things they enjoy doing rather than resolving conflicts
> ? Perhaps a bit of both.
> 
> So what could work in a volunteer based community ? It should be something
> that takes little time and effort in general of all parties involved
> (volunteers don't have much time or energy to spare aside from the real
> contributions they want to make).
> 
> I'm open to suggestions at this point.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Geert
> 
> Op vrijdag 1 december 2017 04:57:38 CET schreef David T. via gnucash-devel:
> > Frank,
> > 
> > I am struggling right now to find the right way to bring up the issue of
> > the Gnucash Draft Concept Guide, which still resides on the wiki.
> > 
> > As you know, I have proposed on numerous occasions (most recently, two and
> > a half weeks ago) to have these pages removed from the wiki, since they
> > are out of date, inaccurate, poorly written, superceded, and can turn up
> > in search results, giving users incorrect information about Gnucash and
> > its features and functions.
> > 
> > In that recent thread, four people responded to my request to remove the
> > Draft Concept Guide. Only you appeared to support retaining these pages,
> > although your primary concern was with the mechanical aspects of Google’s
> > search algorithm, upon which I have no expertise to comment. (I will note
> > that fixing one search engine result set does not preclude some OTHER
> > search engine now or in the future from finding and returning these pages
> > despite your best intentions).
> > 
> > You actually offered to move these pages to your own user area, but John
> > noted that might not actually hide the results.
> > 
> > Two days ago, I went to the wiki to search for information about creating
> > reconciliation reports in response to a question on the user list, and
> > when
> > I entered “reconciliation” into the wiki’s OWN search box, 4 of the first
> > 5
> > hits were for the Draft Concept Guide.
> > 
> > Since there had been no support for your position to keep the pages, and
> > since you had had two and a half weeks to take whatever action you had
> > proposed to do (and not taken any), I felt it was time to address the
> > Draft
> > Concept Guide issue directly.
> > 
> > I did not delete the pages outright (since I do not have the rights to do
> > that), but I did what I considered to be the next best thing, which was to
> > replace all the text in those pages with the latin nonsense that printers
> > have used for hundreds of years to mock up page layouts (“Lorem ipsum”). I
> > even made sure to retain the various structural elements in the pages,
> > going so far as to replace headings and bullet points with latin phrases
> > of
> > similar length.
> > 
> > Since, as far as I understand, your only reason for retaining these pages
> > is to serve as some sort of model for the Gnucash community to use for
> > wiki pages, my technique allowed these model pages to be retained
> > *without* their turning up in any search results, anywhere. So, that’s
> > the best of both worlds, right?
> > 
> > Apparently not, as within hours, you had gone and reverted all my changes.
> > 
> > So, I have a few questions to ask of you, Frank, and of the community.
> > 
> > 1) First, Frank: What exactly is so special to you about these pages? Why
> > do you insist that they remain forever on the wiki? The only reason I
> > have heard from you is this idea that the pages could provide wiki page
> > template examples. But, my most recent changes preserved the template
> > aspect without retaining the problematic language—and you still reverted
> > the changes. So, there seems to be something *else* with these pages that
> > makes you feel so protective. What is it? My recent changes seem to prove
> > that there is something in the text itself that you are attached to. Can
> > you explain clearly what that attachment is?
> > 
> > 2) Frank, in the past, you have chastised me for reverting changes that
> > you
> > had made on wiki pages, and informed me that it is considered rude to do
> > so. So, why are you so consistently rude to me? This is not the first time
> > that you have reverted my changes.
> > 
> > 3) To the community: Whose Wiki is this, anyway? I have presented to the
> > community on separate occasions my reasons for wanting to remove these
> > pages, and I have heard from most of the developer community that these
> > pages could be removed. The only person opposed to this appears to be
> > Frank. However, Frank’s wishes on this issue (and others regarding the
> > Wiki) apparently take precedence over everyone else’s, such that if Frank
> > doesn’t agree, then it won’t happen. That doesn’t sound much like a
> > collaboration.
> > 
> > 4) To the community: Again, I put the question to the group: what purpose
> > and procedures are supposed to apply to the wiki? There appear to be
> > numerous unwritten rules about how to engage with the process (see for
> > example question 2), and apparently I have broken those rules in this and
> > other cases. It is frustrating to be encouraged to contribute to the wiki
> > only to have those contributions rejected summarily. Establishing clear
> > procedures and guidelines for contribution and workflow management seem to
> > be in order—certainly if you expect non-developers to contribute back to
> > the GnuCash community.
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > David T.
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnucash-devel mailing list
> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> 
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