[Scribus] this whole wiki thing

[Gregory Pittman]

Craig Ringer wrote:

>On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 07:52 +0100, Jan Ulrich Hasecke wrote:
>  
>
>>Craig Ringer wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Others have answered the "What" part of your question, but not really
>>>the "why".
>>>      
>>>
>>If other people wnat to contribute to the documentation, it would be
>>good to move the docs over into the wiki.  As said the wiki is for
>>collaboration. If you and me add some little trick a forum-like cms
>>would do the job. 
>>    
>>
>
>Personally, I'd view the wiki as a good place to refine new
>documentation sections, but some one-person editorial by Peter before
>inclusion in a separate section of definitive finished documentation
>seems to me like a good idea.
>
>  
>
I'm glad I started this thread, because I not only got the answer to my 
question, but saw a lot of other stuff discussed I didn't even know about.
With the sense that I now have about the wiki, it would seem to me that 
the following kinds of things could be done with the wiki that "need" to 
be done (or have needed to be done in the past):

1. As Scribus has advanced in the past, there has been at times a lag in 
the official documentation, and actually a lack of correct official 
documentation at times.  The wiki could be a repository for at least 
fragments of useful information on new features not yet officially 
documented. And by the way, I endorse the idea of keeping the official 
Scribus documentation just where it is; there is no reason the official 
docs and the wiki cannot complement each other, maybe even compliment 
each other. (I refuse to put a smiley in here)

2. There is a wealth of information in the scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de 
archives, as well as some very interesting discussions on a wide range 
of DTP-related topics.  The wiki could give someone (or lots of 
someones) a chance to scan the archive and give a collected summary of a 
given discussion, along with appropriate links to the more interesting 
individual mailings. Anyone who scans the Fedora list, for example, 
realizes that there is such a repetitive nature to many of the questions 
and many of the problems, because people don't spend much time scanning 
the archives, and who can blame them?  It's a lot of work.

3. As someone trying to learn Python, I can say that generally speaking, 
the information out there to learn Python from the bottom up is not 
easy.  There's a 'Catch-22' sort of a problem: if you know Python 
already, you can easily get help.  But getting help with learning Python 
up to that point is very difficult.  I bought two books, Learning 
Python, and Python Cookbook.  Having read Learning Perl I was expecting 
more -- it's very helpful, and entertaining.  Learning Python is a very 
dry text and what passes for humor, well, it doesn't pass.  I find Perl 
Cookbook an excellent resource, but wish I hadn't bought Python 
Cookbook; just not very helpful.
So getting back to what I started with, the wiki could be of big help to 
someone trying to modify a script or write a new one.  Just showing some 
generic and complete examples (useful ones, not just the obtuse 
fragments which abound in Python documentation) would be of great 
value.  Conceptually, I find Python a very interesting language, but it 
has become quite complex -- it makes learning regexp's look easy.

Greg