Status quo of Mercurial wiki

[Alexander Schatten]

First I would like to say, that I believe also, that the new website is a big improvement; it makes a much better impression. Particularly the "guide" is excellent. Also the Quickstart text is very snappy.

As I started with Mercurial, I found the information in the wiki ok, but rather confusing, partly redundant and not very well structured. A hodgepodge as most wikis tend to develop to over time. Most things could be found, but I believe the new guide is a big improvement for beginners.

Now to answer your question; there might be a surprisingly simple answer. Why would I as *beginner* or not-Mercurial expert want to edit a Wiki that I find confusing? I have not the skills to do so. You have to have a proper understanding of the information available to add new pages or change them. Plus: I do not want to fiddle around with the wiki, I want to get some proper initial information on the project (as is provided now). Later on, I might contribute to a Wiki as well.

In my opinion, a Wiki is not the right solution for a project website at all. Unless it is used poor-mans CMS for the development team. A wiki can *support* the documentation on a website (e.g. for a FAQ section), but the main part should be written by experts from the project or technical writers associated to the project.

Design and first impression also make a difference, of course. 

So I would say, from my point of view, a very good decision. Just one minor comment: The header-fonts e.g. in the guide look pretty bad, at least in my setup (OS X, Firefox). They are not sharp and look like bitmaps with low resolution and do not fit to the rest of the text. Why not use default fonts?


Alex

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:01:17 +0100
> Von: Adrian Buehlmann <adrian at cadifra.com>
> An: Mercurial at selenic.com
> Betreff: Status quo of Mercurial wiki

> Since so many people seem to be disappointed about the
> wiki, I would like to know:
> 
> Why do those people not edit the wiki to improve it instead of
> just complaining about how bad the wiki is?
> 
> What's the problem with editing the wiki?
> 
> Is it really that hard to edit the wiki?
> 
> 
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