Talk:Documentation

Duplication of Information

It seems to me that the info on How_does_MediaWiki_work? and Documentation are very similar. With a few tweaks, I propose that the two pages be merged into a page called something like "About MediaWiki".

Doesn't seem so, to me. robchurch | talk 00:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Typos

I think the 'please read it first before posing any questions' text should be changed to 'please read it first before posting any questions'.

Done. robchurch | talk 00:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

lusiano

How to turn off access to history pages to all user except to selected user?

Not possible with MediaWiki at this time; we won't support this in the future, either. robchurch | talk 00:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Why not? This is a very useful feature, especially if you have sensitive pages where you want just one or a few people to be able to see what was there before.

--203.184.36.144 01:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Because that doesn't fit in with the purpose or goals of MediaWiki. 86.134.116.228 08:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Invalid link

The "complete FAQ" link leads to an obsolete page, as per the page itself. It should link to Help:FAQ if I am correct.

Seems to do so now. robchurch | talk 00:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Downloadable version of Documentation

Is there a way to download the documentation for offline browsing? Perhaps a snapshot of the current state of the documentation or whatever would be nice.

The documentation is still sparse, and what little we have is under a mismash of licences. When we have something to release, we'll do so, but we don't right now. :) robchurch | talk 00:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

CVS-related docs on SourceForge no longer exist

Dear all,

the CVS-related docs on SourceForge, mentioned in the article, don't exist anymore. MediaWiki now uses Subversion, and indeed a link for it is on the left.

Unfortunately, the newcomers (like myself :)) will have a hard time to find it out. I tried to update the link, but the page is not available for editing.

Could someone please correct it. My suggestion would be to replace

* The [http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/wikipedia/phase3/docs/ docs directory] on SourceForge provides other CVS-related documentation.

with

* The [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/docs/ docs directory] provides other Subversion-related documentation.

Of course it could be rephrased for better...

Publish?

I removed this from the note at the end of the page because it and looks inaccurate and does not makes sense to me:

It is also planned to publish a complete MediaWiki Manual, that is in the public domain, but still has to be written.

Please clarify and substantiate it if you want to put it back. Thanks. --Rogerhc 20:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Invalid link (again)

The link to the discussion page of the FAQ is incorrect again. It looks like it needs to link to Manual_talk:FAQ. Stack 22:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - fixed. --HappyDog 03:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Search command

PLEASe move the search command up. It is off the page of most browsers, and most people use search much more than the other links here.

This change is almost as gay as the "show preview" change. 69.153.88.108 08:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

What are the benefits of Wiki?

May I suggest a page explaining the benefits of using wiki? I am attempting to evaluate wiki but am unable to understand if it will serve the purposes of my group without getting my head much farther into this than I want to just to evaluate it. Example: with wiki you can track changes; with wiki you have a record of discussions; with wiki you can limit/not limit who posts; Wiki is a collaborative software that facilitiates group work; etc. Maybe there is a page like that that I missed? -- 77.52.89.100 - 15:01, 29 November 2008

You're right. That is something mediawiki.org is missing. A decent marketing message to attract more corporate users. Wrote this on my user page a while ago, but haven't attempted to fix it (yet)

The page called How does MediaWiki work? is a noddy introduction, and Manual:What is MediaWiki? also makes some basic points, but not really in a "here's why you would want to use it" kind of way. In fact it just defers the main explanation to the wikipedia:Wiki article, which naturally repels bulls**t sales pitches, for better or worse. But also it doesn't explain things from a mediawiki point of view. So yeah, maybe there's sites elsewhere on the internet. Anyone else have recommendations?

-- Harry Wood 18:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

ok

Project:PD help

S Page, this is great news: I never dared hoping for such a skilled and suitable person to fill this gap! Working on the blockers of bug 1 is great, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on a broader goal, reaching millions of users from thousands of wikis: how to give MediaWiki a comprehensive, up to date and effective user manual translated in dozen languages. We did most of this work upgrading the existing help pages in mediawiki.org, but what do you think you could help with? Some ideas:

• Select the most important MediaWiki handbook pages which are still on Meta (usually for core), rewrite them here (up to date and CC-0) and get users for them.
• Add missing help pages for "recent" features, which were never written yet (usually extensions developed by WMF).
• Rewrite some very important and heavily visited, but inadequate (e.g. too technical) help pages.
• Something completely different (e.g. not text-based?).

--Nemo 23:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, interesting problem, I have much to learn. I don't understand the duplication with meta, we should reduce it. Looks like you're not attending the Developer Summit :-( , though I intended that to be more focused on data and developer documentation. -- SPage (WMF) (talk) 05:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

There's been a lot of discussion about the migration of meta documentation to mw.org. Perhaps this (and its talk page) will be the most useful starting point, but I'm maybe Nemo can give you better pointers. --Waldir (talk) 01:51, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Documents

Is there any pdf for online documentation ?

Revisions to this and related pages

Just an FYI, I am working on revising this Documentation landing page and its subpages to better cover the typical questions people have about tech docs and to surface the various templates, checklists, and other resources tech writers have been working on in the past years. Tracking bug is https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T277128 TBurmeister (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Would documentation office hours be useful to you?

Tech writers on the Developer Advocacy team are interested in providing a recurring time for anyone to come ask questions about Wikimedia technical documentation and get help with writing and/or improving docs.

1) Would this be something you would find useful? If so, how might it be useful to you? 2) Which platform(s) would you like to see it on? 3) What format(s) would you like -- a synchronous chat without video? a video meeting? other ideas?

We're looking for any and all feedback, as this is just in the idea stage for now. Please reply to this post and let us know your thoughts. Thanks! TBurmeister (WMF) (talk) 15:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)