A Justlinux Wiki?

[timothykaine]

Another idea that could please both sides is if there were not individual forums for distros, but instead a "tag" on each post. A dropdown box you select each time you post that says what distro youre using, so you could just select the dropdown from the Forum section and itll show just the posts from the ones that selected that distro.

You could say "just type suse into the search box to find suse posts" but lets also keep in mind that the search engine here isnt incredible at negotiating relevance, and will bring up any post from me, as SuSE is in my signature.

[Rinias]

I think a wiki would be a GREAT idea.

Perhaps JL should _become_ the wiki, with the forums as a link on the main page.

I'd been thinking about it for a while- I mean look at what happens:

For at least a number of years, people have come and posted their problems without ever looking into a base of knowledge. They are the same problems all the time, asked by people who find something about linux and just flop their question down. The answers to almost every post have already been given- they just have to be found.

For instance, let's say that I want to find out something about "printing". Good luck doing a search on it. You get hundreds of posts in reply that only at best half correspond to what you want.

We need to take the immense knowledge base that JL is and make it available now. Posting should be left for when things go really wrong- so wrong that the wiki does not hold the answer. Or we have new screenshots or jokes or questions as to the whereabouts of certain moderators.

After all, to me it often seems that the /dev/random forum is the most popular for the amount of time it's been open... Sure "Technical" has a lot of posts, but I think it has more to do with the fact that the person posting doesn't know really what to ask...

The fact is, almost any time we want to ask a question, we _could_ search and find the answer first. This means that the answer is there- it's just not always easy to find.

Great idea, HC! Probably the best idea I've heard for JL's future as of yet. After all, a forum will last only so long...

[timothykaine]

I still have to say that the forum format is so much more personal than a wiki. The same reason people will always use forums is the same reason why people will always use telephones (or a voice service that replaces it in the future like VOIP) for long distance communication, regardless of how convenient and inexpensive SMS, instant messages, and email may be.

Not that theres anything wrong with having a wiki, but honestly, itll be read about as often as the posting rules. Which isnt very often, apparently.

My vote goes for strengthening the forum, and working towards a more centralized Linux wiki elsewhere.

[XiaoKJ]

I think it would be very good if users can contribute -- just like linux itself is.

But maybe users can only append, and assign a mod to deal with just the wiki.

[sharth]

Originally posted by XiaoKJ
I think it would be very good if users can contribute -- just like linux itself is.

But maybe users can only append, and assign a mod to deal with just the wiki.

Thats a forum