[9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

I'm somewhat confused by the new organization of the
Plan9 pages (plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist).  I was able to
find things faster before.  maybe it's just me.  For example
a lot of useful information is under "more..." - not very descriptive.
also where did the links to outside pages go (e.g. forsyth's)?

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Russ Cox]

> I'm somewhat confused by the new organization of the
> Plan9 pages (plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist).  I was able to
> find things faster before.  maybe it's just me.  For example
> a lot of useful information is under "more..." - not very descriptive.
> also where did the links to outside pages go (e.g. forsyth's)?

I think you are misremembering the old main page,
which you can get to by adding /oindex.html to the
URL above.

Russ

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Vester Thacker]

Having a sitemap wouldn`t hurt.

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Uriel]

On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 08:39:19AM +0900, Vester Thacker wrote:
> Having a sitemap wouldn`t hurt.

Ask and you shall receive... not exactly what you asked for, but at
least something:

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Wiki_index/

Generated by /n/sources/contrib/uriel/wikindex

If you want a site map you will have to maintain it yourself.

uriel

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Uriel]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 05:20:28AM -0800, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:
> I'm somewhat confused by the new organization of the
> Plan9 pages (plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist).  I was able to
> find things faster before.  maybe it's just me. 
The reorganization was supposed to clean up things and make stuff more
accessible, unfortunately there were disagreements and a compromise was
sort of halfway implemented.

> For example a lot of useful information is under "more..." - not very
> descriptive.
Certainly. An important missing link in the front page is to the main
wiki page. 

Here is my proposed slightly corrected main page:
http://glendy.se.cat-v.org/who/uriel/p9_3.html
(It also fixes the broken html and various other things)

But this was not accepted due to a 6 months moratorium on any website
changes imposed by 'the powers that be'.

> also where did the links to outside pages go (e.g. forsyth's)?
Outside pages with software should die, I'm sick of checking for broken
links, and hunting down where things have moved this week, or who might
have a copy of something that is not online anymore. 

All that stuff should be in sources/contrib so it can be properly
indexed and mirrored.

But because no one gives a shit, still most stuff is scattered all over
the net, I try to keep the links to stuff that has yet to move to
sources/contrib in:
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Software_for_Plan_9/
(Note that quite a few of those links are broken, and are just reminders
for me to hunt down who might have a copy of the contents so it can be
put in sources)

uriel

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

here is another example: the link to glenda art work.  why
play games?

regarding outside pages and keeping the links alive, i might
understand the frustration, but you need to trust the community to
keep them updated.  the links were part of the wiki pages.  it is not
one person's job; and yes, we do care.

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Uriel]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 06:36:33PM -0800, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:
> here is another example: the link to glenda art work.  why
> play games?
That has always been thru the glenda image in the main page, but I admit
that an artwork wiki page would be nice to have now that there are a few
other bits of artwork that are not in the static page.
 
> regarding outside pages and keeping the links alive, i might
> understand the frustration, but you need to trust the community to
> keep them updated.
Hey, it's _me_ that has been trying to get all the static bitrotted
stuff off from other places and into the wiki so the community can
maintain it; and it's russ who doesn't trust the community to keep
things sane in the wiki.

Of course his concerns are well justified given who works the most on
the wiki...

> the links were part of the wiki pages.  
The links are still part of the wiki page, many of them have been down
for months in a row, apparently the ones that are left seem to be up now,
but who knows for how long?

The other day I spent almost a whole evening running a script on the
whole wiki scanning for broken links and then going thru them trying to
fix them, there were quite a few and it was a quite painful process, and
a few are still left because I couldn't fix them or remove them.

Oh, and the main reason to have all code in sources is so that when one
is looking for something, one knows where to look, before one had to go
jumping from page to page and maybe by pure luck one would find
something useful.

(Not to mention that those are all web pages, and what a PIA is to
browse from Plan 9)

> it is not one person's job; and yes, we do care.
It's one person doing it, and before that it was nobody doing it(I would
tell you to look at the history of the wiki pages, but that has been
wiped out).

uriel

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Uriel]

On Sun, Dec 04, 2005 at 03:09:59AM +0000, Uriel wrote:
> Of course his concerns are well justified given who works the most on
> the wiki...

Thankfully this is not completely true anymore, and recently some more
people have started to contribute more to the wiki, so thanks to
everyone helping make the wiki less of a mess and more of an useful
resource.

uriel

Re: [9fans] restructuring of plan9 pages - why?

[Russ Cox]

Uriel, your proposed new page is the same as the current one
except that in the new one:

  - there is a new Wiki link that is the same as the current more... link.
  - there is a new more documents... link that is the same as the
    current more... link.
  - the current more... link is gone.
  - all the links are underlined.
  - the font sizes are specified in ems instead of pts.
  - the 9fans link is to the wiki instead of the 9fans archives.

The first three are silly, the the fourth only matters slightly,
the fifth is typographically ridiculous, and the sixth was
discussed on IRC (with you present!), and the agreed
conclusion was that the current link was more appropriate.

This is the sort of minutiae you're going to quibble over,
and then you wonder why I declared a moratorium on web
page changes?

I've finally figured you out.
  1. You propose something.
  2. It gets discussed, either over email or IRC.
  3. A decision is agreed on and implemented, and discussion stops.
  4. Time (e.g., a month) goes by, either to allow you to forget the
     discussion or (less generously) to hope that everyone else has
     forgotten the discussion.
  5. You go ahead and do what you initially proposed anyway.

The web page is a good example of this, as is the 9load post.

Go write code.
Russ