I find it immensely frustrating that so many of the pages of the Drupal website are blocked to editing. Why can't Drupal do similar to Wikipedia and basically make pretty much all pages open to everyone logged in to edit?
Ah, I hear some cry, there are only a few pages, and they all have very special reasons.
Firstly, this is not true.
Take for example the following page, which actually lists all the reasons why a page is not editable.
http://drupal.org/node/319685
None of the reasons I see apply, and yet it cannot be edited.
I do understand that some of the pages (e.g. the home page) should be limited to only a few, but the rest of the pages? Who cares! If everyone has the ability to change them, then anybody can have the ability to remove spam.
If greater control were required, it would also be fairly easy to define different authorities which were automatically granted based on, for example:
- length of profile (e.g. minimum 3 months)
- number of posts (e.g. minimum 5 posts)
I don't know all the ins and outs of the current documentation discussion, but I know the system is broken; it does not give people who want to contribute enough opportunity to do so.
I had the ridiculous situation the other day where there was a minor typo in a page which I couldn't fix because I just didn't have rights to the page. It was an error in the page. I had the time and energy to fix it and was not allowed to. Why not? Is Drupal a collaborative project or not? What are you trying to stop with this excessive control? Why should you who have page editing rights be any better at editing than me and others who don't?
And finally to those who would say I should just apply to become a doc administrator, there are two things I would say. Firstly, my point is not that I just want me personally to have the ability to edit, but it is that I want the net to be opened much wider. Secondly I am writing this because I have applied for such access and it's just been lying in an issue queue for days and it's given me even more time to reflect on how ridiculous the current situation is.
Comments
I think the reasoning behind
I think the reasoning behind it is pretty simple...
Joomla Ninjas.
In all honesty though - All you have to do is request access if you want to contribute more.
http://drupal.org/contribute/documentation/join
All you have to do...
Yeah, yeah, yeah. "All you have to do is request access"...:
http://drupal.org/node/976546#comment-3753822
I'm beginning to hate Drupal...
drupalshrek
You know, most people google
You know, most people google before the ever look at the docs - perhaps instead of flaming all around the issue trackers and forums you could spend that time to instead create a nice detailed forum post that has the potential to:
A.) Be more visible than the docs.
B.) If done well, actually become part of the docs.
I just think you are wasting a lot of energy that you could instead be applying to the greater good.
Ultimately, I am sorry you are having such a hard time, but you have to admit you are kinda going against the grain - if you sit back and think about it - opening up the docs for global access would be a huge pain - imagine the quality control that would need to be put in - there would be a huge bottle neck of data and none of that data would ever reach the end users. Our QA teams would spend the majority of their time deleting viagra ads, and bad documentation.
I don't think drupalshrek is
I don't think drupalshrek is flaming. He's made some useful suggestions. There would be ways to grant trust to users to allow more people to contribute.
QA teams deleting "bad documentation"? I'd say over 60% of modules have bad documentation now! Nobody's deleting it, few people are improving it, and most of the people that would improve it are not encouraged to and don't have access to.
One way to allow users to improve documentation while limiting spam:
Another option: Add a commenting function to project pages, with a vote up/down widget. Comments voted up by other users will go to the top.
Perhaps one of those 2 methods listed above would work, or perhaps another method should be used. But I agree that the current system surely needs improving.
If there were something like this, I would've probably added a little text to over 50 project pages. My goal would be to translate the project page text from Coderese to English, so that the vast majority of users could understand what the module is about right away.
It's called growing pains
Just relax and breathe. Your suggestions are very, very good. But there is no magic switch to flip to make this happen, and even if such a switch existed, it would be insane to use it. The spam gates would open and the site would just get worse. There will always be a need for quality control and process, no matter what the methods chosen to allow site updates.
I understand your frustration, but one word we all need to always remember is 'volunteer', those persons who are ultimately the targets of your frustrations, those person with 'control', are still volunteers giving their most precious commodity, their time, to this project.
Yes, it is a community effort.
Yes, the community has and is growing exponentially.
Yes, there will be growing pains.
Please, patience is always appreciated.
Brian
"One word we all need to
"One word we all need to always remember is 'volunteer'" - That's exactly what I'm saying. The original poster and I would like to volunteer some of our time to make the site better. If done correctly, I'm sure that a lot more people would volunteer their time as well. The documentation could benefit from greater integration with the community.
"The spam gates would open and the site would just get worse." How do you figure? I run community sites that are much more commercial in nature than this site and we have been able to stop spam almost completely, partially by using some of the suggestions mentioned in my previous post.
If we could figure out a way to vastly improve documentation while minimizing spam, would anybody in control of this kind of thing be interested in that?
I agree Drupal should be much
I agree Drupal should be much more open in this regard. There are so many project pages out there with such poor descriptions. I've edited perhaps 10 such pages by contributing to the issue queues, but I probably could've improved 100 if I had access.
the 4 roles required
I think we need to:
a) enable more normal members to do more editing
b) ensure that spammers are not allowed in
I think it is possible to achieve both; Drupal is after all a Content Management System, so by definition it is specialised in being able to give differing roles.
Currently there seems to be only 3 roles (levels of document rights):
What I would think would be better would be 4 roles (levels of editing rights):
The "entry criteria" to the trusted login status to be discussed, but there is no reason why it could not even be made automatic (e.g. if based on number of posts or length of membership).
drupalshrek
or we can just migrate the
or we can just migrate the docs to a wiki. Version control, free access, and that smooth flavor!
It had crossed my mind...
It had crossed my mind of suggesting a migration of the Drupal website to the open source software used by Wikipedia.
Rather an indictment of Drupal as a Content Management System if that were the best solution from an objective viewpoint (and not just from a "we're going to run the site with Drupal even if there is better wiki software out there").
drupalshrek
Clarifications
Hi all!
Just to clarify, for anyone else who may be following this thread:
- For clarifications on why some pages are not editable without Docs Admin role, see webchick's comments on the Docs Admin request issue http://drupal.org/node/976546#comment-3760442 (generally Docs Admin role is only given to people who've been active Docs Team members or are module/theme maintainers with good standing in the community.)
- Some pages cannot even be edited *with* Docs Admin role. Docs Admin role only gives you access to Book type pages, you must have full Administrator role permissions to edit other pages, which only a handful of people have.
- WillHall's suggestions above on a more effective approach sound very reasonable to me, thanks for that input Will.
- If there is a small typo or changes anyone sees needed on a page that does *not* have an edit tab, please do file an issue with the needed changes in the documentation issue queue: http://drupal.org/node/add/project-issue/documentation
And if anyone actually wants to suggest concrete changes to the way that this works, you're best filing an issue in the Webmasters queue http://drupal.org/node/add/project-issue/webmasters (or if you want to discuss specifically how we go about assigning Docs Admin role to people, http://groups.drupal.org/documentation-team would be a good audience for input).
And if anyone is interested in giving input or helping out with possible making changes and improvements to the Docs tools/system on Drupal.org, there are several threads you can discuss on in the Docs Team group: http://groups.drupal.org/documentation-team
Thanks!
Why Not? how bout just
Why Not? how bout just Why?
This is not Wikipedia. If you are going to try to correct every spelling mistake then why stop there? How about grammar mistakes... What if I just don't like how a sentence is phrased... Maybe I just don't like the person that wrote it... Maybe I just have too much time in my hands and want to start messing around with the Drupal community... Maybe I want to start taking every opportunity to advertise my business in every semi relevant post... Blah Blah Blah
The system we have now allows us to get the information out and if we really have a problem with it we can bring it to the attention of those who do have access to make the change...
As suggested you can become a Document maintainer and simply make the changes yourself just as you are asking to do... But keep the people who aren't interested in having the power without that power...