Talk:Change Wiki

From Change Wiki

Silona Bonewald wrote:

This exactly why I did this in wiki format. Please feel free to make changes directly on the wiki! [...]

Everyone's public input is important as are our changes to it. We have to show outwardly that this is a community effort [...]

I guess I'm saying I don't think the site is quite volunteer-ready yet. (Sorry -- know that sounds harsh, and I don't mean it to be so! It's just that if you look at the front page wearing your newcomer's eyes, I think you'll see why a user might be lost as to how to proceed.)

This is what I meant when I wrote:

"It's tempting to think that the users will show up and edit the wiki to make everything happen. But as a rule, users don't fill in templates; they augment content. The content has to be there first, showing them what the site's about, and then they'll know what to do."

The front page doesn't give users (including me) enough to get traction on. You -- the creator of the site -- have to seed the front page sufficiently to show what the site can do. That's work, yes, but it's absolutely required for the site to explain itself.

(By the way, I didn't take this thread to the wiki because I'm not sure it's appropriate there. This is meta -- *about* the wiki.)

So, some specific comments, taking the first few paragraphs:

                     Welcome to Change Wiki
     This wiki will track versioning information for change.gov. 
 
 Now that our script seems to be working, <link>"League of Technical
 Voters"</link> asks that the wikisphere to come discuss and help
 document.
 
 All bot generated pages are locked down so that we can watch them
 change and evolve. However we encourage people to create additional
 pages to help us document by referencing those pages. Please see
 <link>How to add videos</link>.

As I mentioned before, most users won't know what "track versioning information" means. "...track changes to change.gov" is more colloquial.

The first sentence refers to "our script", but there's zero explanation of what that script does, or even where it can be found. It's totally mystifying to the newcomer, especially the non-technical newcomer (who will think "script" means "handwriting" or something).

Then the League of Technical Voters asks the wikisphere to come discuss and help document -- but help with what and document what?

Then comes "All bot generated pages are locked down so that we can watch them change and evolve". Whoa -- what does that mean, and why should the user care? What does it have to do with tracking changes at change.gov? Then comes a sentence encouraging people to create additional pages (without saying what their purpose would be), followed by: "Please see How To Add Videos". But what do videos have to do with pages, or indeed with anything preceding?

Again, I'm sure there are answers to all these questions. I'm just saying that the answers have to be apparent, or, alternatively, the front page has to raise fewer questions, so the user is not confused.

The masses will not show up and solve all these issues, I think. The creator of the site has to do the scutwork at the beginning, there's no way around that...

Okay, that was all pretty blunt, but I hope it's also useful!

Best,

-Karl