Wiki/Report of Meeting 2022-08-18

Report of Meeting 2022-08-18

Present: Art Anger, Chris Burke, Raul Miller, Bob Therriault

1. Bob talked about the video that he had posted on how to get involved in the wiki and help to categorize the essays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2hsnuxK79c Bob also mentioned that some of the wiki instructions still referenced Moin Moin https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/EditingGuidelines#Reusing_Page_Name
2. Chris addressed the issue of the Essays that had not been transferred across to the yellow wiki. This is a problem with content that was updated from Moin Moin, but had not been touched since upgrading the Mediawik version. Chirs indicated that he would take a look at it to see if it was an update that he could do.
3. Chris asked about our plans for the yellow code2 wiki and how long we would be needing it. We suggested that we would use it as a place for experimenting before making the changes to the blue code wiki. We anticipate using it for the next year in this fashion, although as changes to the blue wiki become less obtrusive, we may not need the experimental area.
4. Bob showed the list of essays that are not available on the code2 wiki marked with asterisks https://code2.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Categorize and Chris noted that the information is actually there if you look at history, but it is not available for display.
5. Raul mentioned the issue with rebuilding the Essays on the update page that seems not to be working. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Directory Chris said that he would look into it as it should be rebuilding more often than it is.
6. Bob asked whether there was any indication about whether books such as "50 Shades of J" could be included in Essays and the way forward may be to just have entries from the chapters of the book show up in Essay links as well as as a link to the entire book. Categories in the end may be the best way to do a search. Chris said that the J wiki search should be able to be expanded to searching through categories and become smarter in the way that it narrowed down search content. The challenge that Chris has is that it is written in php and he is not an expert in it. Raul mentioned that he has worked as a php programmer, but there are challenges with making changes without taking down the whole system. This may be another reason to use the yellow code2 wiki for experimentation
7. Chris talked about the challenges facing the Add-on libraries https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/Libraries, Pacman https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Pacman and the JAL framework https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/JAL/User_Guide. You can access the add-ons documentation through the Vocabulary of Nuvoc, but it may be better moved to access through the JAL pages renamed as Add-ons. Private add-ons can be created on GitHub https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Pacman#github and then the link can be done through JQt with the install command if the code is in the right format. These are not available through the JAL or Pacman menus. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have some requirements for private add-ons in terms of documentation to support JAL distribution. Chris suggests that we may want to look at how R does its packages.
8. Chris also mentioned that there is an educational opportunity with addons, so that people can know that this is a very powerful way to distribute J code and should be more publicized. Chris is looking for a knight in shining armour who might be willing to take on the addons and clean them up so that they are current and there is instruction to support new users who would like to create addons. The knight could be a group of people as well so any interest in this area would be welcome and getting in touch with the wiki group might be the best way to move forward with the project.
9. Chris mentioned that for "50 Shades of J" there was work up front to provide the structure and this organization is something that would be required. JAL guides and Vocabulary Addons links are two areas that might provide a model for that organization. The search may also allow Archived categories that would only be used for deeper searches.
10. Bob suggested that the Essays categorization is good experiment that may proved information how to approach the add-ons and Chris said that the organization of the add-ons is the first step.
11. Chris had previously mentioned that bookmarks are a good way to navigate. Bob mentioned that there had been discussions within the wik group of having users curate their bookmarks on their User pages so that they might be available to less experienced users.

For access to previous meeting reports https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki_Development

If you would like to participate in the development of the J wiki please contact us on the general forum and we will get you an invitation to the next J wiki meeting held on Thursdays at 23:00 (UTC) Next meeting is August 25th, 2022.