Wiki/Report of Meeting 2023-03-09

Report of Meeting 2023-03-09

Present: Ed Gottsman, Dave Lambert, Devon McCormick, Raul Miller, and Bob Therriault

1. Ed started things off with a presentation of a innovative wiki navigator that he has developed. Briefly, it provides visual a random access map of the entire wiki. Additionally, results of searches can be quickly displayed in a very user friendly manner. Another highlight is the quick access to NuVoc information. Any description that I have would not do it justice, so I encourage you to watch the video of the presentation. Although early in its development, it could be an important tool for the wiki. I think that you will get as sense of the application in the first 5 minutes, but the entire 28 minute video is useful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j17E_KUgKxk
2. Ed's video generated some questions about how the category trees might be linked to Ed's maps that allow users to determine the view of the wiki that they are presented. Bob then did a tour of the category tree on the new home page https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Category:Home. It was pointed out by Ed that the category tree is more of a directed graph because nothing keeps them from having loops or having pages having multiple parents. The user would still view the links as part of a tree because they do not need to know that a page is connected to more than one category. Bob felt that Ed's concept could have immediate effect on NuVoc as that is a more stable information system and is highly used.
3. Raul raised the issue of how we might take new content and insert it into the appropriate category. Bob thought that that may become an aspect of the J Wiki meetings to review the new pages and decide where to place them. It is in the best interest of the content creator to work with the team to promote their information. Ed asked if new pages might have an uncategorized tag. Bob said users would be able to attach their own categories in general terms, but that category tree assignment would be better handled by the Wiki team to be able to provide appropriate context.
4. Bob demonstrated his "Contributing to the J Wiki" page as an example of how the content of the category pages might be set up. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Category:Contibuting_to_the_J_Wiki_W.2 Using table of contents with return to top of page. In the case of examples on other pages it will return to anchored positions to allow users to descend and ascend through the information smoothly. Dave asked whether there would be a template for users to work from. Devon pointed out that templates are hard without knowing what the content producer would want. Bob thinks that there might be some templates of different styles to encourage people to be more consistent in the content they produce because templates would make it easier. Individual users would be free to choose to use a template or not. Ed asked if there were a way to clone pages. Bob suggested that it could be done by copy and paste from an edit page, but what Ed suggests would be one button approach.

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 March 16th, 2023.