Category talk:Tutorial

From Audacity Wiki

[edit] Summary

• Unanimously against opening the manual wiki to general editing.
• Category:TutorialMovedtoManual floated as an idea for the moved pages - probably it would only be of use to editors who want to track these pages, not general wiki users - and we can do that other ways.

[edit] Past Discussion

Gale 18Dec09: Hi James, As I said (unless I'm missing something about it being a problem), the whole idea was to remove Tutorials moved to Manual from the Wiki Tutorial Category (they're external to this Wiki once moved).We have got rid of the duplication of Tutorials and Category:Tutorial but we still have to change most of the links to the former Tutorials page to remove the shoddy (to me) looking "redirected".

I don't feel a second autogenerated list of links is all that useful for what is now the only tutorials page, which is why I never did it:

• We list all the Wiki tutorials anyway
• It makes an already long page longer
• Novices may find it confusing
• I doubt we would have a second alphabetised list out of choice

At least when Category:Tutorial was a separate page from Tutorials, most of the people going to the Category page should be more experienced so may expect an autogenerated list.

So I guess from here, the best plan is to hive off the external tutorials to a separate page. I think you wanted that anyway, and I suppose length might eventually force that on us.

• James 18Dec09: Then we disagree fundamentally! I see it as vital that there is somewhere one list which has every single tutorial on it, whether it be in this wiki or in the manual wiki.
  • Gale: Sorry, by "external" I meant "not in this wiki or the Manual wiki", i.e. the ones currently listed as "off-site". You did previously want those separated. I was resisting that for exactly the sort of reasons you state, but mixing in a second listing of the Wiki tutorials seems to make it harder to resist separating them.

    I definitely want the *agreed* Manual tutorials highlighted on the same page as the Wiki ones (more prominently than that automated list at the bottom). Our only small disagreement is a) I prefer Manual tutorials not to be in the Wiki Tutorial category (the template idea itself is fine with me); b) I'd prefer a unified feedback system for the Manual rather than scattering the comments on essentially dead pages on this Wiki.

    I'd also prefer we didn't mention "Playing and Recording" here until it actually is an official Manual tutorial, and of course not mention any Manual tutorials moved to Wiki until we actually do move them.

• James: Then we do seem to have a solution as to what to list and how. The hand-crafted part of Category:Tutorial lists every (approved) tutorial on either wiki. The automatically created list at the end just lists (alphabetically) what is on this wiki. I've taken the 'Playing and Recording' page out of Category:Tutorial and we can do the same for any other redirected tutorial. If we do this consistently that is fine. I'm OK now with the 3rd party tutorials being here. The page can have a lot more tutorials before I think the 3rd party ones would need to move out. That is the kind of problem I would like to have.
  • Gale: I think the whole page needs work on grouping the tutorials, possibly with a side-by-side layout. Not a huge priority, but it's a bit like the current Wiki front page at the moment. There are definitely 3rd party tutorials I could add, but don't have the time.
• I agree a good comment system for the manual would be nice. Can you suggest a solution?
  • Gale: Although your roadmap wants to get rid of feedback@, that seems to me the obvious route for comments about the manual. The only real problem with feedback is the temptation (for me) to help people who insist on using it for that purpose. I note the Manual lacks an obvious route out to the main site or the Wiki, and was wondering about an "external links" navbox with those links and a link to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/contact/#feedback
    • Peter - a definite -1 on opening up the Manual. Bill and Ed have done a lot of work not just on content but also on presentation. I would hate to see that spoilt. Definitely by application only (and possible vetting - i.e. can the applicant do good technical writing, do they have the Audacity experience, do they have mark-up skills etc.?)
    • James: I'm not at all adamant about closing down feedback@. It's just that I am aware that it costs you (Gale) a lot of time, and that answers on the forum probably reach many more people.