Hello all,

I initiate a thread on that subject as suggested by Jeremy.

Often enough, whilst answering questions in the forums, I find myself thinking "I am answering again a question whose response has certainly been given already (too) many times".

I am surely not alone, as some of the experienced users have added in their signatures links to documentation they often had to refer to.

Of course there is the Search feature, but it is sometimes difficult to find its way in the answers and to judge which ones are relevant to a specific case, accurate and up to date.

I do think that by its very nature, some of a wiki main purposes are just that: collect answers to often asked questions, capitalize knowledge and also be able to easily update the content as technology evolve and to enhance its accuracy.

So some goals of this thread could be to answer these questions:
1) How to encourage knowledgeable (of course!) forums users to increase and improve LQ Wiki's content.
2) How to encourage people in need of answers to consult LQ Wiki before posting.
3) How to organize LQ Wiki's content in order to make as easy as possible to find its way and relevant answers in it.

I do recognize that a lot of documentation about Linux in general and your preferred distribution in particular is already available elsewhere, so LQ wiki should include links to these sources - including of course the ones included in some of us' signature

Enough said to prime the pump (I hope), so please sharpen your pencils.

Some suggestions to begin with:
- single login for the forums and the wiki
- less ads for people logged in the wiki (IMHO ads are OK in the left side frame, as well as "sponsored links", but not in the main frame)
- add a "Distributions" section where topics specific to some distribution could be placed
- add a "Other sources" link (or section?) to link e.g. to The Linux Documentation Project
- encourage people who inserted some links in their signature to share it on the wiki
- suggest to people who wrote some "how-to" or "guide" in the forums to copy it in the wiki
- put a sticky post in the most visited forums to encourage people visiting it to contribute to and consult the wiki

The "distributions" section would be a heading with a sub-heading for each documented distribution, including topics such as:
- installation / update / upgrade
- configuration post installation
- "must read before installing"
- links to other sources of documentation
- list or description of specific utilities (e.g. for packages management, network setting) included or available as add-on
- recommendations (do vs don't)

1 members found this post helpful.

All good recommendations, but this one I think we already have.

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Category:Distro

@Dugan: first thing first, thanks you for post! I was beginning to think: "maybe nobody is interested in this topic".

Of course you are right, there is a category "distro" in the wiki, but it is hard to find: I had to search for "Distro" then refine the search to the namespace "category" to find it. By the way, IMHO the "Search" Field should be in the top of the pages, not far away as it is now.

But what I have in mind is editing the main page to add a "Linux Distributions Section" at the same level as "Linux Sections" and "LQ Wiki Sections". It's not so easy to find its way in the wiki and we should bear in mind that not all Forums users are comfortable doing that.

1 members found this post helpful.

The main page doesn't appear to be editable.

I wanted to know if anything besides Linux is permitted in the wiki
section. I mean, are the topics pertaining to:
1. Programming in Qt (on Linux)
2. Programming Google maps on Qt (on Linux)
3. Programming C/C++ (on Linux)

allowed there?

Under which heading, if yes?

Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming. I've implemented this change.

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

Anything Linux OR Open Source related is appropriate for the LQ Wiki.

--jeremy