Re: [Xen-devel] Proposals/changes for a new Wiki Front-Page - need input/mods/creative proposals

[Rolu <rolu@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Lars Kurth <lars.kurth.xen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Rolu,
>
> thanks for the feedback.
>
>
>> xen" and "help with xcp" it would be nice if there were a few lines at
>> the top of the page explaining which is which, so (new) people can
>> have a better idea of where to look.
>
>
> So you mean a link to Xen and XCP from the headline, or a tagline describing
> what Xen/XCP is? Two lines are probably OK; more would probably break up the
> navigation too much.
>

Yeah, a tagline, as a disambiguation between Xen and XCP. I combined a
few sentences from the various pages and got this:

--
Xen is an open-source type-1 or baremetal hypervisor, which makes it
possible to run many instances of an operating system or indeed
different operating systems in parallel on a single machine (or host).
The Xen Cloud Platform (XCP) is an open source enterprise-ready server
virtualization and cloud computing platform with Xen at the core. XCP
can be thought of as the open source release of the commercial Citrix
XenServer.
See here for a [feature matrix]
--

>>
>> The descriptions from
>> http://xen.org/products/ and a link to
>> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_/_XCP_/_XCP_on_Linux_Overview would work.
>> The latter is already linked in the "getting started with xen" column
>> but would be better off at the top since it gives a feature table of
>> both.
>
> I am wondering whether Xen Features / XCP Features in one of the boxes would
> not be better.
>

That'd probably work too yes, and might look nicer to boot.

>>
>> As someone who started with Xen not long ago, I much prefer dedicated
>> link pages over Category: pages. The latter just give a big unsorted
>> (alphabetical doesn't count, needs to be sorted by subtopic to be a
>> useful sort) list of pages of widely varying scope and usefulness.
>> It's better than nothing, sure, but a page that sorts them by topic or
>> purpose or something (much like this proposed front page really) is a
>> lot better.
>
> How about a compromise? Category pages have two parts:
> 1) A fixed part that can be used for any content, such as lists of important
> articles by topic or other ciriteria
>     An example of this is http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Category:Host_Install
> (and some of the pages linked from it)
> 2) The auto-generated index
>

That does certainly help. That way a manual list can be built while
keeping the category page, and it could replace it once it proves to
be good enough.

> I know that some people are don't like category pages. However, until
> somebody steps up and provides an alternative, which to do well requires
> a) Classifying articles
> b) Grouping them by topic or purpose
> c) Encoding that grouping in some manual index
> d) Keeping these up-to-date
>
> ... the category pages are all we have and are a lot better than what we had
> in the old wiki. And they are self-maintaining.
>

Especially d is an issue I think. Self maintenance is an attractive feature.

> The fact that we are having this discussion is actually good. I am open to
> suggestions and maybe we just need a small number of manually maintained
> indexes (or categories with maintained content at the top). Maybe to make
> this really work and get better navigability we need some degree of
> ownership in the wiki: i.e. community members owning content, categories,
> etc. and being responsible for classifying, grouping and making it more
> accessible.
>

I think the most important step would be to flesh out the high level
structure of the wiki a bit more. If that is done well, pages can be
put in their place much easier. The new front page starts this (xen
versus xcp, then the boxes) but the level below that is rather messy.
For example, there are howtos, FAQs, Q&As, books, guides, tutorials,
examples, overviews, and so on, with lots of overlap. These categories
are all about how the information is presented and that might be the
wrong approach. When I come to the wiki I'll have questions like "I
want to know more about how to handle disk storage" or "I want to know
how to install operating system XYZ in a domU" or "I want to know how
to switch toolstacks". I don't care if that info is found in a howto,
FAQ, book, guide, tutorial or example though, as long as I find it.
So, setting up and using categories that tell you what information is
there would help.

> I also started experimenting with shortcut boxes on pages such as
> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Overview &
> http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Getting_Started and wanted to know what people
> thought of these and whether these improve navigability.
>

Yes, that helps. They would also make a good link page or category
though. For example, the box on the getting started page could be
titled "beginner documentation" or something.

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