Help:Gardening the Wiki
From Symbian Developer Community
This topic outlines tasks that you can carry out at any time to improve the quality of the Wiki.
Contents |
Categories
You can view all the categories through the Special:Categories page. As a rule we try to have as few categories as possible.
Review includes checking that:
- New categories are not duplicates
- Category pages have clear descriptions of what topics can be found in the category
- Category pages highlight the key documents for the "Getting Started" theme in the editable section
- The category is really necessary. If a document is associated intimately with another topic, and there aren't likely to be many topics, then perhaps using a manual link or a sub-page relationship may be more appropriate.
Wanted Pages
A wanted page is created whenever someone creates an internal wiki link to a page name that does not exist - e.g. [[A link to some topic I'd like to see]]. Wanted pages can be viewed through Special:WantedPages.
Even though there is no topic with the specified name, that does not mean that the wanted content is not somewhere on the wiki. Navigate to a page in the Wanted Pages set and then select 'What links here' from the left hand toolbox pane to see what page or pages want the missing topic (that is, they have a link to it). Take a look at what they say, and if you know of a page on our wiki that exists already, connect up the wanted link with that page.
If no content of the wanted type exists, it is usually better to create a stub page than a red link. This allows you to make it clear what sort of information is wanted in the new topic and that we'd like help from anyone who can give it. The format of the stub page also defines what sort of document is appropriate as the end point of the link.
If the wanted page is key content that Symbian Foundation should provide, then create a stub page but instead use the Template:Content Unavailable template to let the community know we're aware of the problem.
Note that at time of writing you should ignore any wanted pages that are of the format PageName/ja, PageName/ru or PageName/zh-hans. These are wanted translation pages.
Uncategorised Pages
Pages should be given a category; minimally this should include a High Level Category, but may also include others from the list of supported categories here: Special:Categories. The list of uncategorised pages is here: Special:UncategorizedPages.
If no category is appropriate then you may need to create one.
It also possible that you don't want to use any category - for example you might choose to categorise a book, but not its individual chapters. In this case it's worth applying the category No Category, to indicate that your decision not to add a category is deliberate, and to ensure that the list of uncategorised pages does not become crowded and unusable for finding accidentally uncategorised pages.
Maintenance
In general, the Maintentance category contains pages that the wiki editors know need to be updated. While we're happy for anyone in the community to work on the pages, some may require update by Symbian.
We use this{{Maintenance|reason=list of known issues}}
to put pages into the Maintenance category. If you want to help out but don't want to start a new page, check out what's in the list and see if there's anything you can fix up for us. Issues could simply be that links are missing, a diagram is needed, or a paragraph needs clarifying - the maintenance box should give an indication of what needs fixing. Have a go - and if you think you've fixed the problem, just delete the tag so the page leaves the Maintenance category.
If you spot an article that you think needs some maintenance, feel free to add the template and list the reasons.
Redirects
"Redirect" pages redirect you to another page - these may be created to provide synonyms for topics, but most likely they are automatically created when you move a page to a new title.
As a gardener it is a good idea to periodically check the Special:ListRedirects page and fix up any links from existing documents to the real end point of the redirect:
- Go to the redirect, open a new page to "What links here" (from the toolbox) and add a new page to the destination link
- If there are no links to the redirect page, it may be deleted (in theory there may be external links to the page, however if this is a new page then its unlikely).
- If there are links to the redirect page, open the linking pages and edit the links to point to the new page. When all pages have been updated, delete the redirect.
Links to external sites
Links out of the site take users away from developer.symbian.org to some place from which they might never return. We have a great deal to offer developers, so sending them to Symbian Developer Network or Forum Nokia unnecessarily is a bad idea.
On a regular basis review the external links list: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&target=http%3A%2F%2F*.developer.symbian.com&limit=500&offset=0, and see if you can migrate the end article, or move to a different/better article that is on the SF website.
There are some exceptions: Links to Symbian Press Books are intentional.
New topics
New topics can be identified from here: Special:NewPages.
As a gardener you're aiming to provide positive feedback to the author following the guidance here: Help:Providing Feedback. Remember to be positive - they are helping!
Pruning is important - if a topic provides little additional value on existing material then its worth merging relevant parts into other documents.
