Website contributions (Was: Re: The site is down)

[Jeff Garland]

Alan Dayley wrote:
> On Wed, September 6, 2006 3:23 pm, Mike Schwartz wrote:
>> I may not be [completely] keeping up, here (sorry),
>> but I thought that ("allow members to contribute to the site")
>> was what a wiki was for;
>> (also, an archive of the mail lists, such as this one...)
>> just 0.02,  ...from:
> 
> Wikis are great for user contribution.  You are correct.  I don't remember
> all whys for it back whenever but we determined that something between
> static HTML and a wiki would serve better.
> 
>

<...snip...>

> Based on this experience, and assuming that past performance indicates
> future results, I'd say a wiki would get a flurry of contributions for a
> few months and then fall into staleness and meeting announcements.  Maybe
> I am wrong about that but there currently is no clamor for submitting
> content.  I don't think changing the submission process will have that
> much of an effect.

Having administered a public wiki (Boost C++ project) for the last 5-6 years,
my experience is that activity goes in fits and starts.  What tends to happen 
is that some 'project' or discussion starts in the community and will fuel a 
whole bunch of changes.  Like when Boost was named a Google SOC participant a 
bunch of folks used the Wiki to setup a list of possible student projects. 
After awhile this diminished and then the content just sits there.  We don't 
have an active editor (I don't have time) and the Boost community hasn't seen 
a need for it. You can get some sense of the activity by looking at the Recent 
Changes page:

http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?action=rc&days=180

In any case, no matter what public content system you pick, there are 
potential 'security issues'.  I've left the Boost Wiki open to anonymous edits 
because I wanted as few barriers to participation as possible. Which means 
that plenty of spammers have tried their best to spam the site.  Some have 
launched massive spam attacks from banks of zombie machines.  None have 
ultimately succeeded.  I've been able to develop the processes and tools so 
that stopping the spammers and reverting their content requires only a small 
amount of work.  Some still try, but most have now given up.  Still it's not a 
zero maintenance solution...

Oh, and sorry I don't have more time to spend on PLUG stuff -- I end up mostly 
lurking. There's just too many things to do and not enough time :-(

Jeff