User talk:Hlangos

Wow, somebody made my a sysop?? :-) Thanks... I'll try not to screw up everything (at once).

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Thanks for the clarification about Tai Hui.

No worries. It was my fault.

I thought I'd also say a quick hello as I've noticed that the bulk of edits seem to be by you, CityK and I.

Might seem so but I mostly mucked around with pages that are not yet widely linked.

I thought I'd also take this opportunity to ask what you think about the current state of the wiki in general and whether you think there are areas that could do with some attention.

I havn't seen a lot of the wiki yet. So my view might be a little biased. Mostly I think the wiki grew without a lot of structure and then the merge made a mess of the structures that began to appear. That's why I really appreciate the work you've done by categorizing hundreds of pages. Also adding all those links should help people who want to contribute their knowledge to add it in one place without lots of duplicate entries that are impossible to keep up to date.

CityK advised me that some sort of graphics for stubs etc. would be useful. I'm still mulling this over as I don't really trust my graphics skills. My girlfriend's an artist, so I'll ask her what she thinks.

I am not much of a graphics person neither.

either am I :P ... Jim, don't worry -- it was just a suggestion (for some additional eye candy), but if its not for you, then its not for you. I don't want anyone to feel obliged in any way --CityK 05:55, 31 May 2009 (CEST)

It occurred to me that several chipset and device manufacturers have either been bought out, gone out of business or been rebranded. I think it would be useful if the relevant pages (Chipset vendors, DVB-T PCI Devices, etc.) reflected this but I really wanted a second opinion before I start changing things. The chipset vendor page is probably the most straightforward to change because of its length and the fact that the users of this page will probably have at least some technical knowledge.

I'd say go ahead. If you are unsure about the changes, put a mockup/sample on the associated talk page and send me the link.

Users of the wiki can be split into three broad categories:

1. Users looking for buying advice.
2. Users looking for a way to make their existing devices work in Linux.
3. Developers looking for any relevant info they might need for driver/application development.

I reordered them in (what I think) is the order of the depth of detail they seek. The first ones need low detail but on lots of devices. The second group needs more detail on one or very few devices. The last one needs lots of details.

So, I pose the following question: Could the wiki take account of these user-types more elegantly? I certainly think that the information regarding the exact nature of support available in Linux could do with some distillation. http://hardware4linux.info/ uses a five-step rating system from unsupported to fully supported. Could we implement something similar? I can see that the task of standardizing the wiki is not a small one, but it'll be much easier if there's a systematic approach. I'd certainly value any input from you.

I am all for standards. I've put some time into standardizing and concentrating the information about USB DVB-T Devices here. and I hope there is a way to extend the approach to other parts of the wiki too. As you pointed out the users are a diverse bunch and they come with different needs. In order to serve them all we need to have some way of filtering/tagging the information. So that we can show different degrees of detail to different users (or on different pages) without duplicating all the data.

Cheers -henrik

Hi Henrik, sorry for taking so long on getting back to you on that. I asked Krufky twice on irc about the database idea and given that he never answered in either case, I will surmise that he choose to ignore the questions. In light of that fact, and combined with the fact that my own time is becoming increasingly constrained by work and other areas of personal interest, I don't want to hold anyone else up -- meaning, if you believe that you can make meaningful improvements (and it certainly looked like you were moving in that direction) then please proceed. Further, to this point, as I am an ATSC/NTSC user, it would certainly make more sense that someone who is a DVB-T user manage the DVB-T info.

Anyway, as both of you (Jim/Henrik) should know by now, standardizing the wiki is, indeed, no easy task ... nor integrating the duplicated content of the former V4L and DVB wikis, or making (where appropriate) articles agnostic between the two different subsystems -- lots of work in those areas is still required. However, I believe that eventually a nice standardized and unified wiki is achievable -- and one that is easier to manage if we can leverage efficiencies. --CityK 05:55, 31 May 2009 (CEST)

Hi CityK, I've checked Special:Version and it seems somebody updated to MW 1.14. Great! Now I only need the Extensions ParserFunctions and StringFunctions. If I have those I can do row selection by e.g. manufacturer, chipset, you name it. --Hlangos 22:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Henrik -- J.S updated the software. Weren't those extensions included (I thought you had mentioned that they were in 1.14)? If they aren't, just fire a message off to J.S asking to enable them.

On another thought/tangent -- Jim set up a new page recently, and its talk page might be a good message center for all of us, so that we don't start cross posting on each other across different articles etc. ... Talk soon. --CityK 03:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi CityK, I agree that posting around on talk pages is not the best place for that kind of discussion. In fact I think wikis are not very useful for discussions at all. Talk articles tend to lose cohesion realy fast and for somebody new they are an ugly read. Also any wiki article should be cleaned up from time to time and if you do that to a discussion how do you decide which part is worth keeping? Especially when you didn't agree about something, deleting somebody else's contribution can send the wrong signal. Mailinglists are way better for this because you can pick the part of a posting that you want to reply to and ignore the rest. Also they don't need any cleanup. --Hlangos 09:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree all around --CityK 01:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Further ramblings...

Hi again Henrik,

I forgot to mention in my previous post on CityK's page that I fully support your idea for a database. I've created a few data-driven sites and it seems obvious to me that this is the way to go. The database schema would be quite simple and reflect the ideas that we're all talking about. In addition, I'm fairly sure that JavaScript and HTML forms and the like can be embedded in wiki pages. I think a search option in addition to the text box that is currently employed would be easy for users to operate and take them to the place they need as quickly as possible. I've looked into the possibility of hosting an external database in the event that the LinuxTV.org hosting won't tolerate any more databases (we only need one!!!), so let me know what you think. In any case, I'm going to try to get in touch with Krufky and Mauro and see what they think about my proposals.

These user pages are rubbish for one on one communication!!! If there was a secure way to send you my email across the wiki, I would. If you think of one, let me know.

Cheers

Jim