[R] R - Wikis and R-core

Henrik Bengtsson hb at maths.lth.se
Fri Jan 13 02:06:28 CET 2006 

phgrosjean at sciviews.org wrote:
> Hello Martin and others,
> 
> I am happy with this decision. I'll look a little bit at this next week.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Philippe Grosjean
> 
> 
>>We've had a small "review time" within R-core on this topic,
>>amd would like to state the following:
>>
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>The R-core team welcomes proposals to develop an R-wiki.
>>
>>- We would consider linking a very small number of Wikis (ideally one)
>>  from www.r-project.org and offering an address in the r-project.org
>>domain (such as 'wiki.r-project.org').
>>
>>- The core team has no support time to offer, and would be looking for
>>  a medium-term commitment from a maintainer team for the Wiki(s).
>>
>>- Suggestions for the R documentation would best be filtered through the
>>
>>  Wiki maintainers, who could e.g. supply suggested patches during the
>>alpha  phase of an R release.
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Our main concerns have been about ensuring the quality of such extra
>>documentation projects, hence the 2nd point above.
>>Several of our more general, not mainly R, experiences have been
>>of outdated web pages which are continued to be used as
>>reference when their advice has long been superseded.
>>I think it's very important to try ensuring that this won't
>>happen with an R Wiki.

[Tried to send the following a few days ago, but had a problem with my 
connection:]

What about adding a "best before" date on Wiki pages and let moderators 
extend such dates (by a simple click).  If the date for a page is not 
updated, there will be a warning on that page telling the reader that 
the content might not be fully valid.

MediaWiki is a good solution because there you can write equations in 
LaTeX, which are generated as Math-ML(?) and/or bitmap images. This 
feature might be in other wiki system too, I don't know.

That's my $0.02

Henrik

>>Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich
>>
>>
>>>>>>>"PhGr" == Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org>
>>>>>>>    on Sun, 8 Jan 2006 17:00:44 +0100 (CET) writes:
>>
>>    PhGr> Hello all, Sorry for not taking part of this
>>    PhGr> discussion earlier, and for not answering Detlef
>>    PhGr> Steuer, Martin Maechler, and others that asked more
>>    PhGr> direct questions to me. I am away from my office and
>>    PhGr> my computer until the 16th of January.
>>
>>    PhGr> Just quick and partial answers: 1) I did not know
>>    PhGr> about Hamburg RWiki. But I would be happy to merge
>>    PhGr> both in one or the other way, as Detlef suggests it.
>>
>>    PhGr> 2) I choose DokuWiki as the best engine after a
>>    PhGr> careful comparison of various Wiki engines. It is the
>>    PhGr> best one, as far as I know, for the purpose of
>>    PhGr> writting software documentation and similar
>>    PhGr> pages. There is an extensive and clearly presented
>>    PhGr> comparison of many Wikki engines at:
>>    PhGr> http://www.wikimatrix.org/.
>>
>>    PhGr> 3) I started to change DokuWiki (addition of various
>>    PhGr> plugins, addition of R code syntax coloring with
>>    PhGr> GESHI, etc...). So, it goes well beyond all current
>>    PhGr> Wiki engines regarding its suitability to present R
>>    PhGr> stuff.
>>
>>    PhGr> 4) The reasons I did this is because I think the Wiki
>>    PhGr> format could be of a wider use. I plan to change a
>>    PhGr> little bit the DokuWiki syntax, so that it works with
>>    PhGr> plain .R code files (Wiki part is simply embedded in
>>    PhGr> commented lines, and the rest is recognized and
>>    PhGr> formatted as R code by the Wiki engine). That way, the
>>    PhGr> same Wiki document can either rendered by the Wiki
>>    PhGr> engine for a nice presentation, or sourced in R
>>    PhGr> indifferently.
>>
>>    PhGr> 5) My last idea is to add a Rpad engine to the Wiki,
>>    PhGr> so that one could play with R code presented in the
>>    PhGr> Wiki pages and see the effects of changes directly in
>>    PhGr> the Wiki.
>>
>>    PhGr> 6) Regarding the content of the Wiki, it should be
>>    PhGr> nice to propose to the authors of various existing
>>    PhGr> document to put them in a Wiki form. Something like
>>    PhGr> "Statistics with R"
>>    PhGr> (http://zoonek2.free.fr/UNIX/48_R/all.html) is written
>>    PhGr> in a way that stimulates additions to pages in
>>    PhGr> perpetual construction, if it was presented in a Wiki
>>    PhGr> form. It is licensed as Creative Commons
>>    PhGr> Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license, that
>>    PhGr> is, exactly the same one as DokuWiki that I choose for
>>    PhGr> R Wiki. Of course, I plan to ask its author to do so
>>    PhGr> before putting its hundreds of very interesting pages
>>    PhGr> on the Wiki... I think it is vital to have already
>>    PhGr> something in the Wiki, in order to attract enough
>>    PhGr> readers, and then enough contributors!
>>
>>    PhGr> 7) Regarding spamming and vandalism, DokuWiki allows
>>    PhGr> to manage rights and users, even individually for
>>    PhGr> pages. I think it would be fine to lock pages that
>>    PhGr> reach a certain maturity (read-only / editable by
>>    PhGr> selected users only) , with link to a discussion page
>>    PhGr> which remaining freely accessible at the bottom of
>>    PhGr> locked pages.
>>
>>    PhGr> 8) I would be happy to contribute this work to the R
>>    PhGr> foundation in one way or the other to integrate it in
>>    PhGr> http://www.r-project.org or
>>    PhGr> http://cran.r-project.org. But if it is fine keeping
>>    PhGr> it in http://www.sciviews.org as well, it is also fine
>>    PhGr> for me.
>>
>>    PhGr> I suggest that all interested people drop a little
>>    PhGr> email to my mailbox.  I'll recontact you when I will
>>    PhGr> be back to my office to work on a more elaborate
>>    PhGr> solution altogether when I am back at my office.
>>    PhGr> Best,
>>
>>    PhGr> Philippe Grosjean
>>
>>    PhGr> ______________________________________________
>>    PhGr> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>>    PhGr> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do
>>    PhGr> read the posting guide!
>>    PhGr> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> 
>

More information about the R-help mailing list