[R-wiki] Summary of the discussion before creation of R-sig-wiki

[Philippe Grosjean]

Paul Johnson wrote:
> I've just joined your list.

Welcome Paul... and tanks again for accepting to feed the Wiki with your 
excellent Rtips! By the way, I just tested the conversion here: 
http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=rtips:data:import.

> While I've used TWiki, I have to admit it
> is a bit complicated in the install.  The only real substantial
> probelm I've had with it is exorbitant use of CPU time.  The perl and
> text processing combine in most recent editions to really beat up a
> big server.  And worse, or admins started running a google data base
> for searches and when it gets to the TWiki pages , it goes berserk,
> clicking all links and repeatedly slamming the search and find links
> that are on every page. It took A LOT of effort to hammer their
> templates into a form that did not strain the system.

Erk!

> As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing is authentication
> and control of permissions.  If you look in the Wiki for LyX, you
> can't find anything because the organization is not clear and people
> did not put a lot of thought into it before documents started growing.
>  So I think for the R wiki, it is pretty important to set sections
> first, and allow users to add items within those.

I think we are all convinced here. Ben Bolker and Tony Plate initiated a 
draft here: 
http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=varia:organization_discussion. 
Feel free to contribute!

> And people who add
> things should have some control over who can edit their input.  If
> Prof Harrell were to put in something, and he really does not want
> other people to fiddle it, he should be able to protect.  TWiki allows
> that kind of control.

Here, I say "no, no way!". This is against the Wiki phylosophy, and 
also, against the license I propose for the R Wiki, which is "Creative 
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 (but see: 
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/). I copy and paste 
this part to another thread, since I anticipate a longer discussion on 
this particular subject.
Best,

Philippe Grosjean

> --
> Paul E. Johnson
> Professor, Political Science
> 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
> University of Kansas
> 
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