Home page

[chase]

Main page now only has links to the wiki. It also redirects to the wiki after a small delay. The forums aren't going away but the focus of the site should shift to the wiki over time.

[JackScott]

Good work, I fully support this change!

Now, we need to get some working bees going on the wiki...

[Troy Martin]

Now, we need to get some working bees going on the wiki...

Speaking of which, I just added a nice large bold link to the forums onto the main page.

Chase: great change, hopefully this will get people to SEARCH BEFORE POSTING.

[quok]

Now, we need to get some working bees going on the wiki...

Speaking of which, I just added a nice large bold link to the forums onto the main page.

And I promptly reverted that change. There's already a link to the forums in the navigation box, and having a big bold link like you did wouldn't encourage searching of or contribution to the wiki.

[Brynet-Inc]

@chase: That was pointless, you're being very optimistic.. a lot of people browse using search engines, I for example I rarely even go to the main page.

Hiding a link to the forum will not help this site, not one bit.

[JackScott]

I think you're wrong. In comparison to other Internet communities our subject is very slow moving. The concepts behind operating systems haven't changed in decades. Memory management, schedulers, etc. Maybe the tools have changed, maybe we have some new devices to support, but since this community has started the subject matter has been largely static.

It's entirely appropriate then that the wiki is the main focus of this site. It's a knowledge base. Somewhere that every member can learn something from. A newbie, coming in from Google for the very first time, should have every opportunity to have their gaze pointed towards the wiki. Firstly, it gives them the information they need, or at least a pointer to where to find the information. Secondly, ultimately, it should reduce the redundant questions on the forum.

There are a lot of members here who I never see contribute anything to the wiki. People who know a LOT about OSDev. There are probably good reasons for this, people lead very busy lives. I know I do. But when I see something that I can fix or add, I do it. The wiki should be our goal.

As a community, we're here for two reasons. The first is to socialise with other OSDevers. The second is to share knowledge. This not only means asking questions of others, but answering questions that others ask. If having that knowledge base (the wiki) helps us answer questions, then that is what we want.

[Troy Martin]

In comparison to other Internet communities our subject is very slow moving. The concepts behind operating systems haven't changed in decades. Memory management, schedulers, etc. Maybe the tools have changed, maybe we have some new devices to support, but since this community has started the subject matter has been largely static.

I guess we have two options: completely revolutionize the OSDev field or make this website the centre of the OSDev universe.

</flameguard>

[chase]

@chase: That was pointless, you're being very optimistic.. a lot of people browse using search engines, I for example I rarely even go to the main page.

Hiding a link to the forum will not help this site, not one bit.

I'm just trying to slowly shift to presenting the wiki as the primary focus of the site. This is one small change, I only expect it to make a minor difference to begin with but at the very least everyone that visits osdev.org will be presented with the wiki first. No more excuses for new forum members to not have read the wiki first. RTFW.

I unprotected the main page. Both edits to it were bad ideas. Adding another link to the forums is bad because there are already 3 links to the forums on the main wiki page (does that count as hiding the forums still?). Protecting the page doesn't make sense because you'd have to protect all the templates being used on the page for that to work. Changing the main page to begin with was bad because it is the main page, if you read the wiki forum there has been a lot of work that went into that page. Changes to it should be discussed on the Talk page or in the wiki forum. It might be that we have to lock the page if un-discussed edits keep taking place on high profile pages like that but I think we'd first start with revoking edit privileges to the users that don't follow basic guidelines. Protecting pages is to similar to requiring approval on all posts, before we go there I'd like to try to keep it open.

[chase]

In comparison to other Internet communities our subject is very slow moving. The concepts behind operating systems haven't changed in decades. Memory management, schedulers, etc. Maybe the tools have changed, maybe we have some new devices to support, but since this community has started the subject matter has been largely static.

I guess we have two options: completely revolutionize the OSDev field or make this website the centre of the OSDev universe.

</flameguard>

You might be joking but you make a good point. At some point I think we may need to split the wiki (thinking long term here) into a more comprehensive OSDev book-like guide in the traditional vein like JackScott is talking about and then a separate section (maybe a another wiki) for more academic/research projects. I'd like the site to be a place of academic research in addition to a hobbyist hangout.

[Troy Martin]

I was sort of being serious and partially joking.

So you're thinking like this:

Code: Select all

OSDev.org --.
            +--"ebook" OSDev guide
            +--"new" OSDev wiki
            +--"backup" OSDev forums (community)

[~]

Seems a good change but I think that apart from redirecting to the Wiki, there should be also a link to the OS Projects List in the front page. That would be a good alternative for a link to the forums and something tangible for people to watch. That's something that any genuinely interested person would highly appreciate.

I personally have made the wiki my home for everything that has to do with PC programming technology. If it isn's there I try to find it somewhere else.

I hope also that this forum doesn't disappear eventually, it is here where the wiki topics should be discussed, cleared and expanded for a richer content.

I don't know if this could be a valid assumption... but if that homepage change doesn't make new users post less "beginning" questions, then there could very well be disguised spammers trying to break the forum with useless or repetitive things to annoy.

[Colonel Kernel]

So you're thinking like this:

Code: Select all

OSDev.org --.
            +--"ebook" OSDev guide
            +--"new" OSDev wiki           <---- www.stackoverflow.com
            +--"backup" OSDev forums (community)

It's the way of the future.

[Solar]

I don't believe binding one's own project to that of someone else (in this case, stackoverflow.com). It's been greatly successful, and is a useful resource.

But it could change for the worse tomorrow. Or vanish altogether.

[AndrewAPrice]

I think the link to the Wiki on the forums (the default theme) isn't very obvious. I was about to comment that there wasn't one until I looked around a saw it.

Most people would stumble over this site from a search engine, and if they entered a query other than "operating system development" then the result would link to a page, most likely a forum post, related to the problem or subject they were searching for, rather than the site's homepage.

Since the forum is the first impression a user might not even know about the existence of the Wiki. I have two suggestions to solve this;

- In the post form where it says "Tip: Styles can be applied quickly to selected text." replace that with a message that is bold saying "DO NOT post of the forum without searching the Wiki first. It won't be tolerated if it's obvious you have not done so.".

- The current link to the Wiki ("The OSDev.org Wiki - Got a question? Search this first!") blends in with all the other clutter in the header (Log out, new messages, FAQ, Search, Members, User Control Panel, Last visit, current time, view unanswered posts, view active topics, view new posts, view your posts, all times are UTC -/+ x hours). My suggestion is to de-clutter the header so you're more likely to notice the other text (the current time (which most users configure to their timezone) and last visit (a user would know when they last visited?) seem useless). Then move the link to the Wiki up to the title (just under where it says "OSDev.org The Place to Start for Operating System Developers"), enlarge the font, and set it to a colour that contrasts with the rest of the theme.

[Troy Martin]

- In the post form where it says "Tip: Styles can be applied quickly to selected text." replace that with a message that is bold saying "DO NOT post of the forum without searching the Wiki first. It won't be tolerated if it's obvious you have not done so.".

Eh, where does it say that? I'm in a post form (lol) and I can't find it. Maybe just put a nice big message beside underneath the subject box or above the save/preview/submit buttons?

Or, IIRC, phpbb3 has an option to display a rules page or a short rules message somewhere on the post form. Not sure where it displays it though, only that it exists.

- The current link to the Wiki ("The OSDev.org Wiki - Got a question? Search this first!") blends in with all the other clutter in the header (Log out, new messages, FAQ, Search, Members, User Control Panel, Last visit, current time, view unanswered posts, view active topics, view new posts, view your posts, all times are UTC -/+ x hours).

Are you on subsilver, boi? Cause I can see it just fine on prosilver all nice and up in the corner above the logout button I never use

Maybe another suggestion: put a link to the wiki before the "Board index" link in the hierarchial view at the top (or whatever the folks at phpbb call it, blobs or something stupid) so that it looks like it's one step up. I've done it before, it's quite easy. I could paste the code if you want.

Offtopic: whoa, deja vu...

EDIT: Here we go:

In /styles/breadcrumbs.html (I think), it will look similar to this:

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   <table class="tablebg" width="100%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0" style="margin-top: 5px;">
   <tr>
      <td class="row1">
         <p class="breadcrumbs"><a href="{U_INDEX}">{L_INDEX}</a><!-- BEGIN navlinks --> <strong>&#8249;</strong> <a href="{navlinks.U_VIEW_FORUM}">{navlinks.FORUM_NAME}</a><!-- END navlinks --></p>
         <p class="datetime">{S_TIMEZONE}</p>
      </td>
   </tr>
   </table>

Add this in between "<p class="breadcrumbs">" and "<a href="{U_INDEX}">" (note there IS a trailing space, phpbb just cuts it off on the post):

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<a href="http://wiki.osdev.org">Wiki</a> <strong>&#8249;</strong> 

This should work under prosilver. I don't think I made any changes other than the following for prosilver. Instead of "<strong>&#8249;</strong>" use just "#187;"

EDIT2: If any of you have doubts, this is my code. Cause I know quite a few of you will.