Discussing the merits of the Arch Wiki

>_> Does my pre-coffee outbursts and use of NVidia not make me ineligible?

Banned.

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Not a problem

miiiiiight be a problem

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LOL.

Between the hours of 5 and 7 AM there would be a slew of complaints about thread locks and /dev/null postsā€¦

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that is not the problem with the wiki

do you want FAQ to just say ā€œArch GOOD, Ubuntu BADā€ or what?

where does wiki assumes the user did something wrong?

this is done so everybody is on the same page. YOu must know how many people simply ignore the manuals, wikis docs and shit and go straight to asking questions thatā€™ve been answered numerous times before and are now documented in wiki.

I only seen the reverse of that, granted usually wiki is sufficient for me, so I donā€™t go there often.

again I never experienced that. But anecdotal evidence is not evidence :stuck_out_tongue:

No, itā€™s clear that the guide is intended to just point you in right directions for each step in the install process. Coz depending on your choices that install process may and will differ. If you want a single, default install process why would you even use Arch? Use something with an installer.

[ doubt ]

idk how you came to that conclusion, coz the whole point if that everything is separated and you can pick and learn different stuff as you need, not in a set way like you want with single ā€œdefaultā€ guide.

We actually had internal discussion and decided that using the /dev/null, fires of mt doom, etc threads were a way to cirumvent needing mods to delete posts, and in fact, were more censorious than mods deleting posts because mods can still see deleted posts, so the way we use those threads made it harder to trace things.

this is probably a bit OT though.

Iā€™m aware, I mentioned that in response with the images.

Thatā€™s a start. :wink:

I was bridging the gap from reading the wiki to seeking IRC/forums.

Yeah, Iā€™m aware. However, you know what works to build a great community?

ā€œHereā€™s the fix, try this. Did that work? Great! I found this here links wiki page.ā€

Iā€™d poke around if you get bored one day, I think youā€™d be surprised. Youā€™re the nicest Arch user Iā€™ve met in the wild. And Iā€™m not just saying that because I like Ukraine.

THE ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT THE EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE.

Simple, light distro.

Although, it does come with nanoā€¦ AKA BLOAT

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Even the arch wiki says it wants to be comprehensive documentation. not general guidelines.

The problem seems to be they dont really have a good defined structure or set of documentation writers, and because its Arch, they will never have documentation writers. So their goal is un-achievable.

The FAQ needs to be clear and concise, with the important frequent questions easily visible and easily understandable.

The Gentoo wiki and handbook are actually quite good. the wiki has improved quite a bit over the last few years as well. (it still has its issues but generally has a fairly decent consistant structure)

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Main_Page
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:Main_Page

The difference is they have a documentation team and clear goal.

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clearly youā€™re deranged and thereā€™s no need to continue this convo.

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Going through the AMD64 handbook I can tell you it wasnā€™t too clear to me. If I didnā€™t have experience installing arch, I wouldnā€™t be able to install it first time.

I find the structure of the wiki quite alright, itā€™s a wiki not a handbook like what Gentoo does.

Also Arch is a community driven disro, and so is their wiki, no one is getting payed to do what they do.

talk about condescending Arch users. Apple users are so much more pleasant :wink:

Its not condescending. Arch has a tiny dev team and maintain a tiny amount of the distro, they rely on everyone else to provide the majority of packages through their community repo and documentation is all the wiki. With no core writing team its very difficult to provide consistent documentation.

The result is a wiki with decent information but not good for actual documentation. They dont meet what they wanted to do, to provide comprehensive documentation

Nvidia use = +10 DKP in application process, we dont take people who use AMD for gpus

I think that the wiki is fine as it does what is necessary for the target audience. The wiki gives you guidelines and presents you with options. It wonā€™t tell you use parted cause thatā€™s against what Arch is.

If you want a distro that makes the choices for you - have your pick, there are hundreds. At the end of the day people should be asking what they want from a distro and pick one from that.

The Arch wiki is far from perfect but it does a damn good job. Have you seen Ubuntuā€™s wiki? Itā€™s a few random topics and that is it. Not attacking Ubuntu but using them as example as a very large distro that isnā€™t even comparable in their wiki.

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I agree the Arch wiki isnā€™t the best documentation out there, but I would still call it an excellent collection of Linux information stored in one place.

Iā€™ve had many situations where thereā€™s some problem in my distro (Ubuntu), I google whatā€™s the solution, and some reddit post or what ever points me to arch wiki. At first my initial thought was ā€œbut, but, Iā€™m using Ubuntu, so how is this helping me!?ā€ Turns out arch wiki has many good tips when troubleshooting something even if your distro isnā€™t arch based.

TBH I think this could also be a good thing. Since the whole idea of arch is to be the DIY distro then why not dump all the legos at once to the user and let him figure out what he needs or does not need?

For me the daunting information overload of the arch wiki in general gave the first impression of ā€œthese are the options you have, be ready to do some research for what you might need. And be ready to get your hands dirtyā€. :smiley:

Iā€™m planning to install Gentoo as a learning experience so good to know they have a decent wiki and handbook.

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Anxiety Intensifies

No, no, no! I ask for directions when I get lost :sweat_smile:

I read the manual before building the desk :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I look at the diagram before building the Death Star

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I am probably going to deeply regret joining in, but Iā€™ve always found the Arch wiki, while not awful as people have echoed, but itā€™s constructed and laid out in such a way that it almost feels like it was a response to being asked questions by new people, and needing somewhere to vaguely direct them so the forums didnā€™t have to deal with them after the initial ā€œwell itā€™s in the wikiā€.

On the other hand, I hardly see how the Arch userbase can be expected to maintain a wiki as large as that one, with so many pieces of software and nuanced use of said software sometimes only available from the people who wrote them, submitting anything to it would be come like a mortgage.

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This is an important thing to note.

Maybe instead of complaining, we should improve it? (or at least, in addition to)

But that would quickly become bogged down by Fossitus, as in who gets to do what and are they vaguely competent and/or remotely sane enough to have insights that add to what is already available.

I guess my suggestion is, if you see a way something can be improved, suggest a change, or make a PR, or do whatever needs to be done to help improve it. If the maintainers donā€™t want to include it, then the balls in their court.

The point is, donā€™t stand idly by while complaining about something if you have the means to solve the problem, try to fix it.

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which is a good suggestion, but Iā€™m saying that in a model where literally everyone can have a say, there has to be somebody who picks out which dingbat should go away and be quiet, and which useful input should be considered, and who gets to do that or the other thing. It becomes a very difficult thing to sort out when you consider that what I as a non-CS, non-IT, non-programmer might find to be an improvement, versus other parties.

For example, the Wiki used to have a Beginnerā€™s Guide, but that was removed. I, or a new person would look at that and say well that is a horrible omission. But obviously the Arch maintainers didnā€™t see it like that. Whoā€™s right? Most people would side with the Arch maintainers, citing Arch isnā€™t for noobs. This leads to the preceding thread where a user has plainly asked ā€œhow the hell do I use this?ā€, and asked for a guide. At that point, we come to the question ā€œwell, wouldnā€™t a beginnerā€™s guide be useful?ā€, because that does seem to be a problem worth solving.

So somebody, hypothetically, writes a guide specially for noobs, and they submit it to the wiki. It would probably be rejected, as ā€œArch isnā€™t for noobsā€. So now we have a problem that needs solved, people willing to help solve it, but we canā€™t officially solve it.

Thus we come to my main issue behind the sentiment of ā€œif you can improve it, do.ā€ some times it just isnā€™t possible.

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