Maple wiki
899Because of John's answer to my last comment about a Maple wiki, I have searched first for antecedents in Maple Primes. From the many posts found in this search, I put together here what I consider the main points stated so far.
Oficial plans + technology:
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/how_do_we_grow_this_site
Short term site plans ...
Comment on 2005-08-22 10:08 from Tom 4
...
With respect to Wiki, I think the only real issue is the technology that maintains the wiki's and decision on what are we actually going to wiki. I suspect, we may be able to get something in place in a matter of a couple of weeks as opposed to way way off into the future.
http://www.mapleprimes.com/blog/tom_4/wiki_what_and_how
Good points
Comment on 2005-08-22 20:23 from Will
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One thing I can point out is that there are existing modules for Drupal that create Wikis so I would not need to use a seperate system for the Wiki component of MaplePrimes.
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/how-to-redefine-standard-operators
Wikia
Comment on 2007-05-22 17:20 from WillI just put in a request for Wikia to create a new wiki for Maple.
Wikia is a wiki hosting service that runs on the same software as Wikipedia, so it should be quite useful for what you want. I will let the community know once the Wiki is available.
Proposed contents:
http://www.mapleprimes.com/blog/tom_4/wiki_what_and_how
* document (currently underdocumented) powerful tips and techniques
* Bookmarking (hard to find) Maple resourses
* "recipes" of code for specific tasks
* unofficial, "help pages"
* use of Maple by and for members of specific communities
* code fragments for people new to the language
* a good explanation of Maple's nondeterministic behaviour
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/definitedoubleintegraldefiniteintegral
* collaborative reviews
http://www.mapleprimes.com/blog/jacquesc/maple-ranking
* collaborative books
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/how_do_we_grow_this_site
* site for a FAQ
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/type-complexcons
* bookmarking posts/responses
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/sqrt-4
* repository for 'intermediate' information about Maple.
http://www.mapleprimes.com/forum/how-to-redefine-standard-operators
* listing of Maples features by release.
Additionally, some activities could benefit from a wiki, eg:
- jakubi's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Hello there,
How may I plot
3 hours 51 min ago - Some precision
5 hours 26 min ago - Thank you, I am sure this
5 hours 37 min ago - simple
6 hours 20 min ago - error bar
7 hours 23 min ago - Listen
7 hours 48 min ago - errorbar
8 hours 8 min ago - Why plot?
9 hours 20 sec ago - deleted
8 hours 53 min ago - lagrange
10 hours 30 min ago
Comments
Wiki: current situation
From the posts cited above, the situation, as I see it, is the following:
1. A Maple wiki is regarded as necessary both by Maplesoft and the community.
2. An official Maple wiki is unlikely.
3. There is already an unofficial Maple wiki in WikiBooks.
So, either we continue asking for a wiki some more years or go to an
unofficial wiki (John's post could be read in this sense).
The answer "go to an unofficial wiki" leads to the next question: this
WikiBook or a new wiki?
I hardly have experience myself on these issues (beyond editing a little bit at
Wikipedia), but my guess is that starting a wiki from scratch involves much more
work than editing on something that already exists. So, I have looked at this
Maple wikibook.
Yes, it is pretty rough, pretty out of date, and pretty incomplete. The person
who initially edited the Maple wikibook, as stated based loosely on the site
http://alamanya.free.fr/, apparently "no longer exists" as an author in WikiBooks. Nevertheless, there is currently editing activity on this site.
So, it could be said, let us (ie comunity at Maple Primes) help improve this
site.
Yes, it could be a good idea, but I have found some issues.
For instance, there are some policies regarding wikibooks:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:PAG
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Wikibooks_for_Wikipedians
that restrict the possible content. Eg:
"The site should primarily be used for developing textbooks, textbook-like
books, and supporting book-based instructional materials"
"Textbooks are self-contained, meaning that the chapters link to each other
internally, but not to other wikibooks."
"As a general rule, Wikibooks modules don't contain as many links as Wikipedia
articles. This is because a book is supposed to be a self-contained resource
with a contiguous narrative. Links to all sorts of outside places can,
furthermore, serve as a distraction. Links to other resources should usually
be placed in a separate resources or bibliography section at the end of the
book or module."
This means, as I understand it, that some possibles uses of this wiki like
bookmarking to web resources or benchmarking are close to be banned.
Another, perhaps minor issue is where this wikibook is located within the
classification:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Computer_software_bookshelf
Wikibooks:Computer software bookshelf
Guides for minor (small user base) applications
...
* Maple Development stage: 25% (as of November 22, 2005) (November 22, 2005)
By comparison, there is a Mathematica wikibook, even more sketchy, but located
at:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Programming_languages_bookshelf
Wikibooks:Programming languages bookshelf
Mathematica - Perl
* Mathematica - Development stage: 00% (as of Feb 12, 2005) (Feb 12, 2005)
As a preliminary conclusion, it seems to me worthwhile trying to improve this
Maple wikibook, as a intermediate step towards a full fledged Maple wiki (if
such a thing ever arises). Things that could be tested during this stage
include the convenience of the latexlike syntax for expressing the Maple
output, organization of sections, control of vandalism, etc.
Other options
There are other projects out there that we might consider joining and/or talk to. In particular I am thinking of PlanetMath, MathWeb and The Hyperreal Dictionary of Mathematics, I have met the people behind PlanetMath and know some of the ones behind MathWeb fairly well.
Would it make sense for me to contact the MathWeb principals and ask them about hosting a community-driven Maple wiki? I think we might get a freer hand in developing that Wiki into a useful resource than trying to shoehorn ourselves into wikibooks.
MathWeb
I was unaware of this site. I see that Maple appears in this graph . I have not seen that they host wikis besides the main one, but otherwise it appears to me a valid option to contact. Semantic web is mentioned here, but I do not know yet, in concrete terms for a Maple wiki what advantage would provide such a thing.
If we go to start from scratch, it would make sense to look at pro and cons of suitable hosts (oriented both to math and computer software). I guess that there should be a few.
Yes, more freedom would come at the price of more work. If there were consensus on this, it is OK.
wiki for Maple
Recently, we had to think of creating a forecasting wiki. We didn't consider the wikibook line at all. Eventually we chose the mediawiki engine (of so many others) and http://www.siteground.com/wiki-hosting.htm (of so many others). It would be excellent if we have allmaple.info or the like wiki website in the visible future. It is best to separate from wikipedia. NB: It is not an ad or propaganda, I just did some deep research for our own needs.
at wikia...
By chance, I have met The Maple Wiki at wikia, which seems to be "empty"...
Somewhat distasteful
I find wikia pages to be really cluttered with useless stuff. It might still be the best choice for the community to build a Wiki. I'll just wince everytime I look at the pages!
Preferences
It looks like you can create an account and choose the Wikipedia style Monobook theme. That cleans things up quite a bit. Changing the theme doesn't let you pretend that most of the content on Wikia is not video game and pop-media related, however. :D
John
Agree and surprised
I find too this graphical environment so unrelated and unsuitable with the pretended subject of the wiki that I wonder how such a thing could come about. It could be that the intention was honest (eg there is already a math wiki), but I could guess also that there is here a marketing technique: open fake wikis to catch hits for their ads.