the new member ordeal

[floodping]

Enthusiastic new proxmox use here. My experience in the past two hours, discrete problems in bold...

• Find some holes in the documentation. I get it. Not a huge deal, plus I see there's a wiki!
• The two wiki articles I'm depending cover the documentation gap, but are are badly outdated.
• I figure out, and document, some solutions on my own. I want to pass the info along, so I look for the wiki's Register link...
  • Register link? There isn't one. Not even one that actually takes users no a page explaining why.
    
  • So I click Log In. Nope, no Register link or note there either.
  • I scroll to the bottom of the front page, looking for info about the wiki rather than proxmox proper, as found in every other wiki ever. Nothing of the sort.
  • I look on the left for About Wiki or Help. Nada.
• I give up on manual navigation, and use a search engine to see how to register. Only then do I find a forum post with a user proposing a wiki change, and later another random forum post about registration being closed due to spam.
• Along the way I find an employee note that parts of the wiki are now process documentation, along with a suggestion to learn your documentation system, make edits, and submit documentation updates via git. I roll my eyes.
• Having given up on the wiki / documentation edit, I hop over to the forum and start as all new forum members should; I look for the About Forum page, or a sticked post with forum rules and suggestions. No such animal.
  
• I type up my own detailed, technical, wiki-centric forum post, hoping some employee will see fit to read my post, do some due diligence, and finally hoping they'll edit the wiki for me.
• I'm told AFTER trying to post, that new members can't post links.
• I cannot de-link my urls because your forum auto-links plaintext before looking for links. *facepalm*
  
• I cannot remove the links altogether, since my posts contain CODE blocks intended to be run by users, which by their nature necessarily contain urls.
• I look again for a page or post with help or rules, hoping to find the time/post-count threshold after which I can include urls. I find only the forum Help and Terms of Service pages; but they're obvious c.y.a. boilerplate that has never helped anyone.

Why am I wasting all this time trying to engage your hostile community systems? Eighteen problems off the top of my head, and ultimately failure, all because your wiki mods can't deal with spam and neither can xenforo? Even if the spam cannot be helped, the communication can; but you've had not even the courtesy of a note on the Wiki login page and forum front page, both welcoming newbies and warning/informing them of the state of things.

If you're a random community member somehow reading this far, sorry so salty... I just don't like having my time spent in good faith efforts just wasted, and I'm sure I'm not the first.

 

[Alwin]

While certainly every documentation has room for improvement, badly outdated is an overstatement. You can find the reference docs online or also on every PVE node, upper right hand. The wiki holds newer also older article additionally to our reference documentation.
https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/

We have the forum, mailing lists, IRC channels and even a bug tracker where people can ask, if the wiki is actually for public editing available. Or on how to contribute to the project. While I agree that the information about the 'wiki registration' needs improvement, I see your post as uncalled excessive.

If you're a random community member somehow reading this far, sorry so salty... I just don't like having my time spent in good faith efforts just wasted, and I'm sure I'm not the first.

I am sorry to you feel that way.

 

[floodping]

Hi, Alwin.
I frankly expected a petty response to my petty post Thanks for not just deleting the thread outright. I'm hopeful there's progress to be made.

While certainly every documentation has room for improvement, badly outdated is an overstatement.

To be fair to the documentation, it's pretty good! Everything I've seen there was accurate and up to date. My "badly outdated" comment was about some "how-to" and tutorial type content in the wiki.

As for moving things forward:

1. Wikis have to cope with bad edits of all kinds, not just spam. But if, as I've read elsewhere, spam was the reason for the proxmox wiki closure, is there some other (manual?) method for community members who prove they're not spammers to get registered for the wiki (not documentation)?
2. If instead the wiki is permanently closed to new accounts for non-employees, is there a formal method for submitting corrections and updates?
   
3. As I've read in other threads, if the wiki is now mostly reformatted documentation, are the parts of it that aren't documentation now abandoned, or can users expect every part of the wiki to be (reasonably) maintained; kept pretty accurate and up-to-date?

Wiki aside, a last question; many forums have a rule where new users must make an introduction post, or have some off-topic conversations first—since few spammers care enough to do that—and only then can one post in real boards or add images/urls. If it isn't secret nor manual, what is the post or time threshold here after which forum users can include urls?

Finally, a plea. If any community-members reading this have wiki-editor or forum-mod privs;
or Alwin, if you or any of your coworkers at proxmox have the wiki or forum as their responsibility;
please consider this an emphatic user request for the creation of a welcome post / about page. Obviously proxmox-centric content must lead, but there truly should also be a wiki page about the wiki, and a forum page or sticky post about the forum.

Thanks! —floodping

 

[Alwin]

Wikis have to cope with bad edits of all kinds, not just spam. But if, as I've read elsewhere, spam was the reason for the proxmox wiki closure, is there some other (manual?) method for community members who prove they're not spammers to get registered for the wiki (not documentation)?

Well, formal in the sense of just asking in one of the aforementioned channels. I assume, you made this request at this point and I will forward it.

If instead the wiki is permanently closed to new accounts for non-employees, is there a formal method for submitting corrections and updates?

As you noted in your third point, some parts of the wiki is auto-generated from our reference docs. So here, the way of contribution diverges a little. For wiki articles, you may either post them here in the forum and we will see to update the wiki (makes only sense if it is a rare occasion and if its only an update) or as mentioned above, ask us for an account. If it concerns the reference documentation, then please read our developer introduction[1] and check out the pve-docs[2] git repo. Then send patches to our mailing list. These are always welcome.

As I've read in other threads, if the wiki is now mostly reformatted documentation, are the parts of it that aren't documentation now abandoned, or can users expect every part of the wiki to be (reasonably) maintained; kept pretty accurate and up-to-date?

If it the articles is provided by staff members, then we keep it updated or it should say for which version of PVE it belongs to. For community user additions, these should be kept updated by the user or marked for which PVE version. But that doesn't always happen. Please feel free to point out which articles look "abandoned", so we can check them. Help is appreciated.

Wiki aside, a last question; many forums have a rule where new users must make an introduction post, or have some off-topic conversations first—since few spammers care enough to do that—and only then can one post in real boards or add images/urls. If it isn't secret nor manual, what is the post or time threshold here after which forum users can include urls?

Well that's the secret. It seems that we attract those few spammers enough already.

there truly should also be a wiki page about the wiki, and a forum page or sticky post about the forum

I will forward this request too.

[1] https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Developer_Documentation
[2] https://git.proxmox.com/
[3] https://pve.proxmox.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pve-devel

 

[floodping]

Thanks very much for the info and your time.