[pmwiki-users] Re: Redesigning the edit page - heirarchical menus?

[Martin Fick]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2005 at 05:02:41PM -0400, Radu wrote:
> Most of the time I am against allowing the computer to make decisions for 
> me. Computers are good at automating things, not at making abstract choices 
> like the one between minor and major - which to begin with is fuzzy even 
> for people. Even if two people will agree in definition on what the 
> minor/major distinction means, in practice they'll most definitely diverge 
> (I can provide references for the HCI studies), and even if they did, it's 
> rather difficult to keep it consistent, especially if you also have to 
> remember to click a checkbox before saving. We're there to edit content, 
> not to provide metadata on our edits. The metadata should not require extra 
> clicks.


I think that your metadata point is very valid and wonder
if we should not just question the idea of major vs. minor
in the first place.  What is the purpose of major/minor?
How is it actually used and is it actually helpful?

I suggest that we scrap the major/minor distinction 
altogether and provide better statistics about a page for
people who want them and allow simple page history
filtering.

Some simple statistics:

1) # of lines changed
2) # of authors
3) # of edits per author
4) Edit was a formatting only change
...

Every author (not just wiki admin) has a different concept
of major/minor.  Authors make mistakes on submits which
would be permanently marked as major/minor incorrectly, the
resulting meta-data is useless...scrap it, make everyone's
life easier!


-Martin