Subject: Online comments system

From: Philip Rodrigues <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 21:47:18 +0100

Hi,
I'm part of the KDE documentation team, and we've recently discussed ways of 
allowing users to more easily contribute to the KDE documentation. We're 
interested in the comment system that you use on the PGSQL website, since it 
provides a way for users to add to the documentation, with the potential to 
merge the additions into the official doc later.

I'd be grateful if you could tell me your experiences with the comment system: 
Do users contribute? Are the contributions useful? Is the system easy to 
administer?

Also, is there some information online about the technical side of the system? 
Is the source code available?

Thanks in advance,
Philip

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From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 20:32:40 -0400

On Wednesday 05 October 2005 16:47, Philip Rodrigues wrote:
> I'd be grateful if you could tell me your experiences with the comment
> system: Do users contribute? 

yes. spammers contribute more though :-)

> Are the contributions useful? 

some of them certainly are. i noticed someone just submitted several example 
functions into the online docs, those are certainly useful for others and 
probably would be good to incorporate into the docs.

You will have to deal with spam though. At first it wasnt a problem. Then we 
had to set up keyword blockers (mortgage,poker,etc...) soon we will be 
integrating one of those "type in this image" systems... spam sucks. 

> Is the system  
> easy to administer?

Yeah. We have a web interface to approve comments and also a mailing list with 
links to administer comments. 

> Also, is there some information online about the technical side of the
> system? Is the source code available?
>

The source code is available from our project page:
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgweb/projdisplay.php
look under the portal module. 

please direct any follow up questions to pgsql-www.  Thats where all of the 
web stuff is actually worked on, so the folks who know the system all hang 
out there. 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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From: Tom Lane <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 00:25:17 -0400

> probably would be good to incorporate into the docs.

We usually try during each release cycle to make a pass through the
interactive comments of the previous release's docs and incorporate the
useful stuff.  Of course "usefulness" depends largely on the opinions of
whoever's making that scan.

(Memo to self: it's getting to be time for that again.)

			regards, tom lane

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From: Philip Rodrigues <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 11:49:08 +0100

Thanks for the pointers - I'll talk to pgsql-www if I have any more questions.

Yours,
Philip