[AskFinance] Where should we create our wiki?

Illecors , 10 months ago

I feel like I’m missing the point here - what’s wrong with a lemmy post?

Blaze OP , 10 months ago

Ability for other users to edit it, mostly

Illecors , 10 months ago

All users or limited to mods?

Blaze OP , 10 months ago

The ideal way should be to have discrete access management: all mods can edit, members can suggest changes, then if a member is well-known he can get a special right to edit without mod approval, etc

This kind of access management would only be possible with an external solution for now

Illecors , 10 months ago

Markdown in a git repo hosted on gitlab or similar can achieve this. Merge request would be used for suggestions, owner/developer/guest/etc roles for access management. It would have a slight barrier to entry, but it’s not impossibly high. GitLab also has we “web ide” to edit text in the browser.

Blaze OP , 10 months ago

That can be an option. Once everyone has seen this thread, I’ll probably organize a vote to see what the community prefers (probably early next week)

dhork , 10 months ago

A community like this will get people coming for answers to basic questions like “How do credit cards work” and “should I get a loan or a lease on my car”. Having a wiki provides a set place we can point to that has consistent answers to those basic questions, so they’re not answered differently every time they’re asked.

Illecors , 10 months ago

This bit is absolutely solved by Lemmy - just pin an FAQ post, make it read only and note it in the sidebar.

sugar_in_your_tea , 10 months ago

The editable point has been made (workaround: make a new post periodically), but here are some other considerations:

• organization - at a certain point, a massive post is hard to navigate; a wiki should show splitting it into sub-pages (could link to other lemmy threads, but that kinda sucks to maintain)
• searchable - once it’s in multiple pages, I’d want to skip the index and search for something directly
• linkable - I can link a lemmy post, but that link can bit rot if the pinned link changes
• edit history - sometimes advice changes, if you use git, you can explain why in the commit message without cluttering up the actual text; likewise, if we find new advice to be bad, we can easily undo it later since the old versions are still there (esp. if it’s something complex like a flowchart)
• can be shared by other communities, like maybe collaborate with an investing community, or a community for financial advisors
• discussion - if advice is contentious, it can be discussed away from the main community, so meta posts don’t clutter regular discussion (could solve with a separate meta community)

I think a separate wiki has a ton of value.

bloopernova , 10 months ago

GitHub has free wiki that multiple people can edit. There’s also wiki.js self hosted via digital ocean, which will have a small cost: marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/wiki-js?refcode…

There’s also this list of hosted wikis: …wikipedia.org/…/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_servi…

Blaze OP , 10 months ago

Thanks for sharing!

Would the community be ok with a GitHub wiki? I know sometimes non tech people find GitHub hard to use.

Wikijs was on my radar, www.getoutline.com as well.

But having to self host might a bit harder, except if we find volunteers in the community willing to do it

sugar_in_your_tea , 10 months ago

I like the GitHub wiki, at least to start.

Pros:

• free
• anyone can contribute changes, but vandalism is all but impossible
• can have multiple people with commit access, and that list can be easily adjusted as needed
• history of a file is transparent, if you know the tools
• easily forkable, eg if the original owner goes AFK

Cons:

• GitHub can be overwhelming for less technical people
• many here on lemmy don’t trust Microsoft (could always move to gitlab or something)
• no connection between user accounts here and there (pro for me, but I can see it as a con)

I vote one of the mods takes the initiative and creates the wiki as a test run, and slowly add non-mods as needed based on contributions. If we don’t like it, moving to something else shouldn’t be too annoying.

Blaze OP , 10 months ago

Interesting feedback, thanks for sharing.

About the mods, I’ll probably post something else at some point, as it seems the only current one hasn’t been connected for a while

sugar_in_your_tea , 10 months ago

Maybe check with the mods at lemmy.world too? If they’re more interested in being active, maybe we should instead try to move the community there.

I would love an active PF community and I’m willing to help build it, but I don’t want to mod it and I don’t really care where it’s hosted.

Blaze OP , 10 months ago

The only mod on !personalfinance never posted, seems to be squatting communities, and there’s only one other post since mine about this one 4 days ago.

I would suggest to keep the community here, we seem to get a few answers in the comments, and lemmy.ml is federated with more instances than LW, which allows to leave the discussion drama aside.

Great to hear you are wanting an active PF community too!

sugar_in_your_tea , 10 months ago

Maybe it’s time to ask an admin to swap mods.