[Zope] ZWiki comments

[Jimmie Houchin]

For a previous message I posted to the list I was prompted to place a
comment in the associated ZWiki.

I went to the ZWiki to comment and played with the "Sandbox" before
posting to learn a few things. From the things I learned here are a
couple of comments I wanted to throw out. I know some of these run
counter to the thoughts of the Wiki community but they are concerns
nevertheless.

The nature of Wiki is very unsecured. This is for better or worse. I
know the ZWiki on the Zope site does require logging in before editing
which helps but does not eliminate the potential of malicious or
accidental editing.

Anyone logged in can do any kind of editing they wish on a page. They
can erase all text. They can insert, delete or otherwise modify comments
or content made by other people. These things can be positive or
negative depending on the goal or intent of the page.

I think editing a page is more applicable to stable open content than it
is to a forum oriented page.

Examples.

If Zope's documentation was managed by ZWiki in a secure manner then a
community member could make corrections of typo's or legacy information
like references to Principia, etc. The submit button could either be a
"Submit for review" or if really trusted "Change". I know this
duplicates somewhat what CVS does. Once again depends on goals.

If the page is forum oriented, i.e.: an on going conversation like a
bulletin board and such then it is more appropriate to "Add comment"
than to "Change page". This would present the user with a cleaner
interface and a clearer idea of what they are doing. They would not be
presented with the entire contents of a page so they could merely append
a comment on the end.


If the ZWiki on the Zope site starts getting busy we run into other
problems. The problems especially affect a forum oriented type page.
Just to learn I opened up the "Sandbox" in a new page, I then open the
"Sandbox" again in a new page. I edited the first and submitted and then
edited the second and submitted. The first was successful. The second
fortunately got an error message. I say fortunately because it did not
overwrite the previous submission.

In a busy forum or BBoard multiple people getting errors would be a bad
thing. If in a forum oriented page an "Add comment" button was available
then the conflicts and errors would be avoided. This would also enable
ZODB's transaction mechanism better with each comment being an object
associated with the page.

This would also be more secure in that people would adding their value
and not altering other peoples.

On Philip Greenspun's site  http://www.photo.net  the BBoard's are
somewhat integrated with email. You can subscribe to a bboard and
receive email for the added comments. This is a nice feature. Their
implementation is quite inelegant and could be improved. Zope/ZWiki
could shine here. This allows user to choose how they want to view the
messages, either through the web or via email.

Just a few thoughts to throw out to the community.

Jimmie Houchin