New User Portal for the Wiki

[trev]

I had a stab at the New User Portal which was suggested in the "Tutorial Web/Wiki" thread which I didn't wish to hijack.

It's a Wiki, so feel free to add to/update/fix the content on the page. I ran out of ideas pretty fast...

[minesadorada]

What is the difference between a Portal page and a Category page?

[trev]

A Portal page is a human curated page that has had some thought, understanding and organisation applied to its creation and maintenance.

A Category page is a computer generated page which extracts all pages which have been tagged as belonging to the category from the database.

To see the difference with an example, take the Mac Portal page and then compare it to the macOS Category page.

[AL]

Excellent work Trev.  But how can I find this portal from the main page?

[trev]

In the near future, a main page which is very similar to this mockup will become the Wiki main page. You can bookmark that page for the time being.

[zoltanleo]

A Portal page is a human curated page that has had some thought, understanding and organisation applied to its creation and maintenance.

Great job, Trev. I liked the new edition. 

[Otto]

Good job trev.

If possible, I would like to translate your page into the Italian language. However, I do not have much experience with the mediawiki in duplicating the structure of the page, I made a try, but did not satisfy me.

Is there essential documentation for duplication and deletion of mediawiki pages?

[trev]

Otto, I fixed up one of your earlier drafts after a few mis-steps of my own. It should be ready for you to translate the two templates now. Just click the "edit" annotations on the two boxes.

(I learn by trial and error )

[Otto]

Thank you trev.

I will finish the translation.

If there wasn't already, as soon as possible, we could create a new portal with topic:
essential documentation of the mediawiki.

Where to share the basic and advanced techniques for writing documentation for Lazarus and FPC.

[trev]

A comprehensive resource exists for MediaWiki Wikis. See the mother of all Help Wikis.

[Otto]

Thank you trev.

I will study the official documentation.

Otto.

[dbannon]

Nice work Trev, nice work !

Some thoughts,

1. Your first block of text, which now defines the page and provides instructions to people like us wanting to contribute to it, really should be more of a welcome page, more directed to the new user. Its probably the first thing they read, research indicates we have about 15 seconds to get and keep their attention. 

2. Just under that block is a Related Topics section.  Is that there because its a defined in a "Portal Template" or can we move it further down ?   Again, its not what a new user is looking for.

3. The next section, "Start Here" on the left, "Resources" on the right, thats great, just the layout we need.  I think the we need to cherry pick existing Tutorials (and freshen them up) or write some new ones.  The Forms Tutorial sounded good initially but quickly got into advanced topics.  New users like to see short tutorials they think they can complete in five minutes or so. Latter on, when hooked, let them seek out the advanced ones.

I think the model is great, a landing zone for new users that gets them past the initial barrier is so needed.  I am sure I have my old Delphi 2 books around somewhere, without in any way copying, we could look to that for the scale of the first, say, three tutorials ?

Davo

[marcov]

Thank you trev.

I will finish the translation.

If there wasn't already, as soon as possible, we could create a new portal with topic:
essential documentation of the mediawiki.

Where to share the basic and advanced techniques for writing documentation for Lazarus and FPC.

There already is a subforum on this forum for discussions about documentation techniques.

(added later:
Haha, while I was writing it, some other moderator already move the post here :-)

[Otto]

Thank you marcov.

[trev]

1. Your first block of text, which now defines the page and provides instructions to people like us wanting to contribute to it, really should be more of a welcome page, more directed to the new user. Its probably the first thing they read, research indicates we have about 15 seconds to get and keep their attention. 

This is the portal page template. See below...

2. Just under that block is a Related Topics section.  Is that there because its a defined in a "Portal Template" or can we move it further down ?   Again, its not what a new user is looking for.

Before retiring a few years ago, I spent years working in commercial legal publishing (20 years) and then not-for-profit legal publishing (13 years) as editor, writer, editorial publishing system creator (for a VAX with VMS, then for a Sun with Solaris), Delphi programmer, customer support, business unit IT consultant and finally as user support manager and systems programmer. In the commercial case, almost all the customers were lawyers and accountants. In the not-for-profit case, many of the users were self-represented litigants. In all cases, consistency of presentation was important to both the consumers of the content and the creators and maintainers of the content.

I do understand your point, but I'm not so sure that changing the layout of this one portal page any more than I already have (by omitting the image gallery) would be a sensible thing to do. I may be wrong. It happens. My opinion is no more valid than yours. If you or someone else comes along and redesigns the page, I won't complain and I certainly won't revert the edits. It's not my page. It's a Wiki. Anyone and everyone can edit it. I'll be happy if my only contribution is that it exists to help new users.

3. The next section, "Start Here" on the left, "Resources" on the right, thats great, just the layout we need.  I think the we need to cherry pick existing Tutorials (and freshen them up) or write some new ones.  The Forms Tutorial sounded good initially but quickly got into advanced topics.  New users like to see short tutorials they think they can complete in five minutes or so. Latter on, when hooked, let them seek out the advanced ones.

I agree completely. I was working with what currently exists. It is always easier to start with something than to start from scratch. It is not perfect, but the longest journey begins with the first step. I consider what I've done so far as the first step. As for writing new tutorials and/or freshening up existing ones, the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few.

I think the model is great, a landing zone for new users that gets them past the initial barrier is so needed.  I am sure I have my old Delphi 2 books around somewhere, without in any way copying, we could look to that for the scale of the first, say, three tutorials ?

This sounds good for the next step.