I like the way unavailable information is marked on techinfodepot, e.g. http://techinfodepot.info/wiki/Netgear_R6300_v2. Different to the current OpenWrt template_device
, techinfodepot only shows a small box telling the reader "This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (August 2014)"
Why do I like this?
It doesn't "fill" the page with unavailable information
It gives an indication since when the "empty" status is present
What would be even better:
The "adding to it" link currently leads to editing the complete page. Instead, I would like to link to an example section on an example page which provides explanations and ready to copy&paste empty content.
Another nice thing on techinfodepot: Lengthy bootlogs are initially hidden (or better: folded), which saves much space and keeps the page clearly arranged.
Regarding your proposal for template_device: In general it is looking good, but there's one point I would like to see improved in the LEDE wiki: Flashing Firmware is described over and over again in each and every little detail in the OpenWrt devicepages. There are certainly devices out there that need a non-standard way for flashing, but for devices which follow a standard way of installation, we should take advantage of a modular approach, define this standard way (or ways), and then only put an include
on the devicepage. Just a rough idea that needs to be further developed.
Copy&paste devicepages from OpenWrt: This needs to be a manual process, in order to achieve an improvement. Many devicepages have grown over long time, with dozens of editors doing small edits, but without looking at the big picture, i.e. the overall structure of the devicepage and the structure of the wiki itself.
Manual creation of devicepages with turned on brains helps to consolidate the big amount of information that has piled up over time.
Tagging: Although I helped to add tags on devicepages where ever possible, I ask myself: Have the tags in the OpenWrt wiki ever been of a real use? Most info available through the tags is present in the dataentries anyways. To avoid putting ressources into a feature that later on is of no real use for the wiki visitors, we should first figure out how we can use tags in a way that adds realy value to the wiki.