Was the wrt_ac_series page reverted in error?

On 2018/12/18, the wrt_ac_series wiki page was reverted with the comment "Old version restored".
The current version of the page only mentions the WRT1900AC and WRT1200AC, and I don't see a new, separate wiki page for the newer models.

I wanted to point it out in case the intention was to revert to a different version of the page.

Looks like @JW0914 restored something quite ancient, probably several years old stuff that removed 171 kB of content. Likely an accident as he has been one of the main authors of that page.

@tmomas has made it crystal clear he does not like the formatting or layout of the WRT AC Series wiki that was decided upon by the WRT AC Series community over the course of 2016 and 2017.

  • If community members want the formatting and layout decided upon by the WRT AC Series community through those year long discussions, let @tmomas know, as my patience with him has been exhausted.

  • I dIdin't maintain the WRT AC Series wiki for my benefit, as I know the wiki intimately... I did it for the benefit of others. I've informed @tmomas of the above and asked him to please work with community members to bring the wiki up to date, as I've removed all wikis I've written from the OpenWrt Documentation site, and have restored all content to all wikis I contributed to, back to the original content before my contributions were made.

I will no longer be contributing to any OpenWrt wikis, due to my patience with @tmomas being exhausted.

From the PM with @tmomas:

Please don't beat around the bush... let's address what you're referring to: please let me know how the instructions under Flash: could possibly be any simpler or clearer.

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but the WRT AC Series ToH is not my page... the entire layout and formatting of it was decided upon by the WRT AC Series community from 2016 - 2017. I doubt anyone would be willing to parse the WRT1900AC thread, but if you'd like to, the discussion starts in early 2016 and extends to the mid 2017 (due to the forum crash, you can view the discussion via this advanced google search).

  • Simply because I maintain the ToH wiki with up to date information does not make it my wiki. By all means though, I can stop maintaining it and it can end up like majority of the other ToH wikis that are in disrepair and lacking in information. I don't maintain that wiki for my benefit, which should be obvious... I'm intimately familiar with ever portion of the WRT AC Series wiki and don't utilize it for the information it provides.

Since you've made it very clear my hundreds of hours of working on wikis are not welcome, I've restored the original version of the WRT AC Series wiki, minus all edits ever done by me. Your welcome =]

  • Since you don't want my edits or formatting, please work with others in the WRT AC series community to get the ToH brought up to date. Please do not utilize any of my formatting... if choosing to do so, you're a hypocrite.

  • Verification of old wiki content

Regardless of your beef with individuals, mass reversion of wiki data is selfish vandalism.

If not already done so, I’ll un-revert at least the wrt ac page next time I have access to a desktop rather than a mobile. (It would be easier for someone with admin access)

It’s christmas, show some community spirit. :slight_smile:

1 Like

@tmomas is the wiki admin, so take the reverts up with him. If you want to maintain the ToH, all the more power to you, but I'm done listening to @tmomas bitch and moan continually over the WRT AC Series ToH

I have requested a revert.

I've simply exhausted the amount of time & patience I'm willing to exert with @tmomas as a wiki admin.

I'm sick of the continual complaining and passive aggressiveness by him regarding the WRT AC Series ToH wiki, the OpenVPN Comprehensive wiki, formatting on other wikis, etc., where the main reason for his continual complaints aren't the changes made, it's that I was the one making the changes:

  • Common sense changes like:
    • Having ToC heading sections mirror the indentation of the ToC with an indent wrap (<WRAP indent>)
      • ensures a clear separation of information to prevent content from appearing muddled.
      • @tmomas disabled indent wraps within the last month due to this, leaving it in the formatting bar, code is simply ignored

    • Placing code blocks within a lo wrap (<WRAP lo> [~12pt text])
      • code blocked text doesn't need to be the same size as normal text when the normal text is ~16pt font on an easily magnifiable screen
      • @tmomas disabled lo wraps within the last month due to this, leaving it in the formatting bar, code is simply ignored

    • Changing code blocks to be syntax highlighted
      • ensures code blocks are easier, and thus more efficient, to parse

    • Changing certain code blocks into downloadable scripts with the <file> plugin
      • allows downloading code blocks directly to a device via wget for convenience / ease of use

As wiki admins, one cannot add DokuWiki plugin support to the wiki, then bitch and moan incessantly when someone makes actual use of them - and it's that incessant complaining, abdicating the responsibility of creating standardized wiki formats, that I no longer have an interest in wasting any more of my time contributing to a site where my contributions are clearly not welcome or wanted.

  • It's simply logical to remove those contributions when I made the decision to no longer contribute to the site.
    • The content is still there and can be reverted back to how it was at any time... if another contributor finds it useful and wants to undo the revert, by all means - I'm simply no longer willing to waste any more of my time trying to help others by creating and editing wikis so they're clear and concise, with clear separations of information, when those hundreds of hours spent on editing wikis is not wanted or welcomed.

Again, you could have just left the content in place.
It’s a wiki, the content is what’s important. The formatting is secondary (within the realms of readability).

You’ve done a great job compiling the content, if someone doesn’t like the layout, walk away from it or ask someone else to volunteer to take on the required changes.
There’s no need to be prickly about it all.

2 Likes

If it was a one off, and not a continual issue with @tmomas, I'd agree with you, however this has been going on for the better half of 2018. I understand there's a lack of context, however it's not my place to publish posts that are not mine within PMs, of which could provide that context. To view a portion of the context, please read the posts by @jeff, myself, @tmomas, and @hnyman in this this thread.

  • I personally believe the content I contributed is provided in the best way possible in wiki's I've contributed to (with the exception of the Multi-Hop SSH wiki, as I had forgotten about that wiki and it needed some work), as I view my edits through the lens that businesses build their adverts off of: 90% of the people, 90% of the time, clearly delineating information in an outline format, keeping points and information to one line long if possible, two lines long at maximum, with a ToC that should always be one line, unless two are absolutely necessary.

  • When you're incessantly bombarded with criticism over the formatting of wiki pages by a wiki admin, rather than leaving the content the wiki admin has an issue with, I chose to remove it so that those wikis were in line with the way in which the admin wants them to appear. Clearly the WRT AC Series ToH was far better off before I reverted it to be in line with @tmomas view of how that wiki should be displayed, however a point needs to be made to @tmomas that his view of wikis is not in line with many, if not most, users.

Thank you, I really appreciate that


I've done this repeatedly, beginning in 2016 on the old forum's WRT1900AC thread, and in threads on the new forum... not a single person has ever expressed interest in doing so.

  • For whomever does end up taking over maintaining it, I'd be more than happy to email them the to-do-list from the community that I simply haven't been able to find time to add. The to-do-list includes items from the WRT1900AC thread's Master To-Do-List, as well as posts from the WRT1900AC thread I've flagged in Outlook for adding to the ToH.
    • One of the most important ones the community wanted added was how to serial flash using a USB drive instead of TFTP.

I pointed out that other users have problems with pages that jw0914 contributed to. I see nothing wrong with that, because I do care about the users of the wiki.

Instead of taking the criticizm seriously and asking why others find the style convoluted and hard to understand, and after that changing the pages to a better, jw0914 is aggrieved by someone criticizing his work or not being of the same opinion. The result of his overreaction can be seen in the wiki.

I agree with lantis1008: jw0914 could have just left the content in place. Deleting and reverting is vandalism, due to which he is now banned from the wiki.

@lantis1008: Feel free to revert any affected pages.

What you've continually failed to understand, or comprehended for that matter, is there are hundreds of people who have utilized wikis I wrote with only a handful of complaints. Again, wikis, like everything else geared towards a large audience, are there to serve 90% of people, 90% of the time. If you disagree with this proven methodology, perhaps you should be teaching business, since this is the methodology of every single business.

As to constructive criticism, when valid, changes have been made.

It's a bit hard to ban somebody who logged out with no intention of ever logging in again.

  • As a matter of practicality, banning people is meaningless, as users can simply re-register for a new account. If you tie the ban to a WAN IP, that can be reset by unplugging a modem for ~5min.

Either way, I couldn't care less about the wiki site at this point =]

For anyone wishing to contribute, i have now started rearranging the information with the following strategy:

  • Each device now has its own device page (links below)
  • The new wrt_ac_series page (staging area linked below) is to contain information common to all of this family of devices (or at least common to most of them).
    • From there it can be linked/included into the subsequent device pages
    • For example, the audio jack serial mod is something that can be done to all of them, and so should be included in the wrt_ac_series page, and linked to the other device pages

I have only started to roughly rearrange the page content, not much care has been taken for data formatting at this time.
Please feel free to contribute to any of the pages.

DRAFT wrt_ac_series page
WRT1200AC
WRT1900AC
WRT1900ACS
WRT3200ACM
WRT32X

The section on Dual Firmware Flashing really needs to be fleshed out and probably made more generic into a separate article, as this functionality also exists on several other routers now.

2 Likes

What's your reasoning for this, as the community deemed there was no use for separate device pages, since all use the same SoC, except the 1900AC v1 [Armada XP].

  • Except for the clock speeds, and different flash chip on the 3200ACM v2, everything is the same between the devices.

This was why the individual device pages were removed 2 years ago.

  • Looking at your individualized device pages, all that's being done is the same information is again being replicated in two different spots (individualized pages and the main WRT AC Series page), which is why the individualized pages were removed. This is inefficient and impractical.

If you're going to completely revamp the ToH wiki, instead of simply restoring the revision, perhaps you should consider taking the time to review the 300+ posts from the WRT AC Series community about how they wanted the wiki to be...

  • If you choose not to, you're no better than @tmomas. The wiki is not to be the vision of any one person, but of the community, and you're redoing it in your own vision.

Your opinion of me does not bother me in the slightest.

The data isn’t replicated, it is referenced. If it is updated in one spot, it is updated in both.

You’re absolutely right I’m redoing it in my own vision. If the community has a different vision, the links are above, and anyone is welcome to contribute.

One thing that comes to mind, is if you’d just ignored the feedback, and left it alone, the page would still stand today as it was, in the format you and “the community” wanted. But no. You vandalised it because you cannot control your urges and emotions. Which is exactly why you’re back here posting again. I thought you were done with the wiki.
Be constructive, lose the attitude, and address me with more respect in the future.

6 Likes

You may want to utilize a dictionary...


Which is inefficient and pointless. You're putting the same information in two different ToH's, which is illogical.


The problem is you're dismissing the feedback from the WRT AC Series community. The page is not yours, just like it was not mine... it's the community's. If you fail to understand the difference, you shouldn't be working on any ToH

I'm glad that @lantis1008 has stepped up to the new opportunity to format and present information in a way that is consumable by more than just the de facto dictator for the pages in question.

Those pages, no matter the whims of the oft-referenced "WRT AC Series community" have been problematic for both new OpenWrt users and experienced users to navigate. This is hardly a one-time complaint, but one that has been a pattern. A pattern that has been brought up multiple times in multiple ways.

I would have used the word "stewardship" rather than "dictator", but that implies "careful and responsible management" which has not been the case here. Others have attempted to improve the pages' content and readability, only to have their content reverted by JW

The "WRT AC Series community" feedback is not being dismissed. "Feedback" is different than "decision". Neither is the page or pages describing the AC Series devices theirs. To a great extent the pages on the OpenWrt wiki are for those that don't frequent the forums and are not experts in either OpenWrt or the technical topics around it.

Technical writing is a skill distinct from technical knowledge. It seems to be a more challenging skill to master the greater the gap in knowledge and experience between the holder of the knowledge and the intended consumer.

3 Likes

The wrtpac wiki, previous to it being vandalised, had devolved into a veritable triumph of form over function, as the many raised voices would attest to over the last while. Also, you might want to utilise a dictionary.

1 Like

Please abide by your promises.

@jw0914 Please realize that you are done with the wiki.