Use of Wikis

[bouweandela]

What do we think about our Wiki pages?

• https://github.com/ESMValGroup/ESMValTool/wiki
• https://github.com/ESMValGroup/ESMValCore/wiki

Personally, I have the feeling that they are a bit hard to find and that the information presented there, could be better shared on our website at www.esmvaltool.org or in our documentation at docs.esmvaltool.org.

@ESMValGroup/esmvaltool-developmentteam Please comment if you have an opinion.

[agstephens]

@bouweandela : I think it is so hard to keep the documentation consistent and up-to-date. But I agree that it is also a problem if it is dispersed across different systems/sites. I would favour putting all the key information under a searchable website (which may be docs.esmvaltool.org).

[bettina-gier]

Personally I'd say just the fact that the Mattia's name is still under PIs and that the new papers aren't cited on the wiki frontpage (in the tool, core is empty) and nobody said anything about it shows how many people and how frequently they look at the wiki and use it. I generally like wikis, but with the efforts to put commonly asked questions on the discussions it feels like too many platforms if we also want to use the wiki in addition.

[ledm]

Probably worth summoning the User engagement team for this discussion, as it falls under their remit!

@ESMValGroup/userengagementteam

(Personally I'm happy to gut the wikis and replace the lander page with links to readthedocs, esmvaltool.org and the tutorial page. )

[rswamina]

Thanks, @ledm. I agree it is surplus to requirements and it is hard to maintain several different sites and can be retired.

[valeriupredoi]

I had no idea this stuff exists! and my name is there 😆 Does this mean we gonna have us some WikiLeaks too? 😁 Seriously now, I reckon we should consolidate the existing outreach tools we already have ie documentation and site, I like the GH Discussions too, but am not entirely sure we'd need wikis on top of all this 🌧️

[axel-lauer]

Personally, I am also fine retiring the wiki pages as I think it is too much of an effort to keep things up to date in so many places.

[bouweandela]

It looks like everyone feels that the Wiki is no longer needed. Does anyone object to disabling them? Is there any information on them that is still relevant enough to transfer to the documentation pages?

[zklaus]

I'm also fine with retiring the wiki. I wrote some iris debugging advice there some time ago (see here), but that's probably not so needed anymore either.

[ledm]

I'm in agreement too. Wiki's are not an effective way to communicate how to use ESMValTool. They're better at things that don't change much, like dictionaries and encyclopaedias.

[bouweandela]

I disabled the Wiki for the ESMValTool repository. @zklaus Would you be interested in transferring the debugging advice to the documentation before we disable the ESMValCore wiki? For example here: https://docs.esmvaltool.org/en/latest/faq.html?

[zklaus]

Why not. See #2638.

[bouweandela]

Thanks! I also disabled the Wiki for the ESMValCore repository now.

[axel-lauer]

I am also fine retiring the wiki since we haven't really updated anything in a long time. I think now that we have the tutorial, github discussions and a vastly improved documentation, there is no imminent need for the wiki any more, at least for now.