5 ms·

"security risk" - So they're just trying to hand-wave a bluff at a huge community of developers? No one believes this. edit: also I feel bad for this community

by jhare 6y ago

"security risk" - So they're just trying to hand-wave a bluff at a huge community of developers? No one believes this. edit: also I feel bad for this community manager having to lie and apologize

Elv13 6y ago
I am the co-maintainer of an OpenSource project called AwesomeWM. I took down our wiki years ago due to: * Constant vandalism * Dubious user created content rendering computer non functional * Trolling edits to cause breakages to people copy/pasting shell commands * SPAM * Maintaining the wiki Before that we forced users to log-in for edits, then forced moderator approvals for everything, then forced moderator approval for new account. Then gave up and retired the Wiki. So no, wiki are not free content. They are a pain, especially when your community tend to have many trolls/hostile individuals like the gaming community. It's not "downright lies" all the time.
- jhare 6y ago
  I agree with your points, and there are a lot of constraints for running a wiki. Especially on a volunteer basis. Indeed it is not free content, the volunteers that edited the UE4 wiki must be pretty disappointed. But Epic isn't broke and the vague reasoning they offer is insufficient to me and many others. p.s. Coincidentally I am a daily user of AwesomeWM. Thanks for your efforts!
- Zanderax 6y ago
  Epic can't secure a wiki but they can secure the biggest video game in the world? Nah they just lazy.
- kroltan 6y ago
  Completely off-topic, but thank you for your work on AwesomeWM, together with all other contributors! It is a fantastic piece of software and I always use it on all my Linux installs. About maintaining wikis, that is indeed a problem. In addition, most wiki software I used has extremely clunky administrative tools which make moderation way more challenging than needed. I used to maintain a tiny private wiki for a previous job, and even in a very small operation (10s of users), it was a disproportionately large maintenance burden.
- phreack 6y ago
  They're of course allowed to refuse to maintain it, but why in the world wouldn't they keep a static read-only copy of it?!

by jhare 6y ago

"security risk" - So they're just trying to hand-wave a bluff at a huge community of developers? No one believes this. edit: also I feel bad for this community manager having to lie and apologize

Elv13 6y ago

I am the co-maintainer of an OpenSource project called AwesomeWM. I took down our wiki years ago due to: * Constant vandalism * Dubious user created content rendering computer non functional * Trolling edits to cause breakages to people copy/pasting shell commands * SPAM * Maintaining the wiki Before that we forced users to log-in for edits, then forced moderator approvals for everything, then forced moderator approval for new account. Then gave up and retired the Wiki. So no, wiki are not free content. They are a pain, especially when your community tend to have many trolls/hostile individuals like the gaming community. It's not "downright lies" all the time.

jhare 6y ago
I agree with your points, and there are a lot of constraints for running a wiki. Especially on a volunteer basis. Indeed it is not free content, the volunteers that edited the UE4 wiki must be pretty disappointed. But Epic isn't broke and the vague reasoning they offer is insufficient to me and many others. p.s. Coincidentally I am a daily user of AwesomeWM. Thanks for your efforts!
Zanderax 6y ago
Epic can't secure a wiki but they can secure the biggest video game in the world? Nah they just lazy.
kroltan 6y ago
Completely off-topic, but thank you for your work on AwesomeWM, together with all other contributors! It is a fantastic piece of software and I always use it on all my Linux installs. About maintaining wikis, that is indeed a problem. In addition, most wiki software I used has extremely clunky administrative tools which make moderation way more challenging than needed. I used to maintain a tiny private wiki for a previous job, and even in a very small operation (10s of users), it was a disproportionately large maintenance burden.
phreack 6y ago
They're of course allowed to refuse to maintain it, but why in the world wouldn't they keep a static read-only copy of it?!