Are the community wikis a success?

[vasa1]

Logically, I would rather point someone to
Official Ubuntu Documentation
or
UserDocumentation

But, over the past few weeks I'm seeing several, more than a hundred wouldn't be a gross exaggeration, recommendations to a third-party site. What is the motivation in promoting a third-party site over official or community pages? Is it that the official or community pages offer inferior information?

[Paqman]

What third party sites are you referring to? Some of them like askubuntu.com are an excellent resource, and heavily promoted by key members of the project.

[mamamia88]

Well the arch wiki makes it look like a joke to be honest.

[Frogs Hair]

Yes, the Wiki has certainly been cleaned up a lot I started using Ubuntu 9.10. I don't mind using blogs or other sources for information because it often turns out to be the same as official documentation or is presented in an easy to understand step by step format.

I know there are some who make money off the advertisements hosted on their pages so when a link is used over and over I sometimes wonder about the motive for providing the information.

[nothingspecial]

Anyone interested in helping make the Ubuntu wiki even more awesome than it already is can join the Documentation team.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DocumentationTeam/Wiki

It's a huge resourse and like any wiki, it needs constant editing, updating and adding too.

[mips]

In all honesty I think Ubuntu documentation & wiki sites really suck compared to the likes of Arch, Gentoo, Debian and the BSD's. It never came close to those distros and I honestly don't know why.

[Cavsfan]

I think the community wikis are working pretty well.

Check out this thread in the wiki section:

How to have a custom Grub2 menu that is maintenance free

The wiki is listed in that thread and in my signature. That thread is a place where people can post questions or problems, etc.

Many people have viewed that thread and the number is growing pretty fast.

[TheFu]

I'm distro agnostic, but try to use the Ubuntu wiki when it isn't out of date (usually it says it is out of date when that is true). Next I try to point to Ubuntu friendly references in my responses.

Then there are answers that I've posted on my personal blog. If the issue is exactly about what I've written up and I know the solution is correct, I'll link to my blog article - it doesn't have any ads and I don't get anything besides satisfaction of helping others. ZERO money. Actually, it sucks money from me if more people visit ... sorta a disincentive to share.

The most popular questions that I see seem to be solved by:
* Samba Setup Guide
* NFS Setup Guide
* Sound TroubleShooting
* Boot-Repair / BootInfoScript
* Blank Screen Trouble Shooter
* mdadm Guide (does NOT exist), but there is a HowTo in the forums.

These are in the Ubuntu wikis. Of course, I tend to see those sorts of questions, so it is self-selecting. Often, people seeking answers don't know the best search terms, so they do not find the pages that ARE available.

[vasa1]

What third party sites are you referring to? Some of them like askubuntu.com are an excellent resource, and heavily promoted by key members of the project.

That's most certainly not it. I participate there as well. It's another one. I've reported it using the "Report Abuse" button a few days after I noticed what's going on but
may it got drowned in the seasonal festivities
or
the powers that be think it's perfectly all right.

I haven't got (or expect) a response to the report and so I won't speculate.

I'm surprised you haven't come across it although it's not that much in the Cafe but more in the tech support areas of the forum.

I have more thoughts on the matter but they're dark thoughts and until I'm totally familiar with how the infraction "awards" work, I won't go there

[vasa1]

...
Then there are answers that I've posted on my personal blog. If the issue is exactly about what I've written up and I know the solution is correct, I'll link to my blog article - it doesn't have any ads and I don't get anything besides satisfaction of helping others. ZERO money. ...

Hi, just to be clear, I wasn't meaning you
This site that I'm referring to is clearly trying to "monetize" visitors.