From:  David Conger 
Subject:  [Paparazzi-devel] Paparazzi Wiki gone commercial? 
Date:  Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:21:36 -0700 

All,

From the start I like to use the features of the Wiki like viewing what gets edited 
not just who. It's becoming alarming the number of commercial, i.e. insert direct 
link to a vendor website with a product link, virtually everywhere on that Wiki. 
Pretty much the same person is doing every edit of this type. 

I have never seen this on any WIki before so much advertising and ad references put 
everywhere. I'd expect this on a CocaCola Wiki or but Paparazzi? 

I write this after watching the Wiki grow over the past year, from watching the edits 
mature the sites content....and now as I watch the quality of those edits go down as 
someone who values the site as a source of information about Paparazzi I have to say 
something. Even the readability on a language standpoint is suffering. 

I did not name any one person so I am hoping they simply read this and think about 
their real interest in Paparazzi because as it is often said: "Actions speak louder 
than words". 

About Wiki. I really like how the software makes edits and changes so accessible. 
Here's a bit of info I can share that is quite useful. All edits can be seen easily. 
Who make the edit and even what they edited. It's all stored in a database so the 
"history" of any page can be seen. 

Here's the link to the recent edits of the Wiki:
http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/index.php/Special:Recentchanges

Note that you can click on "(diff)" and "(hist)" links that will show you the content 
that was edited. So, you can see down to the letter every change to every page and 
what changes were made. It's very powerful and allows you full access to what people 
are writing not just who wrote it. This link shows that jszeto changed the outputs 
copied and pasted from my terminal for some reason: 
http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/index.php?title=USB_Boot_Loader&diff=3808&oldid=3803

Not sure why that would be needed since it was a copy and paste from my terminal showing 
the output from the command. This one shows the same person inserting their product 
image that is only carried on their website: 
http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/index.php?title=USB_Boot_Loader&diff=3823&oldid=3808

Ok, not so bad but now what cable do you use with it? The FTDI cable used by most 
everyone requires an adapter but none is shown now for this image... 

Is there a governing body of some sort to review the Wiki and it's content? Maybe one 
could be created? I don't have the answer but can we please preserve the Wiki as a 
source for knowledge not advertising? 

Regards,
David

-David

From:  martin 
Subject:  Re: [Paparazzi-devel] =?ISO-8859-1?Q? Paparazzi Wiki gone ?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?commercial??= 
Date:  Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:16:40 +0200 (CEST) 

Hi,

we can all be very happy that finally people have started to manufacture
and sell Paparazzi hardware. It took a long time to convince companies
to invest time and money to start doing this. It was the biggest show
stopper for people to begin with Paparazzi. There is even more than one
company now working on this. It should be good for all customers to see
some competition as it usually lowers the price or makes companies
enhance their products and services.

The wiki is there to give information to help you work with Paparazzi.
This includes technical information as well as sources for buying
equipment. We should try not to mix up those two. There is the
"GetHardware" page perfect for any commercial activity. This is where
you can find all vendors in the order of appearance. If vendors want
their own wiki page, that is fine too. But it is not useful to stumble
into commercial advertising in pages describing hardware. This includes
hidden teasing messages about other vendors not having some features. If
you think you are different and provide better service, put this in the
GetHardware page.

It is perfect to make money with selling Paparazzi. This is how business
works and should work - earn money for giving people what they want. But
keep that separated from the development of Paparazzi. The developers of
Paparazzi are not selling any hardware nor are they connected with any
vendor. The wiki/cvs is the exchange place for info, equally available
for everyone. No one will get any schematics or data before anyone else.
It should not be tried to set up any connection with
development/research/charity or whatever buzzwords. This is business. It
is about making money. If you want to do the community any good, keep
your prices as low as possible for you.

Please refer to Paparazzi when you set up your commercial page, give a
link to http://paparazzi.enac.fr It should be very clear where the work
has been done and where Paparazzi origins from. Vendors should try to
avoid giving the impression that they are the one and only source for
hardware.

Do not fill this mailing list with discussions that do not help people
to work with Paparazzi or might even insult others. Do not expect anyone
to govern the wiki. There is much greater stuff that can be done for and
with Paparazzi than writing emails like this.

Martin

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