What is everyone's opinions on things like this creating an example for EntityFramework for the C# documentation

In that EntityFramework can be used in all .NET languages (and with some work, really, any language)

Should it not be in a completely separate documentation (when available)?

@user1803551 someone has to review, so each versions has to pass the "good enough" test - it's also the smallest amount of rep.

a small detail, the rep reward for editing is actually tied to the review action not the edit taking effect. So if you skip review for some reason (say, you're an SE employee w/ a diamond; or we put a high-rep privilege in) the rep isn't awarded.

@Rob I could see it living under .net, at least a high-level bit. A real deep dive probably belongs in entity-framework though, with cross links.

@KevinMontrose I could see denying rep at review if the changes were below the substantive bar... but I'd like to wait and see if abuse materializes. More checks like that are gonna discourage less confident editors, which is something of a flaw with the Q&A edit scheme. Tweaks to the rep game are relatively easy at this point, since the total amount of reputation from Documentation is small.

@KevinMontrose ^^ What are your thoughts on this idea/direction?

little to no interest, Nicol is mostly focusing on posting existing wiki's into Documentation - we aren't terribly interested in copy/pasting existing docs, what would be the point?

also switching to sub-tags introduces all sorts of pain, how does one even decide what tags to use? Topics at least have titles.

I'll be interested to see the ways in which Topics break in practice, but a misreading of some old announcements... eh, not much to take from that.

misreading of some old announcements What do you mean?

And in relation to tag pain, I don't think that would be as bad as you think. In my experience figuring out which topic the example I have goes in is already pretty hard.

(Some more about tagging) If you look at the topic names in java nearly every one of them is able to be broken into it's own tag. For examples: Arrays -> java array; Compile and run your first Java program -> java hello-world; File I/O -> java (io or nio). The point being that if you know what topic it goes into you also know what tags it would need.

but then you click java and get 40,000 examples or click array and get go slices or something

you would need to know the combination of tags in advance

which means they might as well be grouped together anyway, as some sort of topic per say

@JAtkin most of what he's quoting and freaking out about is from the google doc copy of all [discussion] [announcement] posts

and rather misunderstanding some of it, which is totally understandable

stuff's changed over the beta, and not all of that got into announcement posts - and he can't actually play with any of it

a google doc description of Q&A would go just as bad I think now, but it's a little late to not publish it :/

live and learn, in another 7 years maybe I'll remember

I'm confused :\. This is primarily what I was targeting with my post:

If we're doing "code-as-topic", then you can't have a topic called "Vertex Shader". Why? Because Vertex Shaders are huge, complex beasts.

yeah, I don't believe that

you can total do a Vertex Shader topic, and when you get out in the weeds break out to a "Super-Specif-Mondo-Micro Vertex Shader" topic

the idea that any existing page on a wiki must be, 1-to-1, convertible into a single page of SO Documentation is a fallacy

Ok, I see your point now. Thanks!

i'll chime in and say that i'm still confused about what's on-topic. i still see more and more effective copy-pastes of examples into docs which do not serve as a basis for more complex examples which are not well documented

i stopped myself from creating more content because i'm not sure anymore where docs is going

isn't docs-beta.stackexchange.com/documentation/java/100/… plagiarized and it hasn't been removed??

if it's plagiarized, delete it - why ask?

deleting stolen content is definitely fine

that's true on Q&A

er, we were talking about "this is too simple, IMO" type of stuff at the time, IIRC. anything that's a direct copy, burn with fire

so i flag as "in need of moderator intervention"?

or just delete it with a comment as to why

someone has to review either way

i don't see a way to delete it, or is it just editing the example to remove content?

edit the example, then a delete option is available

ah, i was looking at the editor. that trash can is sneaky. thanks for the pic

ummm, it's gone. where was i supposed to leave a comment? :P

where you save/publish

comment for the whole change

(can always retract and re-submit)

ah, so this is really not intuitive for me. the submit edit is responsible also for what goes on outside of the editor

also, i'll have to remove the whole topic since it's the only example there

@AdamLear um, it was more about redundant topics that are documented elsewhere. i wouldn't judge topics as basic or not according to my opinion, since someone newer than me or more experienced than me will say otherwise. i would judge them basic or not not depending on if there is enough that can be documented about them beyond what there currently is. that is not subjective

for example the Java Arrays topic is redundant. everything in it (i read it all more than once) is and has been documented in many places. there is also nothing that can be added to that topic here on docs that will supplument what's out there. that's my point

to contrast, Streams in Java are relatively new (Java 8 only) and have tens to hundreds of combinations, tricks and caveats. even though Streams in itself will probably be considered basic (heck, it's just a single method call), the potential for it to grow as a topic is immense.

Documented elsewhere isn't a reason not to have a topic or example for it on SO - though we should be aiming to document it better, certainly. There's a point at which we'd go "ok, XXX docs on SO aren't actually helping - throw in the towel," but applying that at a per-Topic-level from the get go basically guarantees that outcome.

There's no chance for something to grow into a better resource if you cut it off at the start.

That's sort of the premise of community ownership and editing, incremental improvements over time.

@KevinMontrose when is that point planned to be?

there's no hard date for it, it's impossible for me to predict what the uptake on Documentation is going to look like; I expect to be thinking pretty hard about it this year though.

I'm sure meta.so is gonna get into the conversation too, it's not like it'll be 100% my (or even the team's) call

<insert failure is always an option.jpeg>

there's at least one lesson in the update meta post - all our thoughts need to be collected somewhere for reference

That lots of common questions keep coming up is a failure to communicate - I've tried to be less than dictatorial (there's lots of stuff I've been proven wrong on in the beta, after all), but I think I've veered too far in the "let's figure it out together"-direction. There are some strong opinions in Documentation, they need to be stated clearly. There are also lots of "hmm, this our best guess for now" - those also need to be clear.

status-beta!

cycles are getting burned on that this week or my middle name isn't Snafu