Re: [xwiki-devs] How to call a workspace? (Was: [VOTE] Integrate Workspaces by default in XWiki's default XAR)

31 Jul 2013

Hi Caty,

Workspaces is more widely employed, but Workgroup sounds nice, as it
helps eliminate the Space vs. Workspace confusion. Now let's hope
people won't confuse it with a user group :)

Thanks,
Silvia

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica)
&lt;valicac(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
...
  Problem:
 Drop the concept of workspace and use wiki

 Short version:
 * 'wiki' is a confusing term generally associated with 'Wikipedia',
 representing the ability to write mostly documentation and not
 'all-powerful collection of applications and pages that can do anything we
 want it to'

 * 'workspace' is be a better name for normal users, since it's more
 descriptive and easy to digest (more familiar for non technical users)

 * 'workspace' having just this term could lead to another confusion related
 to the hierarchy 'Workspace' - 'Space' - 'Page' : "Why a
'work'space can
 contain multiple spaces?"

 * 'XWiki is all about the notion of wiki ... even in its name'

 * 'workspaces' was implemented as a subwiki because of technical
 limitations having space in space concept

 My conclusions:
 * I didn't liked the fact that workspace is a long term (very hard to make
 it fit in the UI), but this is irrelevant

 * I do prefer simpler terms like 'wiki', 'space', 'page', but we
should use
 them consistent [another problem we have is the usage between document and
 page (again technical vs. users perspective)]

 * I also think is confusing having both terms 'wiki' and 'workspace' in
the
 same UI because is very hard to explain what is the difference between them
 (because they seem to be on the same level of hierarchy, while conceptual
 they are not). Every time we try to describe them we just enumerate the
 technical differences:
 ** 'workspace' = subwiki + global users + ability to create other
 workspaces for normal users + ability to join a workspace + slim isolation
 (just grouping of applications and users)
 ** 'wiki' = subwiki + can have global or local users + they can be created
 only by admins + they can be completely isolated

 * IMO Workgroup term is better than Workspace (it doesn't have the
 containing 'space' word in it, which could lead to confusions and is also
 descriptive). The Workgroup allows the user to group application and users
 and let them work on their project. A Workgroup can have multiple content
 spaces, that contain multiple pages. A Workgroup contains applications
 dedicated to a group of people.

 * The workgroup/workspace could be a specialization of a subwiki or a
 space/subspace, but the main idea is that it is a specialization of a core
 XWiki concept

 * So IMO we should just decide on the core concepts, define them and use
 them accordingly.
 If you try to find out what are the core concepts of XWiki I can find just
 http://enterprise.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/GettingStarted/XWikiEnterpriseBa…
 http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/Spaces
 http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/AdminGuide/Virtualization
 http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/DevGuide/DataModel
 but we don't clearly state what is the hierarchy

 * Core concepts:
 wiki, space, page
 main wiki, wiki, space, page
 wiki, subwiki, space, page
 main wiki, subwiki, space, page
 main wiki, subwiki, space, nested space, page
 wiki, subwiki, space, subspace, page

 :) we really need to decide how are we gonna call them and make a
 convention that describe consistent the hierarchy.
 Because right now we didn't have the sub/nested concept, in my mockups, I
 decide to use just the main/simple/basic concepts:
 home (main wiki) > wiki (subwiki) > space > page
 http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/HomeMenu

 Another variant would have been to use 'Subwiki' instead of 'Wiki' in
the
 'Add' menu (would have been more hierarchy correct).

 * Regarding marketing and user terms: ideally there should be just one term
 that is self descriptive from a technical point of view and for users. The
 problem is that this is kind of hard to find.
 I would never agree to put a name like 'System' to describe the 'Main
 Wiki'. The other proposals were 'Portal', 'Farm', 'Home'.
I've chosen
 'Home' because it makes sense.

 So yes I agree that for some terms we could have 2 terms: one used from a
 technical perspective and the other for the users.
 If we would settle to a 'wiki > subwiki > space > subspace > page'
 hierarchy, than instead of 'Home' it would have been 'wiki'.

 I don't have any problem with the 'wiki' naming. I consider it to be an
 idiom (a notion that the user learns and get used to it) and if we used it
 consistent it should not create any problems for the user.

 Regarding XWiki vs. MediaWiki discussion etc. IMO we are 'X'Wiki from
 'eXtensible'Wiki, so we already stating that we are more than a wiki.

 But I don't think this mail should discuss the rename of Workspaces vs.
 Wiki. IMO they are 2 separate concepts, one is a specialization and the
 other is a core concept. The problem is the current implementation/model
 and we need to compromise on that.

 Workspace is a specialization of the Wiki (right now, but can be changed
 later to nested spaces). Having it in the Add menu means we promote this
 feature (not necessarily is a core concept). From a marketing point of view
 is better to have it separate and identified.
 Wiki can be created just by Admins, so normal users will not be able to
 create them, thus not see them in the Add menu, but in the Administration.
 This is Option A
 http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/CreateWikiImprovem…
 If we change the implementation (from wiki to nested spaces) the Add menu
 will not change.

 Option B is more generic and extensible, and of course is logical and
 simpler to choose it from a technical perspective
 http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/CreateWikiImprovem…
 The Workspace term is not dropped, but presented as a subtype.
 If we change the implementation (from wiki to nested spaces) instead of
 having it as an option in the wiki creation step, it would appear in the
 space creation step.

 So choosing between OptionA and OptionB IMO is like choosing between
 Marketing and Tech.

 Thanks,
 Caty

 On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Vincent Massol &lt;vincent(a)massol.net&gt; wrote:

  Hi Sergiu,

 On Jul 31, 2013, at 1:02 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu &lt;sergiu(a)xwiki.com&gt; wrote:

  On 07/30/2013 05:32 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:
> Hi Sergiu,
>
> On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:47 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu &lt;sergiu(a)xwiki.org&gt; wrote:
>
>> Vincent, stop thinking so technical! You're describing the technical
>> implementation of the current "workspace" feature, not the user 
friendly
 >> name that users can understand.
>
> <joking>
> ok let's stop the xwiki project then! Because it contains the word 
"wiki" which our users don't understand….  I don't even understand how
we
 get users since obviously they can't understand what xwiki is about… ;)
 Let's call it "stuff" which is a word that everyone understands surely…

</joking> 
 Are you sure you want to go this way?

 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=xwiki%2C+mediawiki%2C+confluence 
 Yes I've been looking at those trends for a long time now and I'm watching
 them every few months too.

 "Confluence" is cheating because it's an English word so you get a lot of
 garbage with it… Try "atlassian confluence" and you'll see a different
 picture…

 I prefer this one though:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=xwiki%2C+mediawiki%2C+confluence#q=w…

 And yes I've also noticed that the "wiki" trend has been going down since
 july 2011. I don't have an explanation but we need to be careful with
 google trends and the way it works.

 Another problem is that they're all going down on google trends… I'm not
 sure which concepts are increasing. It would be interesting to find out.

 Anyway I think you're diverging from the initial topic of integrating the
 ability to create subwikis/workspace in the default distribution. I don't
 think our goal for XWiki 5.2 is to question the core existence of the XWiki
 project and to rename everything and obliterate the "wiki" name.

 I also would like to rename "XWiki" to something that doesn't contain the
 word "wiki" in it because I also think we've reached a stage where the
 "wiki" name might hamper us because "XWiki" is a lot  more than a
 traditional wiki and being alone to push the concept of "application wiki"
 is hard (too bad google dropped jotspot). However I don't agree that this
 change should be done by being incoherent. We currently are a wiki at heart
 with code and concepts of a wiki. For XWiki 5.2 I'm convinced we need to
 keep this consistency. And having "page/document", "space" and
"shelf" is
 not a good idea. In the wiki world the concepts are "page", "space",
 "wiki", "attachments", etc.

 XWiki is almost unknown. XWiki doesn't get the volume of users that a
 mature and popular project usually gets. We've been struggling to market
 it as an application wiki, yet few users use it that way. How many high
 quality third party applications do we have in our repository?

 I've seen more questions about migrating from Mediawiki than from
 Confluence, which is our direct competitor. And Confluence is only
 getting more popular.

 The peak of Mediawiki popularity was also the peak of interest in
 plaintext wikis (Gartner's peak of inflated expectations). And
 unfortunately the decrease in popularity in Mediawiki is also reflected
 in the decrease in popularity in XWiki:
 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=xwiki (and twiki, dokuwiki,
 moinmoin, pmwiki, jspwiki).

 Confluence seems to be the winner on the Gartner Hype Cycle.

 We haven't even been able to overcome our precursor, TWiki, and I've
 considered TWiki almost dead for several years:
 http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=xwiki%2C+twiki

 So don't wonder how we even get users, because we almost don't. 
 That's why I'd like to set up my "active installs" extension to really
 know and measure that. I don't trust google trends at face value.

  And I didn't say that users don't
understand what "wiki" means, just
 that they misunderstand what XWiki is and what a wiki is in XWiki,
 because they already know what a wiki is in the traditional way. It's
 like calling a teleportation device a TCar because it gets you from one
 place to another, just like a car, but then users will expect all the
 things they have in a car. There's a reason why different products get
 different names, instead of just extending the base name: reusing the
 old name with a prefix causes confusion.

 So +1 for choosing something better than "XWiki" as the name of the
 product, this one hasn't been lucky so far.

>> No matter how much more accurate the term "wiki" is to what's
happening
>> inside, it means less than nothing to our target users. Less, because
>> it's misleading instead of helpful.
>>
>> So yes, on the inside we have __entities__ named documents, spaces and
>> wikis, and this isn't about changing those. It's about adding names
 that
 >> end users can understand to the
__concepts__ that those entities
>> represent.
>
> <joking>
> Yeah, let's rename "document" by "book page",
"space" by "book" and  "wiki" by "shelf".
I"m sure users will understand better!

</joking> 
 Did I even mention "renaming"? I explicitly said that this isn't about
 changing our entity names, but about labeling for users. It's a
 marketing strategy.

 But yes, even "document" and "space" have been occasionally
misleading.

 > It is a wiki, but it lets users collaborate.
Our users do
> their jobs in such a wiki, and for __our users__ that means much more
> than what "wiki" means to them.
>
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3Awiki

 You just proved that the wiki word is exactly the right word… :) 
 What exactly do you see? I see:

 "A Web site developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing
 any user to add and edit content"

 So if this is indeed the correct term, adding a new subwiki, is...
 "creating a new website"? Do you even know what a "website" means
for
 the average user? Or "content"?

>> Remember the XWiki (SAS) mottos: work better together, the best way to
>> organize information, free your knowledge... Users do their work
>> collaboratively, they don't just write pages in a wiki. They write in a
>> forum, write review, write press releases, vote, plan, review job
>> candidates, take meeting notes, draw UML diagrams, etc. This is why
>> "wiki" is WRONG for __end users__.
>>
>> I think that this is not a technical decision, but a  marketing/usability
 >> one, so it would be better to see what
someone from marketing thinks.
>
> I definitely don't agree, sorry… We're building a collaborative 
solution based on a wiki and as such I definitely don't agree to rename the
 base concepts of a wiki: pages, spaces, wiki, etc.

 Again, when did I ever said that we should rename them? I just said that
 it would be more intuitive for users to label a virtual wiki as a  workspace.

 Ok if all you're asking is for the user to be able to customize its UI and
 rename "page" to "A", "space" to "B" and
"wiki" to "C" then we can think
 about how to achieve that but the core distribution that we deliver should
 contain the notion of page, space, wiki.

 > Remember that we're talking here about
the base platform. Then there  are flavors and customizations done by our users
which can be anything
 specific for their project if they want to hide the wiki concepts…
 >
> I think you're confusing applications based on xwiki concepts with core 
concepts. A subwiki is a core concept in the same manner as a document or a
 space. What we're doing now is making the notion of subwiki part of the
 core concepts as it should have been a long time ago (this is why btw it's
 also in the new model). Again, on top of these core concepts you could
 create apps for specific uses cases. You could have a workspace app if you
 want although with the core concepts it's not required ATM since it doesn't
 add any additional feature...

 Rerepeating myself, this isn't about the workspace feature. This isn't
 about the workspace feature. This is about the XWiki vision, and the
 XWiki marketing strategy. Is XWiki just a wiki? Or is it much more than
 that, with collaborative applications as the focus instead of just plain
 text. 
 I'm sorry but you weren't clear. The topic of your mail was :"How to call
 a workspace?"…

 I think you should have sent a mail entitled "The future of wikis and how
 XWiki can grow more". This is a very interesting topic indeed which I'd
 like to discuss too but I don't think it should affect our XWiki 5.2
 discussion, it's something much larger.

 <side note>
 We're in a hurry for 5.2 because it's already started, GuillaumeD is
 responsible to implement this and is going on holiday in 3 days and will
 have little time when he's back, so I was hoping we could have a quick
 common agreement for 5.2 to make progress.
 </side note>

  What is XWiki trying to be? How do we present it
to our potential users?
 As a wiki? Or as a platform empowering collaboration? An intranet
 environment, where employees can do their work better.

 Compared to first generation wikis, XWiki is like an atomic bomb next to
 a hand grenade. Let's not market XWiki as a Bigger Grenade.

 And please, read more carefully what I'm actually saying. 
 I'm trying hard, believe me...

 Thanks
 -Vincent

 > Thanks
> -Vincent
>
> PS: BTW you haven't proposed a good name so far IMO…. At least not one 
that is better for all use cases. Some might be better for a specific usage
 of xwiki but not generally speaking.
 >
>> On 07/30/2013 12:15 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:
>>>
>>> On Jul 30, 2013, at 5:53 PM, Eduard Moraru &lt;enygma2002(a)gmail.com&gt;
 wrote:
 >>>
>>>> Just my point of view on this point, since I keep seeing similar 
topics
 >>>> popping up once in a while...
>>>>
>>>> For me, the "wiki" is the entire environment (main wiki + all
its
>>>> subwikis), as a whole, by definition. Since they are all connected,
 it is
 >>>> wrong to say that we are creating
new wikis (subwikis) when, in  fact, we
 >>>> are just creating new
"spaces"/"workspaces" (spaces where the user
>>>> does/groups/catalogues his work). Also, this view is enforced by our
 new
 >>>> direction towards virtual by
default and of making subwikis part of  XWiki's
 >>>> data model (including the new
model).
>>>
>>> In the future you'll be able to either:
>>> - create wikis, they are real wikis.
>>> - create nested spaces
>>>
>>> So you'll be able to choose the way you want to organize yourself by
 either creating a (sub)wiki or a (nested)space.
 >>>
>>> The notion of "workspace" is not needed in either case:
>>> - for (sub)wikis, it matches with the notion of a wiki and flavors
>>> - for (nested)space, it matches with the notion of a space + space 
template (which I guess could also be implemented as a flavor in the future)
 >>>
>>>> Since we are currently lacking the hierarchy feature of the the new
 model,
 >>>> and we are faking it technically
(and maybe this is where the  confusion
 >>>> comes from) by using new
wikis(subwikis) in new databases, the term
>>>> "workspace" would, IMO, remain the best candidate.
>>>
>>> I don't agree. The "workspace" feature was done ad-hoc outside
of the  platform and as a consequence was thought as an add-on. Now, what we are
 doing and preparing for the future is to have the notion of subwiki at the
 core of XWiki. And this concept of workspace is no longer needed as
 something adhoc. It can be integrated in the platform.
 >>>
>>> What is a workspace:
>>> * it's a set of pages/applications
>>> * using existing users
>>>
>>> Those 2 items can be done without the need for any new name/concept.  A
set of pages/applications is what we call a flavor. And the notion of
 users already exists (what we need to work on, is to have a config feature
 so that a subwiki can have or not have local users).
 >>>
>>>> If we consider the fact
>>>> that we want to make workspaces the default (as proven in practice),
 we
 >>>> find that the "corner"
cases are actually the term "wiki" (actually
>>>> "subwiki"), which occur only in farm deployments where, indeed,
a  subwiki
 >>>> is a fully fledged and generally
isolated "wiki" from the point of  view of
 >>>> the owner and its users.
>>>>
>>>> Also, in an enterprise environment, try explaining each time to the
>>>> Accounting, Marketing, etc. departments that:
>>>> - a "wiki" is "a set of pages that can be edited/modified
by users  with
 >>>> links between pages, using some
syntax, etc."...
>>>> - a "workspace" is "a/the space where you (do *your*)
 work/collaborate"
 >>>
>>> I don't understand. Why have the 2 concepts? The idea of option B is
 to have only 1 concept: that of (sub)wikis.
 >>>
>>>> +1 for "workspace" as first-class term being promoted to users
>>>> +1 for "wiki" as technical term being mentioned in
documentation to  admins
 >>>> (specifically for farm
deployments)
>>>>
>>>> Also, being an enterprise wiki, I`m not sure we want to be labelled
 as the
 >>>> company's "wiki"
instead of the company's "collaboration tool" (or  "tool
 >>>> used to get our work
done").
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Eduard
>>>>
>>>> P.S.: As a technical/background note, just not to be misunderstood,
 indeed,
 >>>> a workspace is implemented as
just a wiki right now with additional
>>>> restrictions to satisfy its usecase. However, this is only due to our
>>>> platform's limitations. Normally, a workspace should just be a space
 where
 >>>> a user can install apps, create
other sub-spaces, and collaborate  with
 >>>> others. The initial proposal (for
the "Wiki 3.0" XWiki SAS research
>>>> project) was to actually use spaces to implement workspaces, but 
since we
 >>>> could not install apps (among
other things), we chose to use subwikis
>>>> instead.
>>>
>>> We still need the ability to "Add a new Wiki" in 5.2 so this
doesn't  change anything.
 >>>
>>> And if in the future we support nested spaces then users will also be 
able to use them + space templates with flavors.
 >>>
>>> So for me that makes it even more important to not introduce the 
notion of "workspaces" in 5.2 and to only have the notion of adding a
 (sub)wiki :)
 >>>
>>> Thanks
>>> -Vincent
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 5:29 PM, Vincent Massol
&lt;vincent(a)massol.net&gt;  wrote:
 >>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jul 30, 2013, at 4:15 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu &lt;sergiu(a)xwiki.com&gt;
 wrote:
 >>>>>
>>>>>> On 07/30/2013 08:28 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
>>>>>>> Definitely +1 for B. I really think we need to drop the
concept of
>>>>> workspaces and come back to the concept of wiki/subwiki. It's
much  simpler
 >>>>> for the user. What we call
"workspace" can be seen as a  configuration for a
 >>>>> wiki, i.e. the usage of
global users only.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I disagree. For us XWiki veterans it's obvious that an XWiki
wiki  is an
 >>>>>> all-powerful collection
of applications and pages that can do  anything
 >>>>>> we want it to. But for
users, a wiki is Wikipedia, where you can  find
 >>>>>> documentation written by
amateurs that's hasn't been proof-read by  a
 >>>>>> real professional. It
takes months or years of using a wiki to  shift
 >>>>>> from the external viewer
bad opinion to the internal collaborator  good
 >>>>>> opinion of the term
"wiki".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So "wiki" is a bad name for users. I think
"workspace" is a much  better
 >>>>>> name than
"wiki", although it's far from perfect. First of all  because
 >>>>>> it creates confusion
between a "space" and a "workspace (wiki)".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, what better word describes a "collaboration space"
than  "workspace"?
 >>>>>>
>>>>>> Some random ideas, most of them bad:
>>>>>> - node
>>>>>> - workgroup
>>>>>> - community
>>>>>> - rename space to directory and we can use space or workspace for
 the
 >>>>>> current "wiki"
>>>>>> - virtual server
>>>>>> - environment
>>>>>> - sandbox
>>>>>> - appspace
>>>>>> - office
>>>>>> - location
>>>>>> - rack
>>>>>> - stack
>>>>>> - instance
>>>>>> - room
>>>>>> - workroom
>>>>>> - desk
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not sure this is needed. XWiki is all about the notion of
wiki…  even
 >>>>> in its name. The generic name
"wiki" seems a much better name to me  than
 >>>>> anything else:
>>>>> * it's a set of pages that can be edited/modified by users with
 links
 >>>>> between pages, using some
syntax, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think we need to change that. Any other name would be
 awkward IMO.
 >>>>>
>>>>>> Let's not forget that some of the instances are customized so
much  that
 >>>>>> users don't even know
they're using a wiki, so just seeing the word
>>>>>> "wiki" might cause confusion: "Wiki? What wiki?
I'm using our  company's
 >>>>>> internal Foobars
application!". So it would be a good idea to make  this
 >>>>>> term configurable.
>>>>>
>>>>> If the instance is customized so much that it doesn't look like a
 wiki,
 >>>>> then whoever did this
customization can easily also customize the
>>>>> translation resources to pick whatever suit their needs! ;)
>>>>>
>>>>> For example, if the wiki is used as a projects wiki and they want
 to have
 >>>>> one project  = one wiki, they
could rename "Wiki" to "Projects".
>>>>>
>>>>> We'll never be able to use a specialized name by default so we
 might as
 >>>>> well stick with
"wiki" which is the best name for what it is… a  wiki ;-)

>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> -Vincent 

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Re: [xwiki-devs] How to call a workspace? (Was: [VOTE] Integrate Workspaces by default in XWiki's default XAR)