Wireless Networking page - Introduction

Brian Wilson brian at wildsong.biz
Tue Aug 5 00:43:21 CEST 2008


>> I have added a small introduction section to the Wireless Networking page:
>> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wireless_Networking
>>
>> Do you think it is a good idea to have such introductions?

Yes, absolutely. Unless the page has only one or two paragraphs I
think you should assume that the person coming into the page is a
beginner and give them an intro. Then a beginner can start at the top
and not immediately feel lost. I usually call that section "Overview"
and tell what the page is about first. Advanced users can skim over
the Overview and go right to the potatoes of the page. (I am a
vegetarian so my pages are meat free. :-)

> I wanted to add the word "WiFi" to it, but I am not sure whether that's
> equivalent or just a subset of WLAN. (Probalbly a subset, but that's the
> only set which is supported by FR? Isn't it? Some users may wanna find
> Wifi, not WLAN.)
>
> Search for Wifi redirects here anyway. :-)

Yes, I did that. There was a separate WiFi page which I spent an hour
or so editing then found the Wireless Networking page had almost the
same information in it. So I  made the old page a redirect.

WiFi is a trade name for IEEE 802.11 style networks. In my mind
"Wireless Networking" could also include GPRS, Zigbee, etc, which is
why I started in on the WiFi page but saw Wireless Networking was
linked from places so I used it.

> I fixed the 2 wikipedia links, both were broken.

I have put in a few wikipedia links into openmoko wiki (which are
fairly stable) but I tend to either embed a reference to a local page
if it there is one or put in a foot notes / external links section at
the bottom if the user is about to leave the local wiki. That's how
wikipedia does it and it works pretty well I think.

Basically I have been working on the wiki when I need to know
something and find the information scattered or confusing. I organize
it and tighten it up until I can understand it.

I think I now want a good repository browser though so I might try
working on that for a few days instead unless there is one done
already -- have not searched the wiki yet.

Brian




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