Help. What frequent questions should our FAQ answer?

[WardCunningham]

It has become clear in several conversations that simple questions aren't being answered by our most visible documentation.

https://github.com/WardCunningham/Smallest-Federated-Wiki/issues/436 https://github.com/fedwiki/wiki-client/issues/66 https://github.com/fedwiki/wiki-client/issues/69

Please suggest here in this issue questions that should be answered in our FAQ. The FAQ is two clicks away from just about everyone's Welcome Visitor's page. Let's make it worth the clicks.

http://fed.wiki.org/frequently-asked-questions.html

You would help me most if you find the most recognizably useful way to phrase questions. Understand that we are trying to help people unfamiliar with our jargon. Maybe some jargon questions should be near the top. Worry less about answers. I'll work on answers. In fact, skip the answer unless you want to tip me as to what you were expecting.

[michaelarthurcaulfield]

I will have more time to do this later, but would just mention in addition to "how-to's" people really need "why-fors".

Why are the pages narrow? Why are there multiple pages on a screen? Why can't I format text in paragraph blocks? Why can't the avatars be pictures of faces? Why is there no commenting architecture? Why can't I get automatic updates on a page I forked (instead of having to refork each time)?

It took me a while to understand some of these issues: narrow multiple pages allow refactoring, comparisons, chained data structures, clicking links while keeping context. Formatting text reduces reusuability. Commenting architectures allow people to talk about pages instead of fixing them or producing other valuable versions. A page you save to your site is one you stand by and have looked at -- automatic forking undermines this authority.

People need to know these things I think as much as the how-tos.

[axelson]

I think that the formatting page should say how to do the formatting, is it using something like markdown? It's not clear. Also it's not entirely clear how linking to a page works, but I believe this link will take you to the main federated wiki formatting page:

http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors/view/how-to-wiki/view/add-formatting

[garthk]

I've claimed my npm installed localhost using Persona, and myname.fed.wiki.org using one of the supported mechanisms — none of which are Persona. Can I log the fedwiki SPWA into both at the same time so I can edit both?

How do I install a plugin on a farmed wiki? I suspect the latter is impossible unless I own the farm, but it's not called out in Add Plugins. If I install a plugin on localhost and then browse to a neighbourhood page (notwithstanding the above), can I use the plugin on that page? Will the content be visible only to me?

How do I build my neighbourhood out from a fresh localhost? Seems I need to add /name.fed.wiki.org/some-article-stub to my URL, and wait for the SPWA to reload. There's also supposed to be some easier way using a plugin that isn't present on localhost by default; I lost the mention.