Re: [TWiki-Dev] Something strange in the "Main" web.

[Michael S. <za...@th...>]

On Sunday 31 August 2003 18:54, Richard Donkin [ Home ] wrote:

> Curious if this has been deleted but it's not necessarily the CoreTeam...

That's encouraging. (But disturbing too - I've not seen whole topic versions 
eradicated by TWiki before).

Specifically it's interesting to note that:
   * Version 1.1 - created 13 Dec 2001
   * Version 1.2 - updated 3 months after I left Inktomi, around 1 month
      before the 2/3rd of the company using it were sacked. (16 Jun 2002)
      * _Possible_ first version of Version 1.3 around May 2003 - since that's
        around the time Peter Thoeny contacted me in trying to get a CIO (any
        CIO by the sounds of things) to talk to who actually liked TWiki. I'm
        not certain I changed that then. (In fact I'm fairly sure I didn't)

   * Version 1.3 - modified on Aug 5 2003 to say TWiki was no longer used in
      Inktomi. This change definitely occured.

   * Second version 1.3 - modified on August 30 noting that the check had been
      made at Peter's request back in May after he met an ex-colleague of
      mine. This was _definitely_ saved, and revision bumped to 1.3. Indeed I
      noted on the new version 1.3 change that the original version 1.3 (Aug
      5) had disappeared.

   * Third version 1.3 - modified this morning - after the change of the
      previous night had been lost.

If this is a bug in TWiki it's the most severe one (data loss) that I've seen 
in my time using it. Checking with sourceforge that they haven't had to do a 
backup/restore is probably worthwhile.

> It might be best to delete this page altogether 

Makes sense to me.

> since the point is to talk
> about where TWiki is being used successfully.  A post mortem on why it's
> not being used might be interesting in Codev.

With due respect, I doubt it. Basically what happened was:
   * I left, leaving no maintainer behind. (Got sick and tired to be honest of
      70 hour weeks, and had first child on the way.)
   * The division that was using it (about 2 thirds of the company) was laid
     off about 3 months later.
   * The remaining wiki pages were being used by a group that didn't
     understand the Wiki concept - with one notable exception.   
   * A few months later, the company then got merged with another and even
     more people who knew about it got sacked.

I think your suggestion about the deleting the topic entirely is a good one - 
in the vein of no news is good. Putting a post-mortem like the above on 
TWiki.org could essentially say to people "no-one ever got fired for NOT 
using TWiki".


Michael.
-- 
The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
		-- Mark Twain.