18

A recent announcement on SO introduces the idea of user-contributed documentation. Altho the Mathematica documentation is quite long, it has been said at various points that it could certainly be improved. (A look through the site will show not a few grumbles on how the docs were remiss in explaining the subtle points of a function's usage.) Also, tho there are a number of "advanced documentation" entries in the official docs for some functions (e.g. NDSolve[], NIntegrate[]), there still are areas of Mathematica that can certainly benefit from having user-contributed advanced documentation.

Should we, the Mathematica SE community, be participating in this?

(In particular, I'm interested in hearing of any possible cons of this; while looking through that site, I had a hard time thinking about cons, and could only enumerate pros.)

  • 1
    Do you mean having a Documentation section here on mathematica.stackexchange.com (like the one on stackoverflow.com) or are you talking about contributing to stackoverflow.com/documentation using the wolfram-mathematica there? – Karsten 7. Jul 21 '16 at 20:06
  • 5
    For the sake of documentation, I personally dont think there is any point. The documentation online is pure state of art. On the other hand, it would be great to have a place where people could showcase tutorials on how-to build stuff using wolfram language. This would fit in well with topics like science, engineering, art etc. also expanding on available documentation, examples and tutorials sections respectively. – e.doroskevic Jul 21 '16 at 23:52
  • 3
    Looks like we will not get our own Documentation section in the near future: Allow Documentation in other Stack Exchange communities – Karsten 7. Jul 22 '16 at 0:29
  • 4
    Currently it's failing its mission anyway. There is too much trivial documentation creation (documenting well documented stuff), the whole structure (based on votes) is not suitable for a superior documentation, and the same things get documented in multiple places (e.g. as a topic and as an example). – Karsten 7. Jul 22 '16 at 0:41
  • Related: Matlab documentation: what's the purpose? – Karsten 7. Jul 22 '16 at 1:24
  • 1
    @Karsten, your penultimate comment could be an answer here, I think. – J. M. is away♦ Jul 22 '16 at 1:33
  • I will consider posting a proper answer, but I'm still not sure if you are talking about Documentation at stackoverflow.com/documentation or at mathematica.stackexchange.com. – Karsten 7. Jul 22 '16 at 13:17
  • @Karsten, as you've noted, it is at the moment unlikely that a documentation site here would be made; I was idly wondering if we should be contributing something to the SO documentation business. – J. M. is away♦ Jul 22 '16 at 13:20
  • 1
    Btw, links on mathematica.stackexchange.com to entries at stackoverflow.com/documentation don't format the same way they do on stackoverflow.com (with a Documentation symbol). – Karsten 7. Jul 22 '16 at 13:21
  • 9
    It seems clear that the feature won't come to Mathematica.SE any time soon. The only option is to contribute on SO. I'm reluctant to do that because I worry about cultural differences between the two sites, and losing control over the content. If it were here on M.SE, we could mold the feature to something that fits Mathematica well and fits our community well.On SO we'll have to play by their rules, which aren't even fleshed out yet (because what becomes of the feature depends partly on what the community makes of it). Those who were active on SO before M.SE was created will know what I mean. – Szabolcs Jul 22 '16 at 16:20
  • 1
    Community created a wolfram-mathematica section on stackoverflow.com/documentation and is requesting to "Add an example which shows how to build a "Hello World" program or an equivalent thing in wolfram-mathematica." First topic created by Community "Introduction to wolfram-mathematica". – Karsten 7. Jul 23 '16 at 13:16
  • 1
    First Example: "Installation or Setup". Something that is provided and maintained by Wolfram at support.wolfram.com/kb/12456. – Karsten 7. Jul 23 '16 at 13:25
  • 5
    @Karsten You should make an answer from your comment so that I can properly upvote it. I agree with your Improvement requests at the first example. I fail to see how the Mathematica community could benefit from Documentation - I can only see the pointless hours one can pour into (re)writing documentation. Something that other people do pretty well on a pay-per-work basis. It doesn't even have the puzzle-solving, internal-secret-uncovering, undocumented-exploring thrill that is there at SE. – István Zachar Jul 23 '16 at 20:58

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .