Taking a random page like https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Administration_Guide_Draft/NFS I notice there are several obvious (and some not-so-obvious) indications that the page is out of date.  I think it would be a good idea, and probably can be done automatically for the most part, to have a clear indication of the state (score?) of each wiki page to indicate how valid and up to date it probably is.  That indication should be a clear box at the top, and (if the page is so out of date that it may be unusable) it could change the background to (say) some shade of pink.

These are the things that could be checked automatically:

1. uses a command or suggests installing a package that doesn't exist in the latest release (other than in a section clearly headed for "Older Versions")
2. uses a command (like yum) that is deprecated/out-dated (that might include any system-config-xyz options since they seem to be disappearing?)
   
3. does not have a section on testing the changes that have been made (if the advice had included "edit" or "install" anywhere).
4. the latest release of Fedora mentioned anywhere on the page is over 2 years old.

There should also be a clear feedback method on each page (like "This answered my question"/"This didn't tell me everything I needed to know"/"This did not work for my system"/"I think it could be done or said more simply"/"The page misses some important (e.g. security) issue" plus an option to be contacted for more details. That should also (after human checking) make it's way into the page's "usefulness score".  And there should be a ranked list of pages needing "some love" with an indication of just how in need of attention they are, so pages don't remain out of date too long.

Related to that, and something that could (like Wikipedia, etc) be automatically checked and made obvious to editors), there should be some sections on most pages in a standard format, e.g.:

• a subsection "Documentation checked up to release nnn"
• a subsection "Older versions" describing differences for users of earlier releases.
  
• instructions on what firewall changes are needed (if none say so for any page mentioning installing anything or changing any system option/file)
• a "For example" section
• a "Checking your changes" section
• a "Security implications" section
• a "Why you might not want to do this" section(!!), for example saying there are other ways to do the same thing, or how much performance hit you might get, or how things may freeze for a while if another system is down, or security worries, etc.  And it shouldn't just list options (e.g. no_subtree_check) it should either say why to choose/disable the important ones, and perhaps link to some page with a discussion - perhaps forum-linked.
  

and ways to link to the pages that we can be pretty sure will stay valid for a long time... e.g. if the page has a quick explanation of how to allow SELinux or a firewall to allow the changes to work, but you want to link to more detailed instructions on another page, then that link should stay valid for a long time. Maybe a way, even, for editors to say "this page depends on this link", although it should be possible to work this out automatically and warn any person editing editing the linked page if it will break links from other pages.

Thoughts?
Mark Aitchison