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Not sure you'd necessarily need to rely on contrast (or... contrast alone - reader mode and similar might render that not noticeable for folks). Some datestamp

Not sure you'd necessarily need to rely on contrast (or... contrast alone - reader mode and similar might render that not noticeable for folks). Some datestamp next to multiple areas with a "last reviewed/approved on" info would likely be useful, esp if someone could flag items that are known out of date/wrong/broken for review, even if they didn't know what 'correct' was. I've hit this multiple times as a new person on a team/project - at least those that had moderate documentation. I know "example A" doesn't work, but I don't yet know why it's wrong or how to fix it, but flagging it for review would help me not lose track of it.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
I have seen personal blogs where any post that's older than some threshold automatically gets a banner tacked on the top that says something to the effect of "hey, this is an old post, things might have changed since then". Adding something like that to a Wiki seems like a reasonable idea.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Going further, having someone - a librarian role - review entries that are > X months/years old seems useful. So useful that I bet it's probably something people who are 'librarians' in a tech/doc sense probably do. I've just not been in orgs large enough to have people dedicated to that role. And... on day 1, it doesn't seem necessary. I was at a small startup in their year 5, and was initially impressed with all their internal docs, until about a month in I realized huge portions were vastly out of date, sometimes even just a few months after having been written. They were growing so fast "there's no time to keep it up to date!" but I was also often told "just go find X in the docs", yet... if I followed that info, it was wrong. So I had to find the docs and about 80% of the time, schedule a meeting with the author to confirm the docs were, indeed, still "correct". Moderate waste of time, but... "there's no time to keep it updated".
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
> Not sure you'd necessarily need to rely on contrast This was just an (extreme) example - what I meant is a way to make the users of the documentation pissed off enough so that they react, which in turn forces the author of the doc to update it.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

I have seen personal blogs where any post that's older than some threshold automatically gets a banner tacked on the top that says something to the effect of "hey, this is an old post, things might have changed since then". Adding something like that to a Wiki seems like a reasonable idea.

mgkimsal 4y ago
Going further, having someone - a librarian role - review entries that are > X months/years old seems useful. So useful that I bet it's probably something people who are 'librarians' in a tech/doc sense probably do. I've just not been in orgs large enough to have people dedicated to that role. And... on day 1, it doesn't seem necessary. I was at a small startup in their year 5, and was initially impressed with all their internal docs, until about a month in I realized huge portions were vastly out of date, sometimes even just a few months after having been written. They were growing so fast "there's no time to keep it up to date!" but I was also often told "just go find X in the docs", yet... if I followed that info, it was wrong. So I had to find the docs and about 80% of the time, schedule a meeting with the author to confirm the docs were, indeed, still "correct". Moderate waste of time, but... "there's no time to keep it updated".

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

> Not sure you'd necessarily need to rely on contrast This was just an (extreme) example - what I meant is a way to make the users of the documentation pissed off enough so that they react, which in turn forces the author of the doc to update it.