table of contents
You may discuss this page here. This page describes policies, procedures, and guidelines in the management and use of the portal.
Openness
The goal of the DDS Portal is to provide and open forum for the... As such we welcome the broadest possible membership and allow anybody to make changes.
Anonymous use
The portal is open for read-access to everybody. Modifications are also open to the community, however the portal is configured to require the user is "logged in" in order to have write access to the pages. This does not limit the openness as anybody can immediately obtain a user-id and login by filling the UserPreferences page.
Requiring a login allows better change tracking and thus eases the maintenance of the site.
Document Attachments
Documents can be easily attached to any page. Attachments should be used for documents that are not "official" OMG documents (i.e. do not have an OMG document number). Documents with an official document number should be linked in using their URL. That approach avoids duplication and ensures that the OMG document management system remains the ultimate authority with regards to official documents.
It is appropriate and encouraged to use the DDS Portal to attach drafts and working copies of documents that eventually will become official OMG documents and use the Wiki as a collaboration tool, avoiding having to email large attachments. However, once the document reaches an "official state" (e.g. it is the official minutes from a meeting, contains a presentation given at OMG, etc.) it should be submitted to OMG such that it gets and official document number and referenced in the Wiki via a link.
Note that posting a document in the wiki cannot be used as a means to meet the 3-week rule or any other OMG document-submission rule. In order for a document to be used to meet any such rules it must be posted to the OMG and get an official document number.
Administration
The DDS Portal Wiki is administered by members of the Data-Distribution SIG. The users listed in the AdminGroup are able to do maintenance activities on any user account. Please contact them if you run into problems.
Conflict Resolution
Open wikis rely on the civic behavior of the community. Disagreements and discussions regarding the suitability of certain content may occasionally occur and are typically resolved by the community via an open discussion.
Wikipedia is a great example of an open community that uses the open discussion process to achieve consensus. Wikipedia has a simple well defined wikipedia dispute resolution procedure that works surprisingly well given the size of the involved community.
The DDS Portal will use the same general approach used by Wikipedia, adapted for the much smaller DDS community. Paraphrasing the Wikipedia resulution process the approach the DDS Portal will use consists of:
Avoidance of conflict attained by being respectful to others and minimizing reverting other people changes. For example, if you see something you consider inappropriate or biased it is often better to improve the edit than to revert it.
Discussion with the parties involved. Many pages have a parallel "discussions" page where you can state your views on the content start a dialog that can result in agreement.
Consensus building within the community. Consensus can be reached by involving others in the community and making them state their views in the "discussions" page.
Arbitration by the Data Distribution SIG. This is the solution of last resort. In case the conflict cannot be resolved, the members of the AdminGroup can temporarily suspend users or freeze pages until the Data-Distribution SIG meets at the OMG technical meeting and comes up with a final resolution on the matter. We expect this situation to arise only in extremely rare occasions.