Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian

Summary

Welcome to LWN.net The following subscription-only content has been made available to you by an LWN subscriber. Thousands of subscribers depend on LWN for the best news from the Linux and free software communities. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to LWN. Thank you for visiting LWN.net! By Joe BrockmeierAugust 12, 2025 DebConf The Arch Linux project is especially well-known in the Linux community for two things: its rolling-release model and the quality of the documentation in the ArchWiki. No matter which Linux distribution one uses, the odds are that eventually the ArchWiki's documentation will prove useful. The Debian project recognized this and has sought to improve its own documentation game by inviting ArchWiki maintainers Jakub Klinkovský and Vladimir Lavallade to DebConf25 in Brest, France, to speak about how Arch manages its wiki. The talk has already borne fruit with the launch of an effort to revamp the Debian wiki. Klinkovský and Lavallade were introduced by Debian developer Thomas Lange, who said that he had the idea to invite the pair to DebConf. Klinkovský said that he had been a maintainer of the wiki since about 2014, and that he is also a package maintainer for Arch Linux. He added that he contributes to many other projects "wherever I can". For his part, Lavallade said that he has contributed to the wiki since 2021, but he had only recently joined the maintenance team: "I know just enough to be dangerous." Lavallade said that the talk was a good opportunity to cross-pollinate with another distribution, and to do some self-reflection on how the wiki team operates. They would explain how the wiki is run using the SWOT analysis format, with a focus on the content and how the maintenance team keeps the quality of pages as high as it can. "SWOT", for those who have been fortunate enough not to have encountered the acronym through corporate meetings, is short for "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats". SWOT analysis is...