discuss: Re: Very outdated document: The TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Fwd: Very outdated document: The TrueType Fonts in
Debian mini-HOWTO
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
29 May 2008 22:39:09 +0100
Message-Id: <20080529214501.GA2516@davespc>
On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 10:02:10AM +0100, David Greaves wrote:
> Gosh - someone else out there in linuxland who is suffering pain because LDP
> publishes misinformation.
>
> Please implement a 'takedown' for HOWTOs for which you receive a credible
> notification that they are outdated. Even better, provide a link to the old
> document and a forwarding link to more up to date information if you're given one.
There are likely a couple hundred other HOWTOs that are also outdated.
A copy of the complaint needs to be entered into a LDP database which
doesn't exist. Thus it's a high priority to establish a Content
Management System for LDP and in the meantime, some sort of temporary
database might be established. But the problem with the temporary one
will be that only a few people will be able to modify it and I don't
how such a database would be set up on the ibiblio site. I think LDP
has a workspace there. Can groups be established that have access to
certain files in that workspace? Files in the workspace wouldn't be
on the Internet. For every HOWTO there could be a metadata file with
a certain format with headings searchable using grep. Editing could
use vim and it's possible to change all the files at once using argdo
and the substitute command. Each line of the metadata file would
have a heading which could be found using grep.
This is pretty weak and crude. What would be better that could be
done quickly and could later be read into a future database CMS?
Shell scrips could be written to extract info. Another problem is
that there would be no audit trail of who modified what and when they
did it.
>
> I just can't see a rational reason to keep serving up a document
> that you *know* is going to cause some confusion or worse? Why?
The LDP site is much more up-to-date for HOWTOs than are other sites
on the Internet with HOWTOs which were taken from the LDP site. I
looked into this once and found that most sites which have LDP docs on
them don't have the latest version, and many were several versions
out-of-date. I've reported this to the list in the past and we don't
have anyone to try to fix this: By finding stale LDP HOWTOs on the
Internet and requesting that they be removed. Of course about 80% of
the latest revision of the HOWTOs at LDP aren't really up-to-date either.
The rational reason for many thousands (about .1 million if the
mirrors are included) of out-of-date LDP docs on the Internet
(includes old versions) is that other sites don't properly maintain
the docs on their sites and neither do we due to lack of volunteers.
It's been this way for over a decade but it's getting worse.
>
> David
> PS *OF COURSE* you should strive to get the HOWTO updated - at which point you
> can republish it...
>
>
> Sergiusz Pawlowicz wrote:
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Adrian von Bidder <>
> > Date: Wed, May 28, 2008 at 4:01 PM
> > Subject: Very outdated document: The TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
> > To: ####@####.####
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > This is about the "TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO" you are hosting at
> > <http://tldp.org/HOWTO/TT-Debian.html>
> >
> > This document is very outdated and contains information that does not apply
> > anymore to any recent version of Debian GNU/Linux. Unfortunately it comes
> > up with a very high pagerank on google, leading unexperienced users to try
> > to follow it. The author seems to not have maintained the document, the
> > canonical link mentioned in the document does not work anymore. I do
> > therefore propose that you delete the document from your collection or mark
> > it as obsolete in a very visible way.
> >
> > I have notified the author of that document of this issue and encouraged him
> > to contact you if he can provide an updated version of the document.
> >
> > Thank you for your attention
> > Adrian von Bidder
> > --
> > Keep the Lasagna flying!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > ______________________
> > http://lists.tldp.org/
>
>
> ______________________
> http://lists.tldp.org/
>
>
David Lawyer
