Subject:
Re: Dealing with poor maintenance by maintainers
From:
David Merrill ####@####.####
Date:
13 May 2002 16:43:14 -0000
Message-Id: <20020513173429.GD3264@lupercalia.net>
On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 12:07:03PM -0400, Greg Ferguson wrote:
> On May 13, 11:57am, David Merrill wrote:
> > Subject: Re: Dealing with poor maintenance by maintainers
> > On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 04:01:31PM +0200, jdd wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > Lampadas!
> >
> >
> > Bet you are *all* getting tired of hearing that. It dices! it slices!
> > I folds your laundry! hehe.
> >
> > But seriously, one of Lampadas' core goals is to do exactly what you
> > describe, and in fact to help solve this whole entire problem. Rate
> > documents, so we know where to focus our efforts. Get feedback from
> > users, right where it needs to be so we *and* the author can see what
> > needs to be done. And, for docs not "maintained" (or maintained, but
> > where the author gives the go-ahead), we can have authors-at-large who
> > go around doing those tweaks on them, as the suggestions, bug reports
> > and such come in from readers.
>
> So this system will eventually replace the current web site (tldp.org)
> and all mirrors? That will be the only way to effectively garner any
> and all reader feedback. Forcing the user to go to another system or
> website to provide comments and rate documents will not work.
Tough one. In some ways I would like to see that happen, but I don't
see it really as replacing the current site, but rather as
complementing it. Or I guess it is replacing it, but with similar
content, static pages, just like we have now but being generated by
Lampadas as needed (save a doc, update it's html pages). Plus the
dynamic portions of the site which are all new and Lampadas, proper.
On a mirror site, clicking those "annotate" buttons or whatever would
send you to the main Lampadas site to do the work. An html form would
be a static page on the mirror. Clicking Save would post to Lampadas,
then redirect back to the static mirror, using referer.
"Forcing the user to go to another system" really is just having a
link in the doc that goes to the other site. It isn't a huge deal, I
don't think. Not if done right.
Of course the xsl used for those pages would be an extension of the
static xsl stuff used for pages on CD and so on. So publishers of the
LDP have their choice of format, and can continue with pretty much
what we provide now if they really want to. I do not (as always) want
to force something like that on users, but rather make it available
and so damned good they will clamor for it and so it will win by
Natural Selection as it were.
I've not thought this through deeply yet. Please point out hidden
dangers, I am sure there are many.
Just thought of one, in fact. I had planned to have different
capabilities available based on whether you're registered. Can't do
that on static pages. So maybe the mirrors just get minimal
capabilities. You're never "logged on". I think we can live with that.
Or a mirror could opt for straight static pages. Again, I don't think
they will want to given the benefit of the Lampadas approach.
Not a lot of traffic goes through *my* mirror, and if the others are
similar, they don't save us a hell of a lot of traffic anyway. We need
numbers here, though, not gut feelings.
--
David C. Merrill http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project ####@####.####
Lead Developer http://www.tldp.org
There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one
in which you discover your father is a man -- with human flesh.
-- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
