discuss: Proposed new document status designations
Subject:
Proposed new document status designations
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
20 May 2002 05:29:23 -0000
Message-Id: <20020519211612.B1132@lafn.org>
To promote better quality documentation, it's important that the LDP
provide lists of docs where the maintainer (usually the author) wants
out or wants help in maintaining his/her doc. At the same time there
are some other types of lists that are needed: a list of documents that
authors started to write but never finished and a list of docs that are
abandoned but which we can't modify due to the license.
The way to generate these list is with our database (including the
forthcoming lampadas database-plus). Right now each doc in our database
has a status. Most docs are of "active" status meaning that they are on
our site and are being maintained. Then there's the "unmaintained"
status. My proposal eliminates the "unmaintained" status and instead
put the present docs in unmaintained under more specific statuses as
well as creates some new statuses. The statuses I propose are:
abandoned, author-wants-out, want-co-maintainer, wish-list, frozen,
unfinished, rejected, and obsolete. There may be better names for them.
For each status there is a list of documents with that status (which the
database can generate). Then there are the super-lists MAINTAINER WANTED
AUTHOR WANTED, and OTHER. Each super-lists could be on it's own webpage
with links from our homepage. Here's an outline:
I. MAINTAINER WANTED
1. abandoned (but allows modification)
2. author wants out (still maintained but maintainer wants out)
3. want co-maintainer
II. AUTHOR WANTED
1. wish-list
2. frozen (license prohibits modification)
3. unfinished (was once in-progress)
4. rejected (needs rewrite)
III. OBSOLETE
1. obsolete (only one entry)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a lot to discuss about this scheme. Note that I (2. and 3.) are
still being maintained and are thus "active". If a doc may only have
one status, then a new active-AOK status is needed which signifies that
the current maintainer wants to continue maintaining the doc and is not
asking for help or for someone else to take over. If a document is
currently maintained and the maintainer wants out or needs help, the
maintainer may want to check out the qualifications of the new
maintainer before agreeing on this. One way to do this is to check on
the web and see what the candidate maintainer has written or posted.
What I've called "frozen" is a real problem. This is where the license
doesn't permit modification and one can't get permission from the author
to modify (usually because one can't find the author). It needs another
doc written on the same (or related) topic starting afresh. One can't
just copy from the frozen doc or use the same organization. The new
author needs to use other sources as well as a basis for the new doc.
Then copyright law is likely not being violated since facts can't be
copyrighted.
There are a number of cases where people start writing a doc and never
finish it. This is covered by the "unfinished" sub-status. We could
invite all "in-progress" authors that have been at it for over a year to
put their incomplete doc up for others to finish (if they think they
can't finish it). Of course if they've only completed a few percent of
it, it's not of much interest unless it's really excellent in quality.
A note could be attached to each "obsolete" doc explaining why it's
obsolete: Is there a newer (and better) doc on the same subject? Has
the technology become obsolete? Some of these docs might be of interest
to museums that have old computers. The attached note could be written
directly in the doc, set off in such a manner that it doesn't get
confused with the rest of the doc. A copy of this note could be in our
db.
For "obsolete" I think it best to have no substatus. I thought about
the following possible substatuses:
1. replaced (newer doc exists on this topic)
2. historical (hardware/software is obsolete)
3. other
A document that's been replaced often has historical info in it that
isn't in the replacement document. What substatus does it belong in?
In all 3 substatuses shown above? So I concluded that it may be better
not to have any substatus designations for "obsolete". But I've shown
it as only having one substatus for consistency purposes.
David Lawyer
