discuss: Document Lifetimes?
Subject:
Re: Document Lifetimes?
From:
Tabatha Marshall ####@####.####
Date:
11 Nov 2003 05:28:43 -0000
Message-Id: <1068528495.15691.44.camel@mysticchild>
Hi, Charles,
As a matter of fact, that prototype I mentioned is going to incorporate
ratings, and have status fields for the documents in the collection.
One idea we have is that if a document hasn't been updated in X amount
of time, the status gets set to require a review.
If the status field was used, we could have many states for the
document. If it became unmaintained, it could be archived, therefore
out of the main collection. It could have another status to be removed
from distro sets when it's in review status, because of age or
depreciated content.
We used to have a similar ability with our old database. We could set a
status on the document, whether it was being reviewed, new, etc., only
it didn't do anything with the document if it needed attention. This
can go much further, as we could tie in the rating system and document
status to determine which docs are better quality and should be packaged
for distribution or presented on the site.
Again, I apologize for being so vague. Everything that I read here I
share with the developer who's building this little goody, so he
understands what we need, and has a pretty good idea how to make it work
for us. No one is more anxious than I am to see the results!
The system would provide a wealth of reporting on document status and
ratings, virtually any field that's kept track of in the database. The
document is seen as a project, and all the things done to it are given a
status, until completed, and given another status.
Gosh, there's so much to this that I'm having a hard time describing it
without flying off into a million different directions!
But keep the ideas coming - I will be passing all of them on!
Tab
On Mon, 2003-11-10 at 20:59, Charles Curley wrote:
> Folks have been discussing a rating system, which has a number of
> problems. I'd like to propose another way of dealing with obsolete
> documents: all documents should have a pre-set lifetime from the last
> update, and after that they are archived or deprecated.
>
> Murphy knows it isn't perfect. For one thing, the lifetime will be
> rather arbitrary, and some documents will be useless or worse long
> before, others well after. It's easily abused should some bozo want
> to. But it's simple and easy to implement.
>
> I'm not proposing this as a replacement for, but rather a supplement
> to, other document weeding methods.
--
Tabatha Marshall
Web: www.merlinmonroe.com
Linux Documentation Project Review Coordinator (http://www.tldp.org)
Linux Counter Area Manager US:wa (http://counter.li.org)
