discuss: the good the bad and the ugly
Subject:
Re: the good the bad and the ugly
From:
rahul ####@####.####
Date:
20 Nov 2003 18:50:51 -0000
Message-Id: <200311210020.46588.rahulsundaram@yahoo.co.in>
On Thursday 20 November 2003 12:31, David Lawyer wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 11:40:22AM +0530, rahul wrote:
> > On Wednesday 19 November 2003 08:42, Tabatha Marshall wrote:
> > Any outdated docs should be marked as such. any docs having potentially
> > wrong information should be pulled out immediately.
>
> You don't really mean this I hope. It all depends on more than just
> errors. For example, errors in explaining theory may have little
> adverse effect in practical results. But even if there is no wrong
> information but it's very poorly written and the same material is covered
> better elsewhere, then I think it should be pulled (sort of). Before
> doing this, the author needs to be given a chance to fix things.
>
>
if its drastically wrong it should pulled out. the author should definitely be
contacted and informed that he should update his document and he should
participate in the list for discussions.
>
> > Go through every single doc that you can in the ldp and present
> > comments. lets discuss this and make a improvement. In about 2 to 3
> > months(what i have in mind) we should see marked improvements.
>
> You've got to be dreaming. We would need many more volunteers to keep
> this schedule.
yes. i see a good amount of people willing to do stuff. it is a hard time line
but its achievable.
>
> > After clearing all these docs we will have to work on screenings
> > incoming stuff. every doc should go an technical as well as language
> > review. we have reviewers who will take care of the language.
>
> The new stuff is perhaps more important than the old. If the original
> submission is good, updates are likely to be almost as good. Thus I
> think that technical review of new docs is even more important than
> technical review of old docs.
yes. I agree that the new docs are much more easier to work with. The author
would be eager in improving his own docs and the feedback would help do it.
>
> When an author of a good original doc submits an update, one might hope
> that it would of even better quality than the original but
> unfortunately, it's apt to be worse. One reason for declining quality
> of updates is that there's a strong temptation to try to simply
> incorporate new developments within the existing organization and
> framework of a HOWTO, while what's needed is complete reorganization in
> light of new developments.
>
A yearly review as suggested by tabatha so should help improve the situation.
Reworking is even harder that writing it from scratch.
> > Technical reviewing is much more harder because it is likely to
> > diversified. So we will have to rely on public feedback. We need to
> > work on getting more feedback.
>
> The way it should work now is that one just clicks on the author's email
> in the header of the doc. But some authors don't have their email
> there. Many have their email written so that robots can't get it but
> then one has to type it manually to send any email and this may be too
> much bother for some. Some authors may not disclose their emails.
>
> > This is what a content management system or wiki would give us.
>
> A wiki imposes a lot of work for the author. The author must look at
> what someone has changed in a wiki, compare it to the original, and
> perhaps wonder why the reader did what s/he did. An email to the author
> should be better.
>
I suggested wiki and I will stick with it until a better *working* alternative
is proposed. Randy has told us that its only a few hours of work. If doesnt
live up to the expectation of the author he can always ignore it and continue
recieving feedback thru email or whatever. I havent seen arguments as to why
it shouldnt even be setup as an alternative.
maybe we can combine this with bugzilla. lets see
regards
Rahul sundaram
