Subject:
Re: the good the bad and the ugly
From:
doug jensen ####@####.####
Date:
24 Nov 2003 02:21:43 -0000
Message-Id: <20031124013054.GA2135@ispwest.com>
On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 10:56:06AM -0800, David Lawyer wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 09:47:17AM -0700, doug jensen wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 11:40:22AM +0530, rahul wrote:
> > > So we will have to rely on public feedback. We need to work on getting
> > > more feedback.
> >
> > How about making a symlink for documents at tldp site that are under review.
>
> HTML has links of course but they are not symlinks.
Thanks for pointing that out, I wanted a way to state that it was a link
related to the document, but not the document itself.
> There is so much review work to do that it's important to take shortcuts
> in reviewing, especially for new submissions.
The page requesting a review from the user, would be for older documents
that are already available, so wouldn't apply to new submissions. It's
intended as a quick way to encourage feedback from people reading
documents that haven't been updated for a long time. It would also serve as
a clue to the user that the HOWTO may need changes. The authors probably
aren't responding to feedback, because it is unlikely that the users haven't
made some good suggestions in several years. I believe that it would be
useful to get feedback from users of those HOWTOs, don't you?
> Wouldn't an informative review be longish rather than short?
Here's a review by David Horton that I would consider both very
informative and very short:
Shadow-Password-HOWTO Updated: Apr 1996 Michael H. Jackson,
From: "David Horton" ####@####.####
I tried to use the info in the shadow-howto a while back. It's not
badly written, it's just very out of date. Here's why:
* The version of the shadow suite mentioned in the howto is far behind.
* The links to download locations do not work.
* The howto talks about installing shadow on your distribution. Shadow
is standard on most distros, so this section is not needed.
* The howto also covers patching programs to work with shadow which is
also not needed since shadow is standard on most distros.
The section on adding shadow support to your own programs may still be
useful or maybe not. I am not a programmer so I do not know.
Dave
> The review needs to be sent to the review team rather than discuss. Perhaps
> just to one person who volunteers to handle these.
Tille already pointed out that 'discuss' was wrong. I still feel that
the reviews should go to a list so that everyone will have a chance to
see them (maybe 'feedback'). Yeah, I also don't like putting
punctuation inside the ending parenthesis, (some exceptions) so sue me :).
>
> > On the subject line of
> > your email please put "User Review: <name of document>". Reviews
> > that concentrate on the technical accuracy of the document will be
> > the most useful. The review period for this document will end on
> > << some date >>. Thanks for your help.
> >
> > << link back to real document >>
>
> For existing docs, there is no set review period. For a new doc, it
> needs to be published just as soon as it passes review which also means no
> set review period.
> David Lawyer
Yes, I thought it was obvious that it was a new suggestion, but not
something that needed to be formal. Just some date three weeks of so in
the future, just enough time to hopefully get some feedback.
This is why I think it is important to get rid of the stale docs, if the
authors or someone else can't update them:
Before I first installed GNU/Linux, I did a lot of research to
determine what, when, and where to install. Part of that research
was spent reading the docs at tldp (name changed of coarse). I could
see that some had questionable information, but the wealth of titles
was astounding. I didn't understand all that I was reading, nor did I
have time to read them all, however, I felt when the information was
needed, it would work. As I started to need the HOWTOs, I found out
about the out of date information, and sometimes just wrong
information. With more experience it's easier to spot the bad sfuff,
but back then, it was a lot of wasted effort to find out that things
didn't work that way anymore. Now, tldp is one of the last places I
look for documentation. I would like that to change.
--
Doug Jensen
