discuss: Review needed of 'Encourage Women in Linux' HOWTO
Subject:
Re: Review needed of 'Encourage Women in Linux' HOWTO
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
7 Dec 2003 06:21:35 -0000
Message-Id: <20031207062058.GB1363@lafn.org>
On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 03:12:37PM +1100, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 06, 2003, rahul wrote:
> > Raymond wrote: Looks like another Al dev episode. Could other
> > reviewers in the list take a look and comment on this. Please contact
> > the author directly and let he/she come up with an explanation too
>
> What do you mean exactly? The phrase "Al Dev" now (unfortunately in my
> opinion) has a number of connotations on this mailing list:
>
> - possible plagiarism
I found an example of it and it was real (not just possible)
> - insufficient research
> - a tendency to push a personal agenda in the HOWTO
> - insufficient reviewing
and gross exaggerations. The ...Women... HOWTO doesn't say
such things like: women are many times better in Linux than men are (as
Al Dev might have said). Al Dev's stuff was far worse than this HOWTO.
In fact, I think the quality of this HOWTO is OK. But the question is
just how far should HOWTOs go beyond the topic of documenting Linux?
The political and social ramifications of Linux are immense, and a lot
has been written about such topics. Should LDP include such material?
But the reasons why there are not more women in Linux are essentially
the same as why there are not more women in computing or engineering.
So this HOWTO's scope is actually much broader than just Linux. For this
reason, I have my doubts as to whether it should be in the collection but
since it's already been accepted, I wouldn't vote for its removal.
The fact that the author is in on this discussion and is willing to
consider changes is also positive.
>
> It's probably worth making specific criticisms at least at the level of
> my points above rather than adopting the term "Al Dev" as a generic LDP
> term of abuse for HOWTOs. It's not very professional, and it isn't even
> useful.
But the decision on removing AlDev's works has set an important
precedent so it's OK to mention his name. But the comparison wasn't
an apt one.
David Lawyer
