discuss: status report author checkup
Subject:
Re: status report author checkup
From:
Machtelt Garrels ####@####.####
Date:
10 Aug 2005 08:35:08 -0000
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0508100827460.16704-100000@cobra.xalasys.com>
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On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, David Lawyer wrote:
> Another problem is that many authors don't know if what they wrote is
> out-of-date. Or rather, each has a probability distribution in mind as
> to just how much out-of-date a doc is. I've pointed out before that a
> frequently updated doc may be out-of-date too. Just updating based on
> typos and dead urls, etc. found by a few readers isn't enough to keep
> a doc up-to-date. So one of the reasons for non-response is that the
> author just doesn't know if the doc is out-of-date.
Without looking at each and every HOWTO, I think most authors who replied
had a fair idea about the level of oudatedness of their document. Several
asked for a review to check on that issue. I think that if they did not
reply, it was mostly because the E-mail address was old or because the
mail gets archived in some mailbox that is not frequented all too often.
Replies keep dripping in, so this report is not definite.
> Another problem is authors who have multiple howtos. The email to me
> didn't say which howto it pertained to. Two of my howtos have links to
> a number of other howtos, and these howtos are out-of-date. People
> will click on the links and get stale info, although I've warned them
> in some cases. This is a kind of out-of-dateness.
For this and your remark below, we would need a database and someone who
is more apt to writing scripts than I am. I just made a text file and
copy/pasted the addresses of the authors in my mail program. I have a
couple of other text files for keeping track of the state of a HOWTO, I'm
too stupid to do anything else.
Setting up a database would require cooperation with iBiblio (I'm not fond
of hosting it anywhere else, because of the risk of scattering our info
and becoming dependent on infrastructures that might go down for any
reason, cfr. the author database), a database administrator, probably a
webinterface for input and output, and so on, and it would be months
before any action is taken, if the project does not die a silent death.
> So the survey could have been more complex with more choices, although
> it was pretty good since it allowed people to answer in sentences and
> describe the status of their docs in their own words. I think the
> last time something like this was done, David Merrill did it, and the
> date was about 2000 ?? I think he only emailed in case a doc hadn't
> been updated in a couple of years. So this survey covers more of our
> collection.
One of the most important things, imho, is that the authors get the
feeling that we care, and that the visitors of TLDP and its hundreds of
mirrors see that the project is alive. So we opted for this non-perfect
solution. In the future surveys might become more automated and detailed,
depending on our resources.
Tille.
- --
Machtelt Garrels ####@####.####
Co-editor of LDP Weekly News http://tldp.org/ldpwn/latest.html
My Penguin, my freedom. http://tille.xalasys.com
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