Subject:
Re: small demo page
From:
Randy Kramer ####@####.####
Date:
20 Aug 2005 23:08:51 -0000
Message-Id: <200508201911.37237.rhkramer@gmail.com>
On Saturday 20 August 2005 05:48 pm, Yaroslav Fedevych wrote:
> TLDP folks would throw into it those HOWTOs which are really obsolete,
> unmaintained and, well, their authors cannot be reached by any possible
> means.
>
> Then some random people would have the opportunity to throw in some
> paragraphs as they see fit, with no obligations, no hassle. Just in five
> or ten minutes, their changes are there and for everyone to see.
>
> In practice, however, those people are not just random beings. And,
> probably, they have more to say. Eventually, they would form a small
> interests group -- a mini-community. And they would be the ones who take
> over those documents, not by declaring a fresh version in a month (with
> failure to deliver), but by actually making updates and making a howto
> rise from the dead.
Sounds like a good idea to me! jdd are you still interested?
(I'm sure there is a list of at least some of those (almost?) dead HOWTOs, but
I wouldn't immediately know where to find it.)
> Some people, say, wiki admins, would work with those people to get them
> to the regular LDP document maintenance process, wish they switch to it.
> But even if they do not, having them subscribe to this list is a good
> thing.
>
> This is just the case where the bazaar wins over the cathedral. The
> ability to make contributions without the need to have any additional
> approvals attracts the people -- and some of them are actually people
> TLDP needs.
>
> But as for switching other docs to a wiki... Well, you know, why we need
> better things, if the current ones are good enough? And in most cases,
> "good enough" is synonymous to "optimal". A thought well worth
> meditations.
More good thoughts!
An aside: (disclaimer: I'm a wiki advocate) At one time, I tried using
HOWTOs. I've stopped, not because I learned it all, but I learned enough to
meet many of my needs and now usually use other resources to meet my needs.
The time I would have contributed to HOWTOs would have been when I was an
active reader of them. If I had the opportunity, I would have corrected
typos / mispellings / grammar / and unclear wording as I read (to the extent
I'm capable, anyway). When I found things that were unclear and I couldn't
immediately clarify, or things that were incorrect or didn't work for me, I
would have immediately made a note of these ("this doesn't work for me in
Mandrake 10 with ...") and, if I later found the necessary information, it
would have been my intent to go back and fix the document.
What's my point? I think the first time reader of a document is a valuable
resource--we should make it easy for him to provide feedback as she reads.
Randy Kramer
