discuss: Formats
Subject:
Re: Formats
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
1 Mar 2016 06:28:26 +0000
Message-Id: <20160301062931.GA1453@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting David Lawyer ####@####.####
> LDP would simply tell authors to put their name, the date, etc. at the
> start of the doc, or it would be provided by a template (like for emails
> or for the how-to generator that's still on the web). Why would someone
> refuse to do that? It's so easy to do.
Dunno. It was _your_ hypothetical.
My only point is that it was pretty easily fixed by a quick query to the
author, ergo would immediately thereafter lead to a document to which
LDP had no objection on such grounds.
> What about volunteering to do something that has a higher priority than
> some cases of conversion,like seeing if Plone would make a good cms for
> LDP and how to implment it?
I was intending to avoid expressing my personal views about Plone, as I
would rather accentuate the positive. I've had professional experience
with that CMS in the 2000s.
(I can dig up what I said about it, as it was colourful and most people
found it amusing at the time. And also provably true.)
> > So, functionally speaking, I'd suggest that no format is an automatic
> > deal-breaker, and it's not in LDP's interest to so suggest.
>
> It depends on whether or not the doc can be easily converted to html or plain
> text.
I merely addressed what you said, as you stated it. Possibly you didn't
mean to imply it should be a deal-breaker. But great! The matter is
clarified.
In my experience, facts on the ground trump theory. E.g., if someone
submits a doc to LDP he/she wrote in WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux and I
happen to pick it up for review, that would be dumb luck as I happen to
have a working copy of that antique 1990s IA32 program around, and I
would be willing to turn it into something more useful. Some other
reviewer would probably say 'Gosh, can't deal with this. Could you
resubmit in a format from this millennium?' In this sense, discussing
what are the limits of what formats LDP is willing to accept is a
fruitless discussion: LDP will accept what the relevant LDP staff can
and will deal with.
> LDP has priorities.
I have priorities. You have priorities. I'm not sure what the claim
that 'LDP has priorities' even means, let alone what that has to do with
me. (Sometimes when people advise me about what _my_ priorities are, I
recount my story in the Linux User Group HOWTO about my friend and
assistant editor Ed.
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-7.html#ss7.4 )
> If it's going to take any significant amount of time to convert to
> other formats, I think we can only accept it if someone can be found
> to convert it.
Enfin, you are angling towards where I was. Great! Once again, the
matter is clarified.
> We need to have a list of formats that we can convert automatically
> (and perhaps another list of formats we can easily convert but not
> fully automatically).
If you think this is important, you're welcome to create one.
Personally, I'd just write to the author and say 'Gee, I'm not sure I
can handle [foo]. Got anything else?'
