Mission statement questions

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 01:51:20PM +1000, Chris Curran wrote:
> On 02/05/2010 12:03 PM, Ruediger Landmann wrote:
> > On 02/04/2010 11:52 AM, Karsten Wade wrote:
> >    
> >>     Revised final proposal
> >>
> >>     The mission of the Fedora Documentation Project is to provide
> >>     documentation to users and contributors to improve the overall usage
> >>     and experience of Fedora. We do that by overseeing
> >>     community-maintained content, explaining the usage of certain pieces
> >>     of software or systems, and documenting technology recommendations
> >>     and for special events (releases, etc). In pursuit of this work, the
> >>     Docs Project creates and works with 100% free/libre and open source
> >>     software, content, tools, and processes to create a reusable
> >>     documentation system that is buildable from source by anyone and
> >>     free forever.
> >>
> >> Any final thoughts here on list?
> >>
> >>      
> > One of my colleagues here in ECS, Brian Forté suggested that this could
> > be streamlined a little. With his permission, this is his pared-down
> > version:
> >
> > Fedora is the leading community-oriented, GPL-centric Linux-based
> > distribution consisting of a complete operating system and related
> > utility, recreational and productivity software. The Fedora
> > Documentation Project co-ordinates and, in large part, writes the Fedora
> > documentation.
> >
> >
> > This "cuts to the chase"; do we lose anything important?
> >    
> +1 for succinctness.

I like succinctness too, but we don't need another location with an
explanation of the Fedora distribution.  Also this statement doesn't
capture work done in wiki gardening, editing website narrative,
enhancing the text used in code projects, and creating freed tools.

If succinctness is key, maybe the mission and the methodology should
just be separated:

'''
MISSION: The Fedora Documentation Project creates, maintains, and
coordinates the documentation for the Fedora distribution and the
overall Fedora Project.

METHODS: To reach this goal, the Docs Project:
* oversees community-maintained content
* etc.
* etc.
'''

Note that the last couple words of the mission statement capture work
like wiki gardening, helping code authors choose better text, fixing
website instructions, and so forth.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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