why o why

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 11:04 -0500, Eric Rostetter wrote:
> Quoting gaurav <gauravp at hclcomnet.co.in>:
> 
> > Hi List,
> 
> Howdy.  I just recently joined the list, since I'm doing the web/docs
> for the Fedora Legacy Project...
> 
> >             I was wondering why this documentation submition process is
> > overly complex...
> 
> While I agree it is very complex, I also like it.  I think it will produce
> commercial quality docs, if enough people participate.  I think that is
> the goal of it.

Hear, hear, Eric!  I am a big fan of the Red Hat official documentation.
I didn't find it early enough to learn from it when I first got started
with Linux, but later I found that it filled in *a lot* of the holes in
my knowledge of the software.  I began to point new users to it, and
found that often they would drop me a personal email later to tell me
how helpful the docs were -- which was funny because I had no part in
them myself, only enjoyed them as a reader.  My personal goal is that,
in the future, thousands of people will get the same benefits from FDP
documentation.  I want the same high standards of quality for all our
work here, and I have no doubt it will pay off over time.

There are many places on the Web to find answers, but very few, if any,
produce that kind of consistency of quality and comprehensiveness.

> > why don t we we use some wiki like tikiwiki or media
> > wiki (of webopedia fame) to manage documents
> 
> The best use of the wiki is to create the initial docs, which can be
> done with lots of colaboration and community input.  At that point, the
> wiki doc can then be converted to DocBook, checked for accuracy and
> so on, and submitted.  I think this would be the ultimate solution:
> multiple people help create the doc, someone then distills that into
> the proper format, the editors then verify it and make any corrections
> needed, and it is published meeting all the standards.
> 
> > ...why I am required to
> > submit docs in docbook xml format ....and check into cvs ....then built
> > it .....,
> 
> I think that someone is required to do this, not neccessarily you.
> You can always create a doc in some other way, and then find someone
> else to convert it to docbook and put it in cvs.
> 
> > most wiki system have have built in work flow, revision
> > mechanism, doc conversion to pdf and tons of other stuff etc
> > ...........what is the requirement or need for such complexity ...
> 
> That I can't answer.  But, maybe I've suggested a way to work around
> the requirments and still participate?

Others have successfully done the same.  I keep my drafts on my own
server for people to look at and comment on.  I just recently put a
Wikimedia/Wikipedia wiki up and may use that in the future... these are
all good choices.  I think we have only asked people to put something
prominently on each page showing that it's not official documentation
yet.  Dig the archives for more information, or maybe someone here has
the text they used.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
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