[Actionchix] Re: LinuxChix Documentation Project (Was: [Newchix] Perceived Lack Of Intermediate Level Linux Tutorials, Howtos)

[Mary]

[Moving reply to actionchix. People might want to Cc Jenn and Robyn in
because they may not be subscribed.]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2005, Robyn wrote:
> Hi Jenn & Mary
> 
> I've always found the Linux Documentation Project the last place I look.
> Howto's are either terse or too specific to cover other situations and
> there are few examples. Here we could backup someones reading with
> mailing lists. Some of the Guides are better than others. It looks like
> the FAQ's are out of date right now (I saw they are working on this) and
> 'man pages' ick! I haven't looked much at the magazines.
> 
[snip]
> 
> The wiki at Ubuntu used to frighten me off, don't know if it's changed
> lately. I'd really like to see somewhere where we could refer people too
> that they could find stuff and not be scared off, real-basic up to
> intermediate.

I'm wondering what constitutes scaring people off. I have to say, I've
never been the target market for this kind of thing: some people seem to
be scared off by seeing one or two words they don't understand (not just
women either, one of my male colleagues refused to read an intro
document recently because it contained the term "IMAP" which he didn't
understand). I've tended to just Google for things, or file them for
later reference. So that's an honest question.

I'll explain my position on this: I, where possible, much much much
prefer reforming existing projects to founding new ones. The reasons for
this are that:

 1. existing projects have an existing set of contributors. Often in a
    project in need of reform these contributors have become silent and
    non-contributing, but they're there and they are an existing body of
    people who could help

 2. existing projects have 'marketing' already. For example, the LDP
    already has people who package it for the distributions. When people
    are looking for documents to help people out, they look for them
    there. (Probably increasingly less so, I agree they're in need of
    reform.)

 3. existing projects have all their infrastructure ready to go. The LDP
    has a chosen markup language, a version control system, a review
    system and a set of mailing lists.

Given that you find the LDP quite useless, what are your reasons for
wanting a whole new project rather than to help reform the existing one?

> We would all do documentation differently given the chance. I'd like to
> see some user friendly linux documentation. If someone wants to write
> about using Nautilus then go for it and I'd encourage everyone to submit
> their stuff to Authors, Distros etc.

I'm specifically interested in *helping* people do this: ie helping them
find out about markup, determine who the correct people are, editing
their stuff. LinuxChix produces a lot of good material and keeps it
largely in house and until recently out of the reach of Google. Some of
us choose this, but I suspect a lot of people are starting to do it just
because they don't actually really know that there's places outside
LinuxChix that could use their help.

-Mary