Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 16:07:59 +0200 From: Marc Fonvieille <blackend@freebsd.org> To: Ken Smith <kensmith@cse.Buffalo.EDU> Cc: doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Creating an Admin Handbook Message-ID: <20040720140759.GA69951@abigail.blackend.org> In-Reply-To: <20040720124337.GA8096@electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU> References: <20040719100354.GA90972@hub.freebsd.org> <20040720103432.GA64597@clan.nothing-going-on.org> <20040720104501.GB5405@hub.freebsd.org> <20040720124337.GA8096@electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
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On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 08:43:38AM -0400, Ken Smith wrote: > > One last wimper, then I'll shut up - it's really not worth an argument. :-) > > IMHO then you're not really interested in a definition of user vs admin > task (which is fine). You're interested in clumping things more people > are likely to need in the first volume (which is fine). > > I think what we really need to answer is who we expect Joe Average > Handbook Reader to be. If it's a typical-ish home user then your > approach definitely makes sense - clump "the first things that people > need to know" together and this sort of person is by definition both > user and admin so this isn't horrible. If it's a more corporate or > otherwise large-site audience this isn't necessarily the best split. > If I received a box with media and two books in it for a new OS we > were thinking about using I'd grab the admin guide on the way out > the door for the day planning to do a little evening reading and I'd > be annoyed if it didn't include the Install docs. I'd also be scared > that "they" expect normal users to install the OS and applications, > one of my reasons for considering this OS is getting away from an > environment where users can easily dammage the system... :-) > >From some points of view everything could be in admin part and everything (or quite) could be in user part. It's just a problem of vision of things. It's an endless talk. I did not give my opinion about the split, let's fix that :) I don't really like the split idea, why? Well cause of something I'd call "the FAQ syndrome". Our FAQ answers to 90% of questions you can read on -questions, newsgroups, and other mailing lists, but quite no one read it. It'd even be interesting to compare Web trafic for both of Handbook and FAQ. Why FAQ is not really used/read? It's difficult to answer to that question but I assume cause it's less "famous" and cause the human being is lazy, it's an effort to go read the Handbook, so switching to the FAQ is too much :) and since the FAQ is not linked (and not detailled) from the Handbook, people ignore it. It's not wrong to tell that a lot of people ignore the FAQ exists. (I know there is an old project to link/merge the FAQ in a dynamic way with the Handbook) The more you split a document the more you will fell in a such situation. For the moment http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ gives an "overview" of Handbook sections/chapters, if after the split(s) the Handbook keeps a similar ToC it will be fine, otherwise we will loose a part of the Handbook strengths. Well this is "my personal opinion", and of course I see some advantages in the split, it's why I did not say "No" to the split. I say "Ok but be careful" :) Marc
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