From owner-freebsd-hackers  Fri May  3 11:35:16 2002
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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:34:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: "R. David Murray" <bitz@bitdance.com>
To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
Cc: JJ Behrens <jj@nttmcl.com>, Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org>,
	Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net>,
	Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com>,
	Drew Tomlinson <drew@mykitchentable.net>, <bmah@FreeBSD.ORG>,
	<freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re:organic documentation
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On Fri, 3 May 2002, Terry Lambert wrote:
> Aside from the classification problem (everyone has to classify
> the same way for them to be able to get the information out),
> the human factors argue that the depth should not exceed 3 on
> any set of choices, before you get to what you want (HCI studies
> at Bell Labs confirms this number).

Sorry for dropping in to the middle of a conversation, but this
comment puzzles me.  I fail to see how:

  handbook + per-page comments from readers

is *inferior* to:

   handbook with no comments

given that the handbook maintainers do not have infinate time
to polish the handbook, nor infinate knowledge about the
quirks discoverd by the community.

Good comments could be properly classified and incorporated into
the text as the maintainers have time.

On the other hand, I *can* see that it might be a non-trivial
project to integrate the documentation system with a web
comment system such that the two do not interfere with each other.

--RDM


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