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Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:15:04 -0700 (MST)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Joseph a Nagy Jr <jnagyjr1978@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Users Handbook
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On Fri, 16 Nov 2012, Joseph a Nagy Jr wrote:

> I'm tired of getting the third degree on irc because of this even though
> it's not something I have control over.
>
> When I point someone to the User's handbook for using svn[0] instead of
> portsnap, I always seem to receive flack that the handbook points users
> to checkout on the central svn repo. I can see the wisdom in using a
> mirror, but I cannot fix the handbook and am frankly tired of being
> yelled at. Please fix this.
>
> [0]:
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html

You mean this part?

   Check out a copy of the ports tree. Use a specific Subversion mirror
   close to your geographic location instead of svn.FreeBSD.org in the
   command below for better performance. Committers should read the
   Subversion Primer first to be sure the correct protocol is chosen.

   # svn checkout svn://svn.FreeBSD.org/ports/head /usr/ports

The only way to force the user to pick a mirror is to change the example 
so it won't work until they do.  Like this:

   Pick an svn mirror and replace the {svnmirror} string below with the
   URL.

   # svn checkout {svnmirror} /usr/ports

That type of non-working example is confusing.  If we show one of the 
actual mirrors, 99% of users will cut and paste that example and not 
change it.  (Actually, that's an exaggeration.  It's closer to 100%.)

I'd really like to do that better.  Any ideas?