From owner-freebsd-newbies Sun Mar 22 13:28:34 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA06441 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Sun, 22 Mar 1998 13:28:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from phoenix.welearn.com.au (suebla.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.44.81]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA06400 for ; Sun, 22 Mar 1998 13:28:27 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sue@phoenix.welearn.com.au) Received: (from sue@localhost) by phoenix.welearn.com.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id IAA01582; Mon, 23 Mar 1998 08:28:02 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: <19980323082759.29465@welearn.com.au> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 08:27:59 +1100 From: Sue Blake To: Joey Garcia Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newbies writing manuals References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.88e In-Reply-To: ; from Joey Garcia on Sun, Mar 22, 1998 at 12:55:20PM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sun, Mar 22, 1998 at 12:55:20PM -0800, Joey Garcia wrote: > Okay, from what I understand is that there are a bunch of newbies wanting > to write manuals. Right? I just want to make sure if it's newbies > wanting to write manuals, or newbies wanting advanced users to write > manuals *for* newbies. Would be ridiculous for a newbie (assuming that > the newbie doesn't know anything) to actually sit down and write a manual > or something. Apparently you're not a newbie. Please don't come into our space and then tell us that what we want to do is ridiculous. Maybe you accidentally chose the wrong word there :-) I know you mean well and the rest of your message is very helpful, but we can't learn unless we are allowed to take some risks and make mistakes. It's good to know what the risks are, sure, but like everyone we value our own ideas. Some of us happen to think that writing our own manuals is a good idea. Later on we can change our mind or we can go ahead and complete it or change it into something else if we feel like it. That's up to us to find out. For the official manuals I agree, a high quality of technical and writing skill is essential. But their purpose is very different! Their purpose is to dish out information; our purpose is to learn by doing. This is the first chance most of us have had to help each other learn without fear of making mistakes or being judged by them. OK, sorry to be heavy but if I don't jump down your throat now others will follow and we'll be spending all our time trying to recover from lack of courage instead of learning :-) > Anyways, I support a project for writing simple manual pages and docs. > Step by Step how-to's are also important. It's not also important for the > advanced users to write simple stuff for newbies, but for corporations as > well. One thing we do need as newbies is manuals that we can rely on as being correct. Even if our systems survive the wrong advice, it's hard to unlearn something and learn it again another way. So I agree, without advanced users writing these things we wouldn't have the guidance we need. Anything that newbies write for newbies will be risky to use unless someone like you volunteers to check it for acuracy *after* it's finished. Then we might have to rewrite the whole thing before it can be used, and get to learn a whole lot more. But maybe we don't care if it's used. Maybe sometimes we do things just for the fun of doing them. And I know you like to have fun as well! :-) If you have any more info I'm sure you have an appreciative audience. Just watch the R word :-) -- Regards, -*Sue*- find / -name "*.conf" |more To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message