From owner-freebsd-doc Mon Aug 5 8:41: 6 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 712AC37B400; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 08:41:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from proxy.centtech.com (moat.centtech.com [206.196.95.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B9C0643E5E; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 08:41:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from anderson@centtech.com) Received: from sprint.centtech.com (sprint.centtech.com [10.177.173.31]) by proxy.centtech.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g75Fex906612; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 10:40:59 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by sprint.centtech.com (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) id g75Fexg05811; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 10:40:59 -0500 (CDT) Received: from centtech.com (proton [10.177.173.77]) by sprint.centtech.com (8.11.6+Sun/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g75Feuo05804; Mon, 5 Aug 2002 10:40:56 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <3D4E9C88.7040308@centtech.com> Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 10:40:56 -0500 From: Eric Anderson Reply-To: anderson@centtech.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i386; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020508 Netscape6/6.2.3 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ross Lippert Cc: blackend@freebsd.org, cjuniet@entreview.com, freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: docs/41106: FreeBSD Handbook lacks "Desktop Applications" chapter. References: <200208051455.HAA18220@eskimo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS perl-11 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Great points! I totally agree. Instead of having everyone scripting their own html on pages randomly across the net, why don't we do something like this: Make a website with a "db" backend (no SQL of course, just plain and simple) for the "Port Mongers" or whatever to go to, fill in their information about a particular port, their experience, love, etc. They submit it, and a small number of people "moderate" it - now don't get excited about that word. What I mean by that is, basically read it and check for things like typos, spelling, simple grammer mistakes, etc, prior to "committing" it - something similar to the FreeBSD committers system already tried and tested. Then, all ports info will be in one place, with a common look/feel, and can be updated by the originator if need be. How does that sound? If it sounds like the right path, I can whip this up and get us started. Eric Ross Lippert wrote: [..snip..] > I'm more a fan of diaries, where someone says "I did something neat, > here is what it looks like, here's howto", and perhaps someone writes > back and says "here's a neater way to do it". I'm not envisioning a > diary here, but I am thinking about something which is unashamedly > personally biased. > > It is important to maintain some standards, maybe docproj styles > articles. You must not just love the app but love writing good > documentation and have a willingness to maintain what you write and > maybe combine it with other stuff. > > There was some discussion about a "multimedia" chapter which I started > writing a few months ago (recall my mplayer example). Feedback I got from > it indicated that if one starts off with a "multimedia" type chapter, then > one is basically talking about ports and how to use them, and where and > how that belongs in the handbook is controversial. Probably right. But > I still can't help the urge to want to trumpet this and other video apps > I came to enjoy. > > Since we are proposing an experiment, and since the contents will be > biased (in either review or testimonial form), perhaps we should start > by putting up little articles on our own homepages, and convincing > others on doc to do so, make september the "write about your fav app > month". We can submit URLs to be linked to from FreeBSD.org, and if > it takes off and we end up with an explosion of articles (say by > January or else assume we failed), we move to phase II, which > necessarily involves more indexing and organization, perhaps more > automated feedback to authors. If momentum keeps up, I don't see why > it could not be made part of freebsd.org or the /usr/doc as long as a > big fat disclaimer for bias is present. Not to mention that if this > experiment ever becomes "official" we can ask people involved in projects > or port-maintainers if they wouldn't mind jotting down some power-user > notes on their apps. > > How does that sound to you? > > Oh another source for "good ports" info: > I think bsdtoday.org has some howto's on it for things like VMWare and > stuff, but I'm sure it is just an archive with no one maintaining it > -- yet it remains my first resource for setting up VMWare, I know no > other. There should be another. > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Anderson Systems Administrator Centaur Technology For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small stain. ------------------------------------------------------------------ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message