Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 12:53:58 +0200 From: Mikael Karpberg <karpen@ocean.campus.luth.se> To: Steve Roome <steve@sse0691.bri.hp.com> Cc: Rasmus Kaj <kaj@raditex.se>, Jordan Hubbard <jkh@winston.osd.bsdi.com>, peter@sysadmin-inc.com, "'Jason C. Wells'" <jcwells@nwlink.com>, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How To's [about to get flamed] Message-ID: <20001019125358.A79733@ocean.campus.luth.se> In-Reply-To: <20001018162750.H25899@moose.bri.hp.com>; from steve@sse0691.bri.hp.com on Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 04:27:50PM %2B0100 References: <peter@sysadmin-inc.com> <64326.971803991@winston.osd.bsdi.com> <20001018144654.C25899@moose.bri.hp.com> <844s2adxo1.fsf@frodo.sickla.raditex.se> <20001018162750.H25899@moose.bri.hp.com>
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On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 04:27:50PM +0100, Steve Roome wrote: > On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 04:35:58PM +0200, Rasmus Kaj wrote: > > How about this for a suggestion: > > > > We keep working on the documentation as currently, valuing quality > > over quantity. But at the same time, we sound a "call for papers" (to > > use your words), and compile a list of _links_ to such documents on > > the web. We mention (link to) this list in the handbook, but the list > > goes up at the web, not the handbook. > > I think this is a brilliant idea, but that the docs themselves ought > to go to a sort of "scratch" area all on one machine if possible. > > How about docs.freebsd.org if there's available bandwidth/space and > people are okay with it ? Yes, that's an excellent idea, and should provide a good basis for FAQ entries, handbook entries, and howtos. And once a document is up there, others can imprive it and resubmit it. Super! > We all throw things at it, and people can rewrite and submit new > versions and improvements over the web. (I bet there's some really > simple software to do this already - I'll have a look if there's no > proposers!) > > All the hardcore doc folks who are willing and able can convert these > to sgml (and make improvements at the same time perhaps) and we > suddenly have a much large base of folks working on docs and much > more material for people to work with putting stuff into the handbook. > > I agree with you, it has to be easy though! It's real easy, actually. Get someone (who need not be a commiter) to set up a machine (unless FreeBSD Inc. can provide one), and take submissions by email to a special address (submit@docs.freebsd.org ?). This person can then do some real quick editing, or conversion to a few supported formats like html/text/sgml. Most submissions are likely to be just text, so that should basically don't need any fixing... word documents can be written as html or text with Word. Then just add the document under the right category on a simple HTML page. We're not going to get THAT many documents, so doing this shouldn't take any more than an hour per day, max. At least after the intital set up, I mean. Getting the DNS entry to point at a computer used for this should not be a problem either. The problem is just finding the guy who has time (and till continue to have time, quite constantly) and energy to do this. Prolly want a team of two people who can agree on how to do it and how to synchronize it. It shouldn't be much work, as I said, but you need to find someone willing and able to do it. It's the same thing as always... as long as it doesn't bother anyone (ie a commiter who is busy with stuff), you're encouraged to do your part. That part may be answering all those annoying questions and sorting/editing/converting documents for an hour every day. "Someone should" is easy to say... but finding that someone is the problem. /Mikael To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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