From samavedam.vijay at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 17:11:21 2007 From: samavedam.vijay at gmail.com (samavedam vijay) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 10:11:21 -0700 Subject: For, samavedam vijay wants to chat Message-ID: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> I've been using Google Talk and thought you might like to try it out. We can use it to call each other for free over the internet. Here's an invitation to download Google Talk. Give it a try! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- samavedam vijay wants to stay in better touch using some of Google's coolest new products. If you already have Gmail or Google Talk, visit: http://mail.google.com/mail/b-ff91c683e4-57459c782c-49d78faa8f9e8273 You'll need to click this link to be able to chat with samavedam vijay. To get Gmail - a free email account from Google with over 2,800 megabytes of storage - and chat with samavedam vijay, visit: http://mail.google.com/mail/a-ff91c683e4-57459c782c-fbc7cad7b9 Gmail offers: - Instant messaging right inside Gmail - Powerful spam protection - Built-in search for finding your messages and a helpful way of organizing emails into "conversations" - No pop-up ads or untargeted banners - just text ads and related information that are relevant to the content of your messages All this, and its yours for free. But wait, there's more! By opening a Gmail account, you also get access to Google Talk, Google's instant messaging service: http://www.google.com/talk/ Google Talk offers: - Web-based chat that you can use anywhere, without a download - A contact list that's synchronized with your Gmail account - Free, high quality PC-to-PC voice calls when you download the Google Talk client Gmail and Google Talk are still in beta. We're working hard to add new features and make improvements, so we might also ask for your comments and suggestions periodically. We appreciate your help in making our products even better! Thanks, The Google Team To learn more about Gmail and Google Talk, visit: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html http://www.google.com/talk/about.html (If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them into the address bar of your browser). From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Aug 1 17:57:06 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:27:06 +0530 Subject: vFUDcon ideas In-Reply-To: <1185915174.3521.190.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1185899937.3521.101.camel@erato.phig.org> <46AF805B.9050107@fedoraproject.org> <1185907250.3610.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1185915174.3521.190.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <46B0C972.80203@fedoraproject.org> Karsten Wade wrote: This way we could have a very simplified > XML to work with for a transcriber, and have it generate a sane POT > file. But let's see if the transcribers appear first, okay? I am interested in doing that. Make sure you host the audio publicly in the right places and I will look into it. Rahul From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Aug 1 18:00:47 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:30:47 +0530 Subject: Getting Things Done Message-ID: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> Hi I see a large number of mails here about meetings, processes and tools but the primary output of the documentation team that is useful for end users is good quality content that they can refer to but there doesn't seem to enough interest or progress being made. If the number of meetings and steering committee members are more than the number of active documentation we maintain, I would say the priorities are wrong. Did folks notice that or agree with me? Rahul From draciron at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 21:23:33 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:23:33 -0500 Subject: For, samavedam vijay wants to chat In-Reply-To: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Speaking of which, according to Google's docs your supposed to be able to use any Jabber client. I haven't tried yet. Anybody have any luck with Linux clients on Google talk? Rather ironic that only windoze clients are supported to talk to Linux servers :) On 8/1/07, samavedam vijay wrote: > > I've been using Google Talk and thought you might like to try it out. > We can use it to call each other for free over the internet. Here's an > invitation to download Google Talk. Give it a try! > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > samavedam vijay wants to stay in better touch using some of Google's > coolest new > products. > > If you already have Gmail or Google Talk, visit: > http://mail.google.com/mail/b-ff91c683e4-57459c782c-49d78faa8f9e8273 > You'll need to click this link to be able to chat with samavedam vijay. > > To get Gmail - a free email account from Google with over 2,800 megabytes > of > storage - and chat with samavedam vijay, visit: > http://mail.google.com/mail/a-ff91c683e4-57459c782c-fbc7cad7b9 > > Gmail offers: > - Instant messaging right inside Gmail > - Powerful spam protection > - Built-in search for finding your messages and a helpful way of > organizing > emails into "conversations" > - No pop-up ads or untargeted banners - just text ads and related > information > that are relevant to the content of your messages > > All this, and its yours for free. But wait, there's more! By opening a > Gmail > account, you also get access to Google Talk, Google's instant messaging > service: > > http://www.google.com/talk/ > > Google Talk offers: > - Web-based chat that you can use anywhere, without a download > - A contact list that's synchronized with your Gmail account > - Free, high quality PC-to-PC voice calls when you download the Google > Talk > client > > Gmail and Google Talk are still in beta. We're working hard to add new > features > and make improvements, so we might also ask for your comments and > suggestions > periodically. We appreciate your help in making our products even better! > > Thanks, > The Google Team > > To learn more about Gmail and Google Talk, visit: > http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about.html > http://www.google.com/talk/about.html > > (If clicking the URLs in this message does not work, copy and paste them > into > the address bar of your browser). > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bicycle.nutz at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 21:55:32 2007 From: bicycle.nutz at gmail.com (Craig Thomas) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 17:55:32 -0400 Subject: For, samavedam vijay wants to chat In-Reply-To: References: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 8/1/07, Dan Smith wrote: > > Speaking of which, according to Google's docs your supposed to be able to > use any Jabber client. I haven't tried yet. Anybody have any luck with Linux > clients on Google talk? Rather ironic that only windoze clients are > supported to talk to Linux servers :) Eh? http://www.google.com/talk/otherclients.html I use Pidgin just fine. -- Craig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stickster at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 22:13:23 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:13:23 -0400 Subject: For, samavedam vijay wants to chat In-Reply-To: References: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1186006403.9288.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 17:55 -0400, Craig Thomas wrote: > On 8/1/07, Dan Smith wrote: > Speaking of which, according to Google's docs your supposed to > be able to use any Jabber client. I haven't tried yet. Anybody > have any luck with Linux clients on Google talk? Rather > ironic that only windoze clients are supported to talk to > Linux servers :) > > Eh? > > http://www.google.com/talk/otherclients.html > > I use Pidgin just fine. Glad people want to talk about collaborating using these tools. If it doesn't have to do with Fedora documentation, though, let's move this subject over to fedora-list. Thanks! -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From draciron at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 22:40:08 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 17:40:08 -0500 Subject: For, samavedam vijay wants to chat In-Reply-To: <1186006403.9288.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> <1186006403.9288.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: Thanks.. The default pigin doesn't work but Google had the answer. http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=24073 The server field is in the advanced tab. If you have gmail throw in gmail.com as the server and all works well. Seems happy, though I need to actually talk to somebody to make sure it's working ;) Will have to join the fedora-list. Not currently on that one. Sorry about the OT though it would be nice to have an IM doc covering pigin, Kapote, aMSN and such and I can't resist asking what happened to gaim? Liked gaim but can't even find it's project page any more. Pidgin is close to gaim but deffinitely not the same software. I was able to recieve files for example with Gaim in Yahoo IM. On 8/1/07, Paul W. Frields wrote: > > On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 17:55 -0400, Craig Thomas wrote: > > On 8/1/07, Dan Smith wrote: > > Speaking of which, according to Google's docs your supposed to > > be able to use any Jabber client. I haven't tried yet. Anybody > > have any luck with Linux clients on Google talk? Rather > > ironic that only windoze clients are supported to talk to > > Linux servers :) > > > > Eh? > > > > http://www.google.com/talk/otherclients.html > > > > I use Pidgin just fine. > > Glad people want to talk about collaborating using these tools. If it > doesn't have to do with Fedora documentation, though, let's move this > subject over to fedora-list. Thanks! > > -- > Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ > gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 > Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields > irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Aug 1 22:49:35 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:19:35 +0530 Subject: For, samavedam vijay wants to chat In-Reply-To: References: <26c6e1310708011011w26e2e71eu@mail.gmail.com> <1186006403.9288.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <46B10DFF.7070704@fedoraproject.org> Dan Smith wrote: > > Will have to join the fedora-list. Not currently on that one. Sorry > about the OT though it would be nice to have an IM doc covering pigin, So write one... > Kapote, aMSN and such and I can't resist asking what happened to gaim? > Liked gaim but can't even find it's project page any more. Pidgin is > close to gaim but deffinitely not the same software. I was able to > recieve files for example with Gaim in Yahoo IM. Pidgin is Gaim renamed for trademark reasons. See my note on http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f7/en_US/sn-PackageNotes.html#sn-pidgin Rahul From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 2 00:15:12 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:15:12 -0700 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 23:30 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Hi > > I see a large number of mails here about meetings, processes and tools > but the primary output of the documentation team that is useful for end > users is good quality content that they can refer to but there doesn't > seem to enough interest or progress being made. If the number of > meetings and steering committee members are more than the number of > active documentation we maintain, I would say the priorities are wrong. > > Did folks notice that or agree with me? I notice it and don't agree with you. Rahul, don't make me waste time explaining why making an open source project have a good infrastructure is necessary. One word explains it -- leverage. When people are enabled to contribute with enough tools and processes, the toolers and process writers and leaders have multiplied their own efforts exponentially. The other alternative is to give up all that good work and just spend our time writing something, where we are multiplying our efforts by a whopping "one." Also, do you think you should dictate what people spend their time on? If someone wants to work on tools instead of content, who cares? Who are you to try to make people feel bad for working on what they are interested in? I agree we have a huge lack of active writing contributors. I don't know why, but I presume thinks like requiring the GPG-signed CLA for the Wiki are a part of it -- since that is the only difference between this open documentation community and most others. So, I've done all the work to fix that, we're just waiting for Moin 1.6 to drop. Another is a very noticeable lack of content from Red Hat when we got started; quite different from the rest of Fedora, who had an entire distro to start with. Heck, even Infrastructure had more hardware to start than Docs had content. Every other team, from Art to Engineering, has had a paid person supporting the project, and therefore some kind of budget. Everything we have done in Docs has been boot-strapped. But ultimately, in the last three years, we have: * Opened the CVS wide open * Taught Wiki and XML fundamentals * Taught writing and editing fundamentals * Produced the best release notes * Written and maintain solid installation content * Responded to all content ideas and edit requests to the best of our collective ability * Done all we can to lower the barriers to entry so we are almost the easiest project to get involved in * All with a team of writers, editors, and techies that (at most time) could be counted on two hands - And often those were the same people you are berating for spending too much time dealing with "meetings, processes and tools". So, if all of that and opening the Wiki (so it is a larger body doing community documentation) and adding Plone (so more than three people can actual publish content on docs.fedoraproject.org) aren't enough, then I guess I've failed. Good thing I've already said I won't stand for leader re-election, since I guess by your account I don't deserve it. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Aug 2 00:37:31 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:07:31 +0530 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> Karsten Wade wrote: > > I notice it and don't agree with you. > > Rahul, don't make me waste time explaining why making an open source > project have a good infrastructure is necessary. One word explains it > -- leverage. Steering committee or elections for who would be in the steering committee is overhead. In a large team it might yield some visible benefits but it seems that kind of overhead is unnecessary for a small team. I mean, if everybody who is really part of the documentation team is part of the steering committee who are you steering? Infrastructure improvements is all well and good and I have suggested several myself including atleast one of what is part of the current Google SoC work now so I do understand the value of that. > > Also, do you think you should dictate what people spend their time on? > If someone wants to work on tools instead of content, who cares? Who > are you to try to make people feel bad for working on what they are > interested in? I am not dictating anything to anyone and I of course have zero control on what people do so that's not the point but it is important to take a step back and look at what we have accomplished that matters directly for end users. I will say the only things that has mattered is 1) Installation guide 2) Release notes > Another is a very noticeable lack of content from Red Hat when we got > started; quite different from the rest of Fedora, who had an entire > distro to start with. Heck, even Infrastructure had more hardware to > start than Docs had content. Every other team, from Art to Engineering, > has had a paid person supporting the project, and therefore some kind of > budget. Everything we have done in Docs has been boot-strapped. I have been through that flamewars and got that point through to everyone I could possible but you know what? It's high time we moved on. > - And often those were the same people you are berating for spending > too much time dealing with "meetings, processes and tools". That is indeed my point. If we focus more on end user documentation could the same people have accomplished more instead of say dealing with the election? Could the irc meetings be say monthly and more discussions happen on list. Just maybe something to think about. Everyone who is active is doing a good job. No doubt about that. The question is only on whether we are having the right priorities here. My suggestions are going to be simple 1) Dissolve the steering committee and associated elections etc 2) Try and reduce the barriers to the team itself so that we can spend more time producing solid documentation for end users instead of dealing with overhead. Rahul From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 02:13:28 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:13:28 -0400 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1186020808.9288.88.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 06:07 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Karsten Wade wrote: > > > > > I notice it and don't agree with you. > > > > Rahul, don't make me waste time explaining why making an open source > > project have a good infrastructure is necessary. One word explains it > > -- leverage. > > Steering committee or elections for who would be in the steering > committee is overhead. In a large team it might yield some visible > benefits but it seems that kind of overhead is unnecessary for a small > team. I mean, if everybody who is really part of the documentation team > is part of the steering committee who are you steering? You are implying that we give out FDSCo membership as a prize for people who do something, which could not be further from the truth. All the folks who stood up for elections did so because they wanted to help encourage contributions and to build ways for people to do it more easily. If contributors want to form teams around specific work -- as a few have done in the past, and which strategy works very well as a rule -- having sufficient FDSCo resources to track those teams is important. Karsten wisely decided to err on the side of having too many chiefs in case some of our recruitment efforts paid off. It's unfortunate that didn't happen, but seeing as how no one here is getting extra pay, there's nothing gained or lost by keeping that particular wheel turning. > Infrastructure improvements is all well and good and I have suggested > several myself including atleast one of what is part of the current > Google SoC work now so I do understand the value of that. The value of infrastructure is not just "well and good" -- if anything, it's greater than simply writing user docs. I work on the user docs because I want to make sure people get at least some minimal assistance when they start a task. I work on the tools to make sure that when someone follows one of the innumerable links to join Fedora, there are actually ways for them to do that easily. > > Also, do you think you should dictate what people spend their time on? > > If someone wants to work on tools instead of content, who cares? Who > > are you to try to make people feel bad for working on what they are > > interested in? > > I am not dictating anything to anyone and I of course have zero control > on what people do so that's not the point but it is important to take a > step back and look at what we have accomplished that matters directly > for end users. I will say the only things that has mattered is > > 1) Installation guide > 2) Release notes I disagree that these are all that has mattered, since we have (or have had) a few contributors working on a number of other documents such as the Users Guide, a Kernel Building Guide, and others.[1] With the progress toward a portable live distro (i.e. boot device + user storage), the Installation Guide may actually end up being LESS useful over time rather than more so. Nevertheless, I would welcome contributors helping to improve and maintain it. I've offered countless times to tutor people (as necessary) in doing so. > > Another is a very noticeable lack of content from Red Hat when we got > > started; quite different from the rest of Fedora, who had an entire > > distro to start with. Heck, even Infrastructure had more hardware to > > start than Docs had content. Every other team, from Art to Engineering, > > has had a paid person supporting the project, and therefore some kind of > > budget. Everything we have done in Docs has been boot-strapped. > > I have been through that flamewars and got that point through to > everyone I could possible but you know what? It's high time we moved on. Karsten's not making excuses, he's pointing out, as a direct counterargument to you saying we're not getting enough done, that everything we've done, we've built from scratch. One more time, since it was snipped out, let me refer back to your words: "...[T]here doesn't seem to enough interest or progress being made." I'll be happy to put our work here up next to any other subproject as being at least as productive per capita. Karsten laid out a very brief list of the progress we've made. > > - And often those were the same people you are berating for spending > > too much time dealing with "meetings, processes and tools". > > That is indeed my point. If we focus more on end user documentation > could the same people have accomplished more instead of say dealing with > the election? Could the irc meetings be say monthly and more discussions > happen on list. Just maybe something to think about. If your problem is merely that we're having elections, let me assure you that we spent very little time on that particular issue. If you measure the coverage based on FDSCo minutes, list traffic, and IRC logs, you'll find that to be the case. I'm sure we took a few minutes of Toshio's time to enter some data for the elections -- not to minimize at all his assistance, for which we are, of course, grateful -- but it wasn't much in the grand (or even daily) scheme, frankly, since the app was already built. I would refer you to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DefiningProjects which requires that projects have a governance model. Although the specification does not require {s,}elections, the idea of elections was discussed many times over the last few years and the FDP community (not just two or three of us) agreed it was the way to go. Number of members in FDSCo are not a reflection on, nor a result of, how much work is or isn't getting done. I think our committee situation can easily be compared to FESCo + Packaging, for instance, where there is a very large total committee membership, and all of the people involved there are up to their elbows in the real work too. The fact that the most active FDP'ers are also interested in running for FDSCo should come as no surprise, although threads like this make it somewhat more difficult to remember why. The one point of agreement I have with you here is to do more on-list. That's why I've made that point (and not by myself) repeatedly in meetings and on IRC, and asked people to move discussions here. I'll say it again: USE THE LIST! (Er, on-topic, please.) > Everyone who is active is doing a good job. No doubt about that. Golly, thanks, but then why the "there doesn't seem to enough interest or progress being made" comment? You can't drop bombs like that, Rahul, and not expect to ruffle feathers among those who are shouldering a lot of work. And since I split my time fairly evenly between tools work and end-user docs work -- including both the docs you mentioned, the IG and the RelNotes -- I feel perfectly justified raising my hackles a bit. > The question is only on whether we are having the right priorities here. My > suggestions are going to be simple > 1) Dissolve the steering committee and associated elections etc > > 2) Try and reduce the barriers to the team itself so that we can spend > more time producing solid documentation for end users instead of dealing > with overhead. With this sort of thinking on the development side, we wouldn't have a Fedora platform that anyone could custom-build to their liking. Furthermore, it seems like you have a very skewed idea of what our "overhead" is. I haven't heard anyone complain about lost time in a FDSCo meeting yet, but we have the ability to self-modulate if that occurs, just as we have in the past. There is no barrier to team membership beyond what is required for overall Fedora Project membership -- you introduce yourself, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. That's all we ask. You only have to be able to write passably in a chosen language to work here. If that language isn't English, you may need to scare up a translator so the monoglots among us can be of more assistance. We offer to help with everything else, and can teach many skills, including better writing, if and as the contributor desires. Our priorities are to create not just documentation but also a toolchain that allows any free community using Fedora (or other platforms with some common tools, for that matter) to build documentation, in the same way that the developers are providing a platform for people to build functional code. Our mission statement says exactly as much.[2] You are simply beating the wrong bushes here. We have dedicated time in the past to making one-on-one contact with big rosters of community members who had introduced themselves and then immediately gone quiet, in the hopes that they would be convinced to help out with small tasks. The returns from even this personal outreach initiative were quite meager -- although a few of those who responded have stuck with us, for which we are grateful and continue to work with them and be responsive to their contributions. Instead of trying to reset our priorities, why not spend that energy finding volunteers? Technical skill is not as important as writing skill; we can teach the former much easier than the latter, and in so doing, find additional ways to improve our Documentation Guide[3] -- oh wait, did I mention I've been doing quite a bit of work on that too? -- so that other contributors can learn how to participate more easily. * * * [1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject [3] http://docs.fedoraproject.org/documentation-guide/ -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Aug 2 02:27:15 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:57:15 +0530 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <1186020808.9288.88.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> <1186020808.9288.88.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <46B14103.30703@fedoraproject.org> Paul W. Frields wrote: > You are implying that we give out FDSCo membership as a prize for people > who do something, which could not be further from the truth. What I am saying is that a steering committee only makes sense to me when there is a large team of members participating which is not the case here similar to art team and not like packaging. When you are small team, being loosely organized is a plus. >> Everyone who is active is doing a good job. No doubt about that. > > Golly, thanks, but then why the "there doesn't seem to enough interest > or progress being made" comment? You can't drop bombs like that, Rahul, > and not expect to ruffle feathers among those who are shouldering a lot > of work. It is the same people doing the work all the time and enough interest should be from *other people*. That is progress to me. Anyway if people are happy with they have and think it isn't a problem of additional overhead, then continue right ahead and I will drop this off. Rahul From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 2 05:31:56 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:31:56 -0700 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1186032716.27970.53.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 06:07 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Karsten Wade wrote: > > > > > I notice it and don't agree with you. > > > > Rahul, don't make me waste time explaining why making an open source > > project have a good infrastructure is necessary. One word explains it > > -- leverage. > > Steering committee or elections for who would be in the steering > committee is overhead. In a large team it might yield some visible > benefits but it seems that kind of overhead is unnecessary for a small > team. I mean, if everybody who is really part of the documentation team > is part of the steering committee who are you steering? I think Paul responded to this bit just fine, so I'll leave it at that. > Infrastructure improvements is all well and good and I have suggested > several myself including atleast one of what is part of the current > Google SoC work now so I do understand the value of that. > > > > Also, do you think you should dictate what people spend their time on? > > If someone wants to work on tools instead of content, who cares? Who > > are you to try to make people feel bad for working on what they are > > interested in? > > I am not dictating anything to anyone and I of course have zero control > on what people do so that's not the point but it is important to take a > step back and look at what we have accomplished that matters directly > for end users. I will say the only things that has mattered is > > 1) Installation guide > 2) Release notes First, where is it written that value in Fedora is only measured in benefit to end-users? Second, what do you define as end-users? How about those hobbyists? I'm 100% certain there are people using our toolchain as *downstream* consumers of the benefit of a solid, easy-to-use DocBook XML chain. We care enough about them to identify them as end-users in the Docs Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ "The Fedora Documentation Project ("Docs Project") provides 100% free/libre open content, services, and tools for documentation." If you remind me in a few weeks, I'll be glad to write up a, "What Docs has done for Fedora" page. We give benefit to end-users of all sorts, in all sorts of ways, and have since FC1. /me wonders why the SELinux FAQ didn't make it into Rahul's list of useful stuff. ;-P > > Another is a very noticeable lack of content from Red Hat when we got > > started; quite different from the rest of Fedora, who had an entire > > distro to start with. Heck, even Infrastructure had more hardware to > > start than Docs had content. Every other team, from Art to Engineering, > > has had a paid person supporting the project, and therefore some kind of > > budget. Everything we have done in Docs has been boot-strapped. > > I have been through that flamewars and got that point through to > everyone I could possible but you know what? It's high time we moved on. Goodness, Rahul, in all the email you have ever read from me, how much time do I spend whining? The reason I make that point is, "zero" to "where we are now" is not nearly as bad a picture as the way you paint it: "There doesn't seem to enough interest or progress being made." Oh, uh, thanks? > > - And often those were the same people you are berating for spending > > too much time dealing with "meetings, processes and tools". > > That is indeed my point. If we focus more on end user documentation > could the same people have accomplished more instead of say dealing with > the election? Could the irc meetings be say monthly and more discussions > happen on list. Just maybe something to think about. If you have some good suggestions about how to simplify the lives of contributors to this project, by all means make them. There isn't anything I can read in your original email that gave me an idea you were bringing solutions to the table. It read to me as flamebait disguised as a mini-rant. And it worked, because here I am explaining obvious stuff to you instead of doing something *meaningful*. > Everyone who is active is doing a good job. No doubt about that. The > question is only on whether we are having the right priorities here. My > suggestions are going to be simple > > 1) Dissolve the steering committee and associated elections etc > > 2) Try and reduce the barriers to the team itself so that we can spend > more time producing solid documentation for end users instead of dealing > with overhead. Did you catch the last meeting minutes where I brought up the same points? Was that what sparked this discussion for you? http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minutes/IRCLog20070731#t09:19 So, yes, I've been wondering similar things. But the standing governing body reached a consensus to proceed as planned with elections and keep discussing over the next year. Year. Not, "discuss over the next week." If you want to kick up shit over that decision, fine, but be aware YOU ARE CAUSING MORE WORK AND STRESS. Above you profess an interest in helping the overworked, if I read you correctly. I request you follow Paul's suggestion and do more recruiting. I can't imagine how it would help a recruiting effort to say, "Look, they just dissolved their steering committee and now they just Do Stuff as an autonomous worker collective. Sound like where you can fit in?" We supposedly already scare people with all our "barriers" and "tools" and "processes", do you really think new contributors are going to be comfortable with "anarchy"? - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 2 05:34:53 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:34:53 -0700 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <46B14103.30703@fedoraproject.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> <1186020808.9288.88.camel@localhost.localdomain> <46B14103.30703@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1186032893.27970.57.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 07:57 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Paul W. Frields wrote: > > > You are implying that we give out FDSCo membership as a prize for people > > who do something, which could not be further from the truth. > > What I am saying is that a steering committee only makes sense to me > when there is a large team of members participating which is not the > case here similar to art team and not like packaging. When you are small > team, being loosely organized is a plus. We aren't a small team, really. F7 probably saw participation from 45 people in producing content included in the distro. I include l10n for more reasons than just because you dismiss tools as not being of value to Fedora end-users. I notice that the number of translations has *increased* release after release, and this is a direct result of tools and processes and leadership. How can you dismiss that so casually? As we now know, content creation and translation are intimately connected projects. We need strong leadership in both areas to ensure success. Loosely organized quickly becomes, "I don't know who to talk to about X." Art Team is a difficult analogy to the Docs Project. For a while, we had someone who was paid by Red Hat to lead that effort. This is part of why Mike can run a different organization, he's the guy who is in charge because Red Hat pays him to be in charge. No one has ever been paid to work on Fedora content, beyond the stuff Tammy did at the beginning, and the early FC release notes Ed worked on. Mainly, no one has been paid to lead. Seeing the writing on the wall (so to speak), I decided for the betterment of the project *and* myself to set the goal to grow enough leaders in this project so that I could be replaced. So, just when I have things in place where I can transition that leadership off my shoulders and onto someone else from the community, your big idea again is ... what? Anyway, that's why this is a bit of a silly distraction. Save it for when the proof is there one way or the other. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at redhat.com Thu Aug 2 06:49:35 2007 From: sundaram at redhat.com (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 12:19:35 +0530 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <1186032716.27970.53.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> <1186032716.27970.53.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <46B17E7F.9050600@redhat.com> Karsten Wade wrote: > First, where is it written that value in Fedora is only measured in > benefit to end-users? This is the most obvious audience. Everything else is secondary benefits. You might improve some workflow, some tools but these must be side effects and not the primary focus IMO. > > /me wonders why the SELinux FAQ didn't make it into Rahul's list of > useful stuff. ;-P The wiki pages have a lot of good information now the SELinux FAQ is abandoned. "There doesn't > seem to enough interest or progress being made." > > Oh, uh, thanks? Should be seen in context. Not, "discuss over the next > week." If you want to kick up shit over that decision, fine, but be > aware YOU ARE CAUSING MORE WORK AND STRESS. Just wondering loudly if I am the only one seeing the current situation as a problem. Looks like it is now or alteast not many > We supposedly already scare people are talking. with all our "barriers" and "tools" > and "processes", do you really think new contributors are going to be > comfortable with "anarchy"? There is a lot of space in between anarchy and what we have now. There have been alternative governance models in other distributions. A single technical and non technical community team and a lead for example. I honestly dont see any advantage in having a steering committee in docs as opposed to just a good documentation team with a lead. Also my suggestion was limited to using existing resources in a different way as opposed to recruiting more people. Rahul From kanarip at kanarip.com Thu Aug 2 13:22:13 2007 From: kanarip at kanarip.com (Jeroen van Meeuwen) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:22:13 +0200 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <46B17E7F.9050600@redhat.com> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <1186013712.3521.354.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> <1186032716.27970.53.camel@erato.phig.org> <46B17E7F.9050600@redhat.com> Message-ID: <46B1DA85.4090403@kanarip.com> Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Also my suggestion was limited to using existing resources in a > different way as opposed to recruiting more people. > > > Rahul > Rahul, I think you should stop criticizing because although I know you have quite enough interest in continuing the discussion and you're obviously putting a lot of effort in making your point meanwhile I don't see much progress being made so basically this entire thread is overhead. Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -kanarip -- I'm sure that if you read it again you'll appreciate the analogy made here. From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 2 20:27:37 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:27:37 -0700 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <200708021246.42670.tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> <1186032716.27970.53.camel@erato.phig.org> <200708021246.42670.tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> Message-ID: <1186086457.27970.293.camel@erato.phig.org> On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 12:46 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ > > > > "The Fedora Documentation Project ("Docs Project") provides 100% > > free/libre open content, services, and tools for documentation." > > I'm not quite sure what you meant here. > Are you saying that the Documentation Project > offers some kind of tutorial on DocBook/XML > which might be useful to those interested in this topic > quite apart from the Project? http://docs.fedoraproject.org/documentation-guide/ > I didn't see anything along those lines > at the URL you gave above. It's actually not on that page. It might be because it was out of date for a while? It's a good point though. There were a few updates needed to that page, got them now. But I will note that document is, as you suggest, a tutorial on DocBook itself. The best way to really get your hands dirty and experience the toolchain is to check out the 'example-tutorial' module. The DocsProject page has CVS instructions, and now has a link to the example tutorial. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.108.redhat.com | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Fri Aug 3 00:12:04 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:12:04 -0400 Subject: Getting Things Done In-Reply-To: <1186086457.27970.293.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46B0CA4F.4090103@fedoraproject.org> <46B1274B.3010306@fedoraproject.org> <1186032716.27970.53.camel@erato.phig.org> <200708021246.42670.tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> <1186086457.27970.293.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1186099924.5469.3.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 13:27 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 12:46 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote: > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ > > > > > > "The Fedora Documentation Project ("Docs Project") provides 100% > > > free/libre open content, services, and tools for documentation." > > > > I'm not quite sure what you meant here. > > Are you saying that the Documentation Project > > offers some kind of tutorial on DocBook/XML > > which might be useful to those interested in this topic > > quite apart from the Project? > > http://docs.fedoraproject.org/documentation-guide/ And if you find something missing here, let me know (filing a bug is especially appreciated). I've rewritten major parts of this guide recently and it should hopefully match up pretty well with reality at this point. > > I didn't see anything along those lines > > at the URL you gave above. > > It's actually not on that page. It might be because it was out of date > for a while? It's a good point though. There were a few updates needed > to that page, got them now. > > But I will note that document is, as you suggest, a tutorial on DocBook > itself. The best way to really get your hands dirty and experience the > toolchain is to check out the 'example-tutorial' module. The > DocsProject page has CVS instructions, and now has a link to the example > tutorial. Yes, the example-tutorial is the place to go. It's good practice to read the DocGuide, learn how to check out the example-tutorial module, and then read the example-tutorial2.xml file in that module by loading it into your favorite editor. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Sun Aug 5 18:51:16 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:51:16 -0700 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? Message-ID: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> Borrowing a riff from Andy Oram[1], what makes you write or want to write community documentation? What can this project do better to enable you to do that? Maybe a few voices who are quieter around here can delurk/speak up on this topic. - Karsten [1] http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/06/14/why-do-people-write-free-documentation-results-of-a-survey.html -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From draciron at gmail.com Mon Aug 6 12:51:14 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 07:51:14 -0500 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: Here is my take if your interested. To answer your first question I want to write so that I can contribute back. I am a one time coder but got paid too write in non-C based languages long enough I forgot all my C coding skills. Never really liked that style of syntax anyway. Linux is very heavily C/C++ oriented. So contributing code is not practical. Documentation is often skimpy, not especially informative and often obsolete to the point of being counter productive. So one reason I want to write is simply to do something useful for a community that has given so much too me. A second reason is I strongly believe in Linux. I believe in what it can do. While I hate and despise M$, that only got me interested in Linux. I love working in Linux and with Linux. It allows me to do what I want to do. I spend my time working on stuff not fixing my OS. Not dinking with settings or reinstalling things. No virus scans to run. No defragging or rebooting to fix a misbehaving app. No more saving every 2 mins because the app I'm working in might crash any second. No more watching my whole system go under because I installed too many apps or one app that did not work and play well with the rest. I can go on and on about the things I love about Linux and how it is superior to windoze. Most of them are positive reasons. For me KDE is an awesome window manager. The key bindings are natural and intuitive. I don't fumble in many KDE apps trying to figure out keyboard shortcuts. They are almost always CDE which is what I've used going back to many DOS apps. Even before M$ standardized on CDE I was using CDE shortcuts. I get feature rich apps that work and don't crash on me. The management of my window manager and system in general is well laid out, non-intrusive, easy to use and pretty much everything is 2 clicks or less away. Windoze, Gnome and other systems often hide/bury stuff several clicks down. Which leads to short cutitus. I really like the power of Linux. It is truly cutting edge in many areas. I love the stability. The security. Not relitive stability or security, it's rock solid. It's not comparitively stable it's really stable. Sometimes going six months to a year without any real problems that require user intervention. It's customizable. It doesn't hurt that it's free but I used to buy distros just to support Linux development. I've owned several RH versions and sub versions. Mandrake, SUSE, even bought a Corel distro once and remember eagerly buying Caldera 2.0 the first distro that I'm aware of sold at CompUSA. (Spits on Caldera name now). So for a reasonable price I'd bought Linux distros. I really like the OS that much. Even though I could get it for free I figured buying those distros, some of which I never really used like the Corel, man did that distro suck LOL, at least I felt I was helping Linux develop. So as a Linux advocate I want to do things to help Linux. In my opinion one of the biggest challenges is old guard vrs the new wave of windoze refugees. Man pages make sense to the old guard. They look like gibberish to noobs to Linux. Many times they tell you what you already knew but are useless in trying to figure out how to use an option. They tell you that you can do it but give no syntax examples and leave out rather important details. To the old guard they are unnecessary since it makes sense by understanding the history and how things work. The new refugees don't want ancient computer history lessons. They don't want to understand the difference between System 7 and Posix and why some stuff use -R and others use -r for recursive. They often don't even want to look at a command line. Most distro documentation is about like man pages. It tells you that yeah you can use a digital camera. Just wait for it to pop up. That's not real useful in troubleshooting if it doesn't. That doesn't help somebody who wants to get accidentally deleted photos off the camera. It states the obvious without giving any real help. Folks turn to documentation mostly for help. Another problem with converting people to Linux is that they are given often some very poor choices in apps to use. For many documentation writers they've used these apps for years, are comfortable with the quirks and are blissfully unaware of windoze equivs for these apps or Linux apps that are equivs for the software people used in windoze. I crucial factor in retaining people who try Linux is the comfort level they feel in Linux. Remember a computer OS is a really big thing. They are literally scared. Afraid they'll break it. They often are slightly technophobic to start with. For years M$ and others have been drumming it into their heads that computers are evil and incomprehensible. Leave the yucky stuff to geeky techs and all will be well. That computers should be like a toaster and require no more thought to use. That's unrealistic, they know it but they've managed to promote the stigma that Linux is technically difficult and Linux documentaion has played right into their hands. It shows only one way of doing things which is often a very poor choice. Most windoze users use WinAmp or something akin to that. In Linux Audacious and XMMS are so close that a windoze user can sit right down and in minutes be playing files. I cannot think of a single distro's documentation that takes that into account. Instead users are pointed at an array of bizzare apps that really do not corespond to commonly used windoze software. The burn process from IE is so buggy few windoze users use it. They use software like Nero. Which happens to have an equiv called K3b which would leave them right at home in burning a CD. I have a very good rate of retention in people I convert to Linux and actively convert people. The key to this is making them comfortable in Linux and the key to that is giving them max functionality with as small a learning curve as possible. A second big selling factor is just how many ways you can do something. I often show them several ways till they start looking glazed from all the choices or they see one they just light up on and love. I might hate that particuler app but who cares. It's THEIR computer. If that's the software they like and using that keeps them in Linux then I've done something good. That is why I came to the Fedora docs project. Fedora is the distro I use and one of the best to start new people converting to Linux on. The problems I see with the project start with the complexity to actually write something. First nobody knows what needs written. I suggest a greeter committee spend some time in IM and or email exchanges and get to know new volenteers. Walk them through the process of account creation. How things work. Get a feel for their skills and connect them with areas that need work. Second I suggest more flexibility in the docs. Lets show people the strength of Linux, not restate the obvious. I gave some examples and I hope I didn't offend anybody. I suspect that they may have had more detailed documents but that decisions were made to make it ultra simple. The problem is ultra simple got to be so simple it's useless in my opinion. Lets take playing music for example. Topics I personally think should be covered are. A variety of music players representing classes of music players (ie XMMS style, Jukebox style, Album organization). Then link to different project pages where they can learn more about each. Ripping music. Doesn't have to get format specific. Just a quickie on ABCDE, Lame for command line, GRIP and other GUI rippers. Organization software, taggers, editors, converters. In other words what you can do with a ripped file after it's ripped. Doing this would show the power of Linux. Provide meaningful links to answers to common problems. It would be informitive but not take ages to write and maintain as most of it would be pointing to project docs to give readers the details. In my opinion the red tape surrounding docs leaves them so devoid of content that I personally feel like writing them will not be all that helpful to anybody. This robs me of the desire to write. Instead I've focused on other work I can do for Linux projects. There are 100 places I could start at about scarcity of documentation. A number of places I could contribute. But I feel that the scope itself is so limited that many of these are just out of scope. For example if I contributed on the burner page, I would want to write at least short blurbs about ISO tools, different types of burner software availible. Links so readers could look and choose the software that best fit them. Utilities for dealing with ISO files. A great example. Long ago I used to burn from the command line. K3b changed that. There are however occasions I'd love too but the command line cdrecord tools either had a different syntax or were broken in Fedora last time I tried. Wouldn't hurt to put a short doc on burning from a command line. Another impediment is the access control. I never could edit wiki content. Maybe my ID finally got straitened out, maybe it didn't. I heard other users complain of same thing on this list. So the two docs I did write never got submitted. I pasted one in frustration into the list. Got good constructive criticism on many parts on others I felt the scope limitations were going to limit my ability to write meaningful documentation. The other which was probably more in line with the kind of docs being asked for I never could submit. I tried for weeks. Exchanged emails trying to find the right person to ask about getting my rights corrected. Finally just gave up. Second do we really want people editing content directly? Shouldn't that go through a review before being placed out there? So why not have a submission process? Submit it for peer review, corrections, additions. This means no more fumbling in the dark trying to figure out how to add content or getting frustrated when your account isn't given sufficient rights. People tend to feel slighted when that happens. I'm sure no slight is intended. I've seen no malice on this list toward people. No cliqueism or people feeling above others. Folks seem quite friendly and very interested in doing a good job. So it's more a matter of organization really. There are lots of people who want to help. They don't know where to help, how to help. They come in and feel like outsiders. The red tape is confusing. There is no process to make sure they know what is expected of them. The work to do work can be exasperating and confusing. Create a sig, create accounts here, there and hope that all the various people in each step get it right and that the new members do it correctly. What I suggest is that this process is streamlined. The welcoming committee can filter out the passing ships and filter based on ability. They can walk folks through the initial process of getting all those accounts created. They will actually know who to buzz if the rights are set wrong. They can also help get people to areas where they will do the most good. There are two types of people needed in projects like this. The organizers who unfortunately will probably spend more time working with people than on actual docs and the writers. The fewer organizers the more get's written. The more the ogranizers do the more time writers have to write. Once they've gotten their first doc written and submitted most users will be pretty self sufficient. They can after a few docs in turn serve as ast mentors on other new writers and eventually get forced kicking and screaming into admin roles. Anyway that's my 2 cents. I personally would like to see far more covered. See support for real life usage. See better help for windoze refugees. See a streamlining of the induction process. I still feel very much an outsider with this project, a heratic even. So maybe I just wasted everybodies time but thought I'd make an attempt before I unsubscribe and move on completely to other projects instead. Drac unsigned remote heratic/lunitic. On 8/5/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > Borrowing a riff from Andy Oram[1], what makes you write or want to > write community documentation? > > What can this project do better to enable you to do that? > > Maybe a few voices who are quieter around here can delurk/speak up on > this topic. > > - Karsten > > [1] > > http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/06/14/why-do-people-write-free-documentation-results-of-a-survey.html > -- > Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project > Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject > quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 > ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stickster at gmail.com Mon Aug 6 19:38:33 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:38:33 -0400 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1186429113.4696.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 07:51 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: [...snip...] > The problems I see with the project start with the complexity to > actually write something. First nobody knows what needs written. I > suggest a greeter committee spend some time in IM and or email > exchanges and get to know new volenteers. Walk them through the > process of account creation. How things work. Get a feel for their > skills and connect them with areas that need work. We are always on IRC and here, and it's our policy and practice to give people help with account creation whenever they ask. > Second I suggest more flexibility in the docs. Lets show people the > strength of Linux, not restate the obvious. I gave some examples and I > hope I didn't offend anybody. I suspect that they may have had more > detailed documents but that decisions were made to make it ultra > simple. The problem is ultra simple got to be so simple it's useless > in my opinion. Lets take playing music for example. [...snip...] Unfortunately, this strategy goes against most fundamental tenets of both adult education and technical documentation. The right way to do things is not to show a slew of solutions and let the user pick. The user has already consulted documentation because they don't know how to pick; it's the job of the core documentation to give the simplest and most efficient solution. This doesn't mean there can't be auxiliary documentation about many solutions; there are many examples of good docs that do just that. But before doing any documentation in that realm, we need a stronger core docs set. > Another impediment is the access control. I never could edit wiki > content. Maybe my ID finally got straitened out, maybe it didn't. I > heard other users complain of same thing on this list. So the two docs > I did write never got submitted. I pasted one in frustration into the > list. Got good constructive criticism on many parts on others I felt > the scope limitations were going to limit my ability to write > meaningful documentation. The other which was probably more in line > with the kind of docs being asked for I never could submit. I tried > for weeks. Exchanged emails trying to find the right person to ask > about getting my rights corrected. Finally just gave up. If you would like to try again, we can lead you to the pages with simple step-by-step instructions for getting this set up. If they don't work, we would like to hear exactly (and concisely, please) what failed, so we can (1) help you, and (2) fix the docs. > Second do we really want people editing content directly? Shouldn't > that go through a review before being placed out there? So why not > have a submission process? Submit it for peer review, corrections, > additions. This means no more fumbling in the dark trying to figure > out how to add content or getting frustrated when your account isn't > given sufficient rights. People tend to feel slighted when that > happens. I'm sure no slight is intended. I've seen no malice on this > list toward people. No cliqueism or people feeling above others. Folks > seem quite friendly and very interested in doing a good job. [...snip...] The whole point of a wiki is to bypass the bureaucracy and stifling nature of time-delayed review. Wiki changes are in fact reviewed by anyone who wants to put a watch on a page or set of pages using the wiki's built in functionality. I am not a big fan of the wiki for official documentation of any kind, but for collaborative drafting it is at least passable. In fact, our release notes are created in just that fashion. Karsten has put significant time into lowering any remaining access barriers on the wiki. As soon as the new wiki software is released by its developers and installed on fedoraproject.org, things will get quite a bit easier there. I would encourage you to push through with getting your access fixed, and then contribute to the core documentation set so we have a place from which to jump off into other short tutorials as needed. I would also encourage you when you correspond on this list to (1) use plain text when you post, to respect those readers who require it; and (2) exercise some brevity, which makes it more likely you'll get thoughtful responses. Very long emails, for which you seem to have a proclivity, tend to discourage responders who are trying to fit their list-reading time in around a very busy schedule. Thanks for responding and let us know how we can help you with access. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Tue Aug 7 10:49:07 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 03:49:07 -0700 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 07:51 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > Most distro documentation is about like man pages. It tells you that > yeah you can use a digital camera. Just wait for it to pop up. That's > not real useful in troubleshooting if it doesn't. That doesn't help > somebody who wants to get accidentally deleted photos off the camera. > It states the obvious without giving any real help. Folks turn to > documentation mostly for help. I wanted to highlight this observation. It is true, and as you surmised, the reason (for example) camera usage isn't covered in more detail is simply a shortage of writers. Anyone can get an account and edit this page: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/DesktopUserGuide/Photos Account creation really isn't that hard, and helpful people are everywhere. > The problems I see with the project start with the complexity to > actually write something. First nobody knows what needs written. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks > I suggest a greeter committee spend some time in IM and or email > exchanges and get to know new volenteers. Walk them through the > process of account creation. How things work. Get a feel for their > skills and connect them with areas that need work. Extensive examples of this exist in the email archives and IRC logs. Project members have always made themselves accessible to contributors, new and old. Personally, I can't do much more. We need concrete suggestions that we haven't already tried. We'll continue to beat that old drum as you suggest, but we either need a new rhythm, a new drum, or a new drummer. > Second I suggest more flexibility in the docs. Lets show people the > strength of Linux, not restate the obvious. I gave some examples and I > hope I didn't offend anybody. I suspect that they may have had more > detailed documents but that decisions were made to make it ultra > simple. The problem is ultra simple got to be so simple it's useless > in my opinion. Lets take playing music for example. We have made a conscious decision to provide information to users who may not be familiar with what is obvious to you and I. Content always needs improvement. Just remember that most of the content out there is exactly like you describe -- it figures a relative familiarity with the technology, focuses on various ways to solve problems, and covers a diverse set of tools. Why should we do it just like that? This isn't the "Linux Docs Project", it's the "Fedora Docs Project". In a default working environment install of Fedora, there are a series of menus. It is those applications that are good examples of what to cover. Beyond that is less useful, because it includes applications new users are not likely to see. > Topics I personally think should be covered are. [snip good topics] Anyone is welcome to cover those topics, within legal-in-the-US guidelines. But as the Docs Project, we have to focus on one or a few things to be successful at it, and why not "Users new to the Fedora desktop working environment"? For example, there have been numerous requests for KDE content, but no one has stepped up to write it. When someone does, we'll have it. But it isn't reasonable to ask for a change in the commitment of resources for what you think is a good idea. > In my opinion the red tape surrounding docs I'm sorry you had a bad experience. It happens. We all try to help each person with whatever they need. There are many success stories, and an unknown number of failures. People fall through the cracks, no matter how hard we try. There is a reason that any barriers are in place, and we're always working on making them easier to hurdle. But persistence always works out in the end. > Second do we really want people editing content directly? Shouldn't > that go through a review before being placed out there? [snip] Few thoughts here: * You are suggesting adding a lot of work for a small group of current contributor volunteers. * Your model is a little out-of-line of the open source/open collaborative model * Does it really lower the barriers or just put all the barrier work on people instead of tools and processes? Wherever possible we need to make people able to control their own destiny in Fedora. We need to hold their hand as much as they need, but not forever. > So it's more a matter of organization really. There are lots of people > who want to help. They don't know where to help, how to help. They > come in and feel like outsiders. The red tape is confusing. There is > no process to make sure they know what is expected of them. The work > to do work can be exasperating and confusing. Create a sig, create > accounts here, there and hope that all the various people in each step > get it right and that the new members do it correctly. Fedora has a responsibility to the longevity of the project. Since all of this used to be a closed loop inside of Red Hat, opening up those resources requires care. There has been a reasonable position between "no barriers" and "too many barriers". For example, if we ever have to change our content licensing again, as we had to from GFDL to OPL a few years ago, we are *all* going to be happy that contributors and content are covered under the individual contributor license agreement (CLA). The CLA looks like a hassle, until you need it. > What I suggest is that this process is streamlined. The welcoming > committee can filter out the passing ships and filter based on > ability. They can walk folks through the initial process of getting > all those accounts created. They will actually know who to buzz if the > rights are set wrong. They can also help get people to areas where > they will do the most good. There are two types of people needed in > projects like this. The organizers who unfortunately will probably > spend more time working with people than on actual docs and the > writers. The fewer organizers the more get's written. The more the > ogranizers do the more time writers have to write. That sounds like what happens on this list. Isn't that the case? People are welcomed, directed or led or left alone, as per their preference. I understand that may not have been your experience, I'm sorry, but you use the third-person (they, them) as if you've done a wide ranging poll of people frustrated with Fedora Docs. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Tue Aug 7 17:22:50 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:52:50 +0530 Subject: Fedora 8 Test 1 release notes In-Reply-To: <46AE484F.5030706@fedoraproject.org> References: <46AE484F.5030706@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <46B8AA6A.6030305@fedoraproject.org> Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Hi > > Can anyone do the release notes for the test releases this time? > Important changes to mention for test 1 are > > Rsyslog replaces Sysklogd. See the spec > > No more XFS (x font server). See the spec > > GNOME 2.19. Figure out what has has merged that is important from > http://live.gnome.org/RoadMap or post a screenshot with the about box > > KDE 3.5.7. Same as Fedora 7. KDE 4 isn't merged yet and we might not be > having this by default if KDE 4 schedule slips. > > Anything else? > > With the new feature process and the feature list at > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/FeatureList, it should be > easier to keep track of the important changes this time. The release announcement has gone out with any release notes for lack of interest. It might still be useful if anyone interest steps up and does the work. It is a single page in the wiki and shouldn't take more than half an hour. Rahul From mailtoria at gmail.com Wed Aug 8 20:33:13 2007 From: mailtoria at gmail.com (ria das) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 02:03:13 +0530 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) Message-ID: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Hi, mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through web interface" I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. You can see it here http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi The test contains only man pages from Fedora 7 and very few info pages. I will add different languages slowly (though they are present in the server). As I don't understand css much, I took the css from http://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/ . Looking forward to your comments and suggestions (and also a good design :-) ) Ria Das From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Aug 8 22:16:07 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 03:46:07 +0530 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46BA40A7.3050607@fedoraproject.org> ria das wrote: > Hi, > > mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through > web interface" > I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. You can see it here > http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi > > The test contains only man pages from Fedora 7 and very few info > pages. I will add different languages slowly (though they are present > in the server). As I don't understand css much, I took the css from > http://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/ . > > Looking forward to your comments and suggestions (and also a good design :-) ) Good work. Just pointing things I think can be changed: We don't have a search interface The URL's should be shorted than http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi?man=./man/mann/ansi_cctrl.n.html&rel=F-7 Something like the following would be better docs.fedoraproject.org/man/ which then lists the release and version numbers on top with the latest man page listed below automatically would work well Will these information be indexable by search engines or are you generating them on fly? Indexable static content that are periodically updated would be better. You can talk to the websites team for using a better CSS. A standard template was posted last week in fedora-websites list. Rahul From samfw at redhat.com Wed Aug 8 23:12:57 2007 From: samfw at redhat.com (Sam Folk-Williams) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:12:57 -0400 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <46BA40A7.3050607@fedoraproject.org> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> <46BA40A7.3050607@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <46BA4DF9.7000007@redhat.com> Rahul Sundaram wrote: > ria das wrote: >> Hi, >> >> mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through >> web interface" >> I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. You can see it here >> http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi >> >> The test contains only man pages from Fedora 7 and very few info >> pages. I will add different languages slowly (though they are present >> in the server). As I don't understand css much, I took the css from >> http://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/ . >> >> Looking forward to your comments and suggestions (and also a good >> design :-) ) > > Good work. Just pointing things I think can be changed: > > We don't have a search interface > > The URL's should be shorted than > > http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi?man=./man/mann/ansi_cctrl.n.html&rel=F-7 > > > Something like the following would be better > > docs.fedoraproject.org/man/ > > which then lists the release and version numbers on top with the latest > man page listed below automatically would work well > > Will these information be indexable by search engines or are you > generating them on fly? Indexable static content that are periodically > updated would be better. > > You can talk to the websites team for using a better CSS. A standard > template was posted last week in fedora-websites list. > This is a great project! Very cool - thanks for doing this! I'm also missing the lack of search interface. The other thing is when you have the list of commands a-z could you add an alphabet on the top and just display "a" by default, then users can click the letter they want to display. This would be good in addition to search, I think. Thanks again! Sam > Rahul > > > From sheltren at cs.ucsb.edu Thu Aug 9 00:17:06 2007 From: sheltren at cs.ucsb.edu (Jeff Sheltren) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 17:17:06 -0700 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Aug 8, 2007, at 1:33 PM, ria das wrote: > Hi, > > mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through > web interface" > I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. Hi Ria, this is great news! Congratulations on your first test release! > You can see it here > http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi I'm just getting a blank page there currently... -Jeff From sheltren at cs.ucsb.edu Thu Aug 9 00:17:06 2007 From: sheltren at cs.ucsb.edu (Jeff Sheltren) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 17:17:06 -0700 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Aug 8, 2007, at 1:33 PM, ria das wrote: > Hi, > > mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through > web interface" > I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. Hi Ria, this is great news! Congratulations on your first test release! > You can see it here > http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi I'm just getting a blank page there currently... -Jeff From jmbabich at gmail.com Thu Aug 9 13:23:51 2007 From: jmbabich at gmail.com (John Babich) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 16:23:51 +0300 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9d2c731f0708090623y74673ef7l44b1485ce14e53f@mail.gmail.com> On 8/9/07, Jeff Sheltren wrote: > On Aug 8, 2007, at 1:33 PM, ria das wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through > > web interface" > > I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. > Hi Ria, this is great news! Congratulations on your first test release! > Ria: First of all, congratulations on the completion of your project. I'm a committed advocate of "FOSS docs the FOSS way" and this is a big step in the right direction. > > You can see it here > > http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi > I'm just getting a blank page there currently... > Sorry to say that's the same for me. Maybe you need to publish some directions on how to use it, if you haven't already. Best Regards, John Babich Volunteer, Fedora Project From mailtoria at gmail.com Thu Aug 9 14:06:24 2007 From: mailtoria at gmail.com (ria das) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:36:24 +0530 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <9d2c731f0708090623y74673ef7l44b1485ce14e53f@mail.gmail.com> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> <9d2c731f0708090623y74673ef7l44b1485ce14e53f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <74b2a9490708090706j13b9dc99mc5f4cb4f27cb249e@mail.gmail.com> On 8/9/07, John Babich wrote: > Sorry to say that's the same for me. Maybe you need to publish some > directions on how to use it, if you haven't already. > Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. Now trying to fix my blank page error. More mails are coming from me soon. Ria Das From mailtoria at gmail.com Thu Aug 9 14:55:14 2007 From: mailtoria at gmail.com (ria das) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:25:14 +0530 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <74b2a9490708090755h2c64191i574f3e04736d65f@mail.gmail.com> On 8/9/07, Jeff Sheltren wrote: > Hi Ria, this is great news! Congratulations on your first test release! Thank You :-) > I'm just getting a blank page there currently... Hopefuly problem fixed. Ria Das From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Aug 9 19:02:12 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:32:12 +0530 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46BB64B4.70309@fedoraproject.org> ria das wrote: > Hi, > > mitwi is my summer of code project which stands for "man info through > web interface" > I uploaded the code of mitwi for the test release. You can see it here > http://publictest1.fedora.redhat.com/mitwi/index.cgi > Another thing to look at http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi Rahul From mailtoria at gmail.com Thu Aug 9 20:35:16 2007 From: mailtoria at gmail.com (ria das) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:05:16 +0530 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <46BB64B4.70309@fedoraproject.org> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> <46BB64B4.70309@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <74b2a9490708091335p2485106i68f99c4c4ba0c3bf@mail.gmail.com> On 8/10/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Another thing to look at > > http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi A basic search option is added now :-) Ria Das From paulo.banon at googlemail.com Fri Aug 10 06:04:29 2007 From: paulo.banon at googlemail.com (Paulo Santos) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:04:29 +0100 Subject: mitwi : test release (GSoC work) In-Reply-To: <74b2a9490708091335p2485106i68f99c4c4ba0c3bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <74b2a9490708081333m54608f37he55cbbb4bc91147f@mail.gmail.com> <46BB64B4.70309@fedoraproject.org> <74b2a9490708091335p2485106i68f99c4c4ba0c3bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7a41c4bc0708092304n1bf96badu6de0a1e69970623c@mail.gmail.com> Hi Ria, Great work with this project, it will definitely be a good addition to us :) Some problems i found so far: - as you might have noticed sometimes you have more then one single entry per command in the list (would be nice to explain the difference to the end user - when you click "Return to Main Contents", the new main page removes the right hand side column and the copyright information as well Looking forward to see the results of your finalized project!! happy coding :) Paulo On 8/9/07, ria das wrote: > > On 8/10/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > > Another thing to look at > > > > http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi > > > A basic search option is added now :-) > > Ria Das > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Fri Aug 10 23:53:44 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:23:44 +0530 Subject: Fedora 8 Test 1 release notes In-Reply-To: <46B8AA6A.6030305@fedoraproject.org> References: <46AE484F.5030706@fedoraproject.org> <46B8AA6A.6030305@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <46BCFA88.30902@fedoraproject.org> Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > The release announcement has gone out with any release notes for lack of > interest. It might still be useful if anyone interest steps up and does > the work. It is a single page in the wiki and shouldn't take more than > half an hour. I did the changes myself. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F8Test1/ReleaseNotes Rahul From rpjday at mindspring.com Fri Aug 10 23:52:02 2007 From: rpjday at mindspring.com (Robert P. J. Day) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:52:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Fedora 8 Test 1 release notes In-Reply-To: <46BCFA88.30902@fedoraproject.org> References: <46AE484F.5030706@fedoraproject.org> <46B8AA6A.6030305@fedoraproject.org> <46BCFA88.30902@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Aug 2007, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Rahul Sundaram wrote: > > > > > The release announcement has gone out with any release notes for lack of > > interest. It might still be useful if anyone interest steps up and does the > > work. It is a single page in the wiki and shouldn't take more than half an > > hour. > > I did the changes myself. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F8Test1/ReleaseNotes > > Rahul there's at least one instance on that page that refers to "Fedora 7 Test 1". rday -- ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA http://fsdev.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ======================================================================== From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Sat Aug 11 00:03:26 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:33:26 +0530 Subject: Fedora 8 Test 1 release notes In-Reply-To: References: <46AE484F.5030706@fedoraproject.org> <46B8AA6A.6030305@fedoraproject.org> <46BCFA88.30902@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <46BCFCCE.6090900@fedoraproject.org> Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > there's at least one instance on that page that refers to "Fedora 7 > Test 1". Fixed and added a reference to the KDE notes too. Rahul From stickster at gmail.com Sun Aug 12 00:59:37 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:59:37 -0400 Subject: Rescheduling Message-ID: <1186880377.19382.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> Jef, I'm really sorry about this, but I came back from an outing today with my family with a fever. I'm piled under blankets and quite a sorry sight right now. I put a note on the wiki that I would reschedule. I'll be in touch as soon as I feel better. I highly doubt it makes sense for another docs person to pick up my presentation, but just in case, I'm cc'ing the list. My materials are at http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ . -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From princemavi at yahoo.com Wed Aug 15 01:21:05 2007 From: princemavi at yahoo.com (prince mavi) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:21:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Self-Introduction: Harjit Mavi (hmavi) Message-ID: <612748.25829.qm@web55808.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Hi my full legal name is: Harjit Singh Mavi I am from Melbourne, Australia I work as a Sys Admin I did my studies from India (Punjab University) as well as Australia (University of Ballarat) My goals in Fedora Project are as follows -------------- I want to contribute towards punjabi translation of Fedora project as it is my mother tongue. and i am really really impressed with the concept of open source and the hard work of my peers who have contributed so far towards Fedora. hats off to the gentlemen who spend sleepless nights to keep the software free without the expectation of any reward. Till now i have been at receiving end that is using Fedora. now i want to start as a contributor i would like to translate everything into punjabi so that fedora can potentially penetrate the whole punjabi community. historical qualifications ------------- i have not contributed to any open source project before this i work at the level of sys admin. so i'm pretty confident with my computing skills i can program in a few languages, i can write tech stuff in layman's language and i can explain involved topics in a simple language. i think i am an excellent match for Fedora project as i can use both my computing as well as language (translation) skills in order to contribute to the project. gpg key id and fingerprint pub 1024D/BA292D9C 2007-08-06 [expires: 2008-08-05] Key fingerprint = 8951 D3C5 98F3 D5A3 DF47 C242 A505 0CCC BA29 2D9C uid Harjit Singh Mavi (Fedora Project) sub 2048g/339CFCE0 2007-08-06 [expires: 2008-08-05] I look forward to hear from you peers and would love to contribute towards Fedora project. thank you all Harjit Mavi ___________________________________________________________ Want ideas for reducing your carbon footprint? Visit Yahoo! For Good http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/environment.html From stickster at gmail.com Tue Aug 14 19:38:45 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:38:45 -0400 Subject: Presentation (RESCHEDULE) Message-ID: <1187120325.31241.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> I took ill on Saturday night and was unable to make my presentation as planned for Virtual FUDCon on Sunday. I've rescheduled it for Wednesday at 2100-2200 UTC (5-6pm Eastern, 2-3pm Pacific). The talk will revolve around creating new documentation in our CVS repository, and how the various pieces of the toolchain (Makefile, rpm-info, etc.) work together to produce shiny cool docs that can be immediately translated by the L10N project, built into HTML or PHP pages for publishing, or made into RPM packages. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From jmbabich at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 12:31:17 2007 From: jmbabich at gmail.com (John Babich) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:31:17 +0300 Subject: Presentation (RESCHEDULE) In-Reply-To: <1187120325.31241.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1187120325.31241.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <9d2c731f0708150531n7d7391a8j52e3247db868f203@mail.gmail.com> On 8/14/07, Paul W. Frields wrote: > I took ill on Saturday night and was unable to make my presentation as > planned for Virtual FUDCon on Sunday. I've rescheduled it for Wednesday > at 2100-2200 UTC (5-6pm Eastern, 2-3pm Pacific). I hope you're feeling better. I will definitely take part and assist you in any way I can. John Babich Volunteer, Fedora Docs Project From kwade at redhat.com Wed Aug 15 18:04:34 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:04:34 -0700 Subject: Self-Introduction: Harjit Mavi (hmavi) In-Reply-To: <612748.25829.qm@web55808.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <612748.25829.qm@web55808.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1187201074.6168.55.camel@erato.phig.org> On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 18:21 -0700, prince mavi wrote: > Hi my full legal name is: Harjit Singh Mavi Welcome Harjit. > I want to contribute towards punjabi translation of Fedora project as it is my mother tongue. > and i am really really impressed with the concept of open source and the hard work of my peers who have contributed so far towards Fedora. hats off to the gentlemen who spend sleepless nights to keep the software free without the expectation of any reward. > Till now i have been at receiving end that is using Fedora. now i want to start as a contributor This is a great time to get involved in translation, with the new tools online and the focus on localization as a feature of Fedora 8: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Transifex > i work at the level of sys admin. so i'm pretty confident with my computing skills > > i can program in a few languages, i can write tech stuff in layman's language > and i can explain involved topics in a simple language. You'll find it very easy and useful to contribute to the Wiki. Project-specific documentation is under the project namespace (e.g. wiki/SELinux/) and formal Wiki docs are under the Docs/ and Docs/Drafts/ namespaces. Don't worry a bit about language problems; we're all here to help edit. :) If you want to do more (full DocBook XML that can be translated, for example), that's easy, too. :) - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From draciron at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 19:14:12 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:14:12 -0500 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: Sorry about the delay in replying. Got buried in email after some hardware issues. Paul I use Gmail. I'll configure Kmail to send to Gmail to reply to this list, but is anybody really still using an email system not HTML capable? On 8/7/07, Karsten Wade wrote: I wanted to highlight this observation. It is true, and as you > surmised, the reason (for example) camera usage isn't covered in more > detail is simply a shortage of writers. This is in direct conflict with Paul's comments. Rather confusing to be honest. I would be happy to go into more detail on camera usage. To combine a later comment. The default Fedora install is a base and nothing more. It's not a usable system. It will never go over as a legit desktop replacement. There is a great deal of software out there which is far better than anything on windoze. However what is the right program depends on what you are doing and who you are. What is the right app for me to tag files is Kid3. For somebody else it might be something different. For me the right app to import photos is gthumb. I don't want albums, especially not until the tag database is standardized between album software. Another use may well want albums and that's it. Not difficult or confusing to present best of breed software for various tasks and links to their sites for details. Anyone can get an account and edit this page: I created several Fedora accounts but never had access. I got on the IRC channels and asked and was directed to several different people but in the end still had no working account. Where should I start? Recreating a gpg sig? I should still have a wiki account, but it had no write access last time I tried to edit anything. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/DesktopUserGuide/Photos > > Account creation really isn't that hard, and helpful people are > everywhere. > > > The problems I see with the project start with the complexity to > > actually write something. First nobody knows what needs written. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks Ah but what needs to be written? When you click on a link it takes you to a list of templates. The admin guide shows a list of topics but if you drill down far enough it always takes you to a list of templates. > I suggest a greeter committee spend some time in IM and or email > > exchanges and get to know new volenteers. Walk them through the > > process of account creation. How things work. Get a feel for their > > skills and connect them with areas that need work. > > Extensive examples of this exist in the email archives and IRC logs. > Project members have always made themselves accessible to contributors, > new and old. Personally, I can't do much more. > > We need concrete suggestions that we haven't already tried. We'll > continue to beat that old drum as you suggest, but we either need a new > rhythm, a new drum, or a new drummer. A suggestion is a quick FAQ. The how to create an account was pretty good in detail for example. Then when somebody joins up email it to them as well as periodically posting it to the list as a whole so that changes can be seen and people reminded of things they forgot. I never got an email telling me where to start. I asked a question and was pointed to the account creation link. I followed the steps more or less successfully though there was some sort of hang up with my PGP sig which caused me to redo it. > Second I suggest more flexibility in the docs. Lets show people the > > strength of Linux, not restate the obvious. I gave some examples and I > > hope I didn't offend anybody. I suspect that they may have had more > > detailed documents but that decisions were made to make it ultra > > simple. The problem is ultra simple got to be so simple it's useless > > in my opinion. Lets take playing music for example. > > We have made a conscious decision to provide information to users who > may not be familiar with what is obvious to you and I. Content always > needs improvement. Just remember that most of the content out there is > exactly like you describe -- it figures a relative familiarity with the > technology, focuses on various ways to solve problems, and covers a > diverse set of tools. Why should we do it just like that? This isn't > the "Linux Docs Project", it's the "Fedora Docs Project". Stating the obvious is fine if you don't stop there. I'll do up the camera and changing services guides as real quick examples. In the services I'll cover KDE and Gnome GUI tools for that as well as chkconfig. I'll also give a brief explanation of run time levels. Which brings up a question. Png graphics the acceptable default? In a default working environment install of Fedora, there are a series > of menus. It is those applications that are good examples of what to > cover. Beyond that is less useful, because it includes applications new > users are not likely to see. > > > Topics I personally think should be covered are. > [snip good topics] > > Anyone is welcome to cover those topics, within legal-in-the-US > guidelines. But as the Docs Project, we have to focus on one or a few > things to be successful at it, and why not "Users new to the Fedora > desktop working environment"? I understand legal issues and will stay away from MP3s. For example, there have been numerous requests for KDE content, but no > one has stepped up to write it. When someone does, we'll have it. But > it isn't reasonable to ask for a change in the commitment of resources > for what you think is a good idea. I'd be happy to write KDE specific stuff but why not cover both at the same time? My advice to all new users is to install both KDE and Gnome. Try them both but at worst your going to use apps from both systems. I encourage them to also try other window managers. I personally prefer KDE but know Gnome well enough to document both. If a user has both systems installs it doubles the possible apps for a given task and quite a few are not desktop specific. What I don't see is breaking everything up into if you use KDE and you want to burn a CD do this, if you use Gnome do this. CD burning is CD burning. Far as I can tell K3b is almost universal for that purpose among Linux users. Even Gnome fanatics tend to use it. More so K3b is far closer than any other reliable Linux package out there for what windoze users are used too. Still it makes sense to cover command line, Gnome specific options in case they don't have or want KDE installed. The time invested to write such is minimal. Users will skip to what they have and want to do. Details can be maintained on the project site so no need to go into details or try to update them. Software covered exists in the Fedora install for the most part. So it is part of the supported Fedora desktop or can be found in Fedora Extras. > In my opinion the red tape surrounding docs > > I'm sorry you had a bad experience. It happens. We all try to help > each person with whatever they need. There are many success stories, > and an unknown number of failures. People fall through the cracks, no > matter how hard we try. There is a reason that any barriers are in > place, and we're always working on making them easier to hurdle. But > persistence always works out in the end. Aye, didn't accuse anybody of trying to make things difficult. We are all volenteers far as I know donating out time and energy to a common purpose. We love Fedora or we would be using another distro or ack windoze. None of us are likely to make a dime off these efforts or get famous. We are argueing over the fine details not the big picture. My suggestion is just my impression as a new user and what I'm hearing in other new user posts. > Second do we really want people editing content directly? Shouldn't > > that go through a review before being placed out there? > [snip] > > Few thoughts here: > > * You are suggesting adding a lot of work for a small group of current > contributor volunteers. > > * Your model is a little out-of-line of the open source/open > collaborative model > > * Does it really lower the barriers or just put all the barrier work on > people instead of tools and processes? > > Wherever possible we need to make people able to control their own > destiny in Fedora. We need to hold their hand as much as they need, but > not forever. Makes sense. Just suggesting one way to increase the volume of content by reducing the amount of work it takes to do work. Also as a means of quality control. > So it's more a matter of organization really. There are lots of people > > who want to help. They don't know where to help, how to help. They > > come in and feel like outsiders. The red tape is confusing. There is > > no process to make sure they know what is expected of them. The work > > to do work can be exasperating and confusing. Create a sig, create > > accounts here, there and hope that all the various people in each step > > get it right and that the new members do it correctly. > > Fedora has a responsibility to the longevity of the project. Since all > of this used to be a closed loop inside of Red Hat, opening up those > resources requires care. There has been a reasonable position between > "no barriers" and "too many barriers". For example, if we ever have to > change our content licensing again, as we had to from GFDL to OPL a few > years ago, we are *all* going to be happy that contributors and content > are covered under the individual contributor license agreement (CLA). > The CLA looks like a hassle, until you need it. Those complexities are ones I'm happy to leave to others :) > What I suggest is that this process is streamlined. The welcoming > > committee can filter out the passing ships and filter based on > > ability. They can walk folks through the initial process of getting > > all those accounts created. They will actually know who to buzz if the > > rights are set wrong. They can also help get people to areas where > > they will do the most good. There are two types of people needed in > > projects like this. The organizers who unfortunately will probably > > spend more time working with people than on actual docs and the > > writers. The fewer organizers the more get's written. The more the > > ogranizers do the more time writers have to write. > > That sounds like what happens on this list. Isn't that the case? > People are welcomed, directed or led or left alone, as per their > preference. I understand that may not have been your experience, I'm > sorry, but you use the third-person (they, them) as if you've done a > wide ranging poll of people frustrated with Fedora Docs. Generally people say hi, welcome to the list. Point them at a link that generally leads to a template or other dead end. People then go away. Look at how many new people have joined in the last six months and how few contributions have come from them. True a certain percentage would never contribute a word no matter how easy you make it. Still statistically something is wrong in the process with that high a rate of non-contribution. Also there is no central FAQ or repository for information related to this project. For example to get on IRC I'd have to search through my emails to find the server or a link to the page that has the server listed on it. There's no room listing at all. So if your not directed or don't do a little exploring you don't even know what rooms actually exist. The GPG page is in one place but other account creation info in other places. That's my 2 cents. - Karsten > -- > Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project > Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject > quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 > ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From draciron at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 20:13:54 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:13:54 -0500 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: Test case services quick rough draft. Shows support for KDE, Gnome and command line. I have not spell checked this or run it through a grammar checker or done any proofing of any sort on it. Just a quick example that took me about 15 minutes to write. The screenshots are meant to be embedded in the document but will be attachments with this email. Services/daemons are programs that perform useful functions on your system but are not normally started by the user. MySQL for example runs normally as a service. You don't launch MySQL every time you need to connect to the database it is normally always running once you configure it unless you manually shut it down. Services not only start or don't start at boot time. They can be turned on, off or restarted without restarting the machine. Services can also run only at certain run levels. Run levels are various states the machine can exist in. There are only two run levels most Linux users are likely to see. Run level 5 which is today the default for most systems. That is a fully graphically enabled environment. The other is run level 3 which is typically used for trouble shooting and low level system driver installation. In general it is best to turn off any service you are not using. Leaving a service you do not use running is taking a chance there will be a vulnerability in that software which you are not using. For example with Fedora Bluetooth is enabled by default. If you are not using Bluetooth there is no reason to keep the service running. Until recently ISDN ran by default. If you do not use ISDN to connect to the net there isn't any reason to have it installed much less running. If you are unsure about what a service does there are several ways to find out. The GUI service menus often have descriptions. If you from a command line use man service name it will produce documentation about many services. In general it is best to leave it running if you are not sure if you'll need the service or what that service does. To configure your services In KDE click on the Fedora icon in the bottom left corner. You should see Administration up at the top. If you do not install the KDE admin tools from either Yum or a yum GUI such as yum extender or kyum. In Gnome click on System In both KDE and Gnome Click on administration select Server settings then select services. You will be asked for the root password. Then you will see a screen like this. (screenshot kdeservices1.png) By clicking on a service you will get a description of that service and it's status. Services without a check mark are not started at run time. To prevent a service from running at start up uncheck the box next to it. To enable a service at start up check the box. To stop a service select it then click on the stop button. In this example I started the denyhosts service. (screenshot kdeservices2.png) The on demand services tab is for services that are loaded when a client program calls them. Amanda for example is a backup system. It only runs when an Amanda client talks to the system. (screenshot kdeservices3.png) To save the new configuration click on the save button. If you do not do this the services you schedule/unscheduled to start at run time will not be changed. If you click on the revert button it erases all the changes you have made. You can also configure services from the command line using chkconfig. Open a term window. su - to root. Make sure to use the - so that you have root's path and environment variables set up. The basic usage of chkconfig is. To list services chkconfig --list This will produce a screen similer to this. (screenshot chkconfig1.png) To disable a service use chkconfig --level 2345 sendmail off for example to turn sendmail off on run levels 2,3,4 and 5. To turn sendmail on you'd use for run levels 3 and 5 chkconfig --level 35 sendmail on To see other chkconfig options use man chkconfig. To manually turn a service off, restart or turn one on from the command line use the service command. As root. service sendmail restart would restart the sendmail service. (screencap cserv1.png) In the screen capture you see an example of stopping a service that failed. In this case because the service was already stopped. You will also see an example of starting NFS. Notice that not just NFS started. 3 other services started automatically when NFS started. Many services are like this. There is one final way to edit services. It is highly recomended that you use the chkconfig or GUI tools to modify services as well as the service command. To stop a service you can use PS to aquire it's PID and then stop the PID using the kill command. To modify what run time level and stop or start you would have to edit the /etc/rc files. rc rc1.d/ rc3.d/ rc5.d/ rc.d/ rc.sysinit rc0.d/ rc2.d/ rc4.d/ rc6.d/ rc.local Each dir corresponds with the run time level. So to edit a service for run time level 5 you would modify the corresponding file in the /etc/rc5.d/ dir. This is not recommended for any but very experienced users. On rare occasions you will have to modify these files to change default behavior. Generally you will never have to directly touch these files. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: kdeservices1.png Type: image/png Size: 57788 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: kdeservices3.png Type: image/png Size: 57320 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: chkconfig1.png Type: image/png Size: 96535 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: cserv1.png Type: image/png Size: 71217 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: kdeservices2.png Type: image/png Size: 56660 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kwade at redhat.com Wed Aug 15 20:59:21 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:59:21 -0700 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 14:14 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > Sorry about the delay in replying. Got buried in email after some > hardware issues. Thanks for keeping the discussion going. I know we may appear adversarial at times, but I think it is constructive. From my POV, I've seen you raise arguments that I think are no longer relevant or are based on misunderstandings. It is helpful to ferret those out, and maybe find a way to a common understanding. Where there is validity in the arguments, we need to be sure we are fixing stuff or know why it isn't going to be fixed. > Paul I use Gmail. I'll configure Kmail to send to Gmail to reply to > this list, but is anybody really still using an email system not HTML > capable? Capability isn't the point, IMO. HTML is wasteful of bandwidth, forces formatting choices and HTML requirements on MUAs, and isn't really necessary. Regardless, where the desire is to communicate, the most common method is preferable. This is why good Websites have ALT tags for images, are usable without their CSS, and don't use images or Flash for needed page elements. I lump HTML email in with all of that. :) > On 8/7/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > > > I wanted to highlight this observation. It is true, and as > you > surmised, the reason (for example) camera usage isn't covered > in more > detail is simply a shortage of writers. > > > This is in direct conflict with Paul's comments. [snip content about best of breed] Sorry, without Paul's comment to compare it to, I'm guessing. I presume you mean his comments that we want to document the default installed applications before we branch into non-defaults also available for Fedora. My comment above is that the reason we don't have the default camera stuff well covered is a lack of resources. Whoever is working on the User Guide decides what are the priorities for coverage. If there isn't a person or time to get to cameras, it is not in that guide. An important point to note is that no one is forcing you or anyone to choose what to document. If you want it part of Fedora documentation, it has to be about software that is in the galaxy of packages, that is all. Our focus on the project has to be first on the default install. It doesn't make sense to focus outside of this until those bases are covered. Again, this is project focus, not personal focus. You will be steered to document e.g. gthumb because it is default, not because we feel it is the best of breed. That decision comes from the people doing the development, packaging, and spinning. No one is going to turn down documentation about non-default applications. It still has to meet the same requirements of other content, that is, it has to be well written, use clear and translatable language, be maintained/maintainable, and other general guidelines. If it is about non-default applications, it may be harder to find co-maintainers. That is the challenge you accept when you focus on the non-default applications. However, in this new Fedora world, it is hard to know what is going to be on a default spin. It could very well be Kid3 etc., especially where it is a KDE spin. So, we repeatedly ask for help in documenting KDE defaults. I don't think there is a contradiction. We have a generic policy to document the defaults of the various spins Fedora itself produces. As those spins cover more software as "default", our content has to expand. What actually gets work effort is then dependent on resources and timing. If you want to see an application be documented as default, then you need to do the work to get it recognized as the default for a formal spin. You can spin it yourself as the default, but then you are in the same boat as above -- as a side-effort that has to be self-maintained, even from within the Docs Project. > > Anyone can get an account and edit this page: > > I created several Fedora accounts but never had access. I got on the > IRC channels and asked and was directed to several different people > but in the end still had no working account. Where should I start? > Recreating a gpg sig? I should still have a wiki account, but it had > no write access last time I tried to edit anything. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/WikiEditing#Getting_Edit_Access I've been working for a long time at making it easier to get a Wiki account. There were technical and legal barriers. We have overcome all of them, and are just waiting for Moin 1.6 to be released for us to migrate to it and have a click-through CLA. Then you can get Wiki access just by creating an account. So, I'm very sorry for the difficulties of the past, it was necessary to be that way, and now we are fixing it. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/DesktopUserGuide/Photos > > Account creation really isn't that hard, and helpful people > are > everywhere. > > > The problems I see with the project start with the > complexity to > > actually write something. First nobody knows what needs > written. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks > > Ah but what needs to be written? When you click on a link it takes you > to a list of templates. The admin guide shows a list of topics but if > you drill down far enough it always takes you to a list of templates. Part of the problem with not having enough writers on the project is the task list is incomplete. The folks doing the work around here are trying to make it easier to find something to do, but we cannot take the time to enumerate every single task in detail. Aside from the time effort involved, it's also not really the way a self-directed FLOSS community works. We need to grow contributors who are self-starters and don't require a detailed task list forever. In other words, those tasks are to get you started, not keep you working for months on end. FWIW, I think these are good tasks to get anyone started: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks/UserGuide The reason the Admin Guide is only a template to be filled is because no one is leading the effort on that guide. > We need concrete suggestions that we haven't already > tried. We'll > continue to beat that old drum as you suggest, but we either > need a new > rhythm, a new drum, or a new drummer. > A suggestion is a quick FAQ. The how to create an account was pretty > good in detail for example. Then when somebody joins up email it to > them as well as periodically > We have made a conscious decision to provide information to > users who > may not be familiar with what is obvious to you and I. [...] > Stating the obvious is fine if you don't stop there. I'll do up the > camera and changing services guides as real quick examples. In the > services I'll cover KDE and Gnome GUI tools for that as well as > chkconfig. I'll also give a brief explanation of run time levels. OK, I won't forestall with many suggestions. :) Just remember that content for the User Guide isn't the same as for the Admin Guide, and the UG can always hand-off more details to the AG to cover. > Which brings up a question. Png graphics the acceptable default? They are. However, if this is for GUI screenshots, note that we avoid screenshots unless they provide something you can't get in plain text. In such a case, they are typically diagrams rather than a shot of what is most likely already on the user's screen. I can't find the reference to this guideline; I thought I put it into the StyleGuide: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/StyleGuide/ ... but I can't find it. I'll have to dig up the last post on this subject, rework it a bit, and put it in the StyleGuide. > Anyone is welcome to cover those topics, within > legal-in-the-US > guidelines. But as the Docs Project, we have to focus on one > or a few > things to be successful at it, and why not "Users new to the > Fedora > desktop working environment"? > > I understand legal issues and will stay away from MP3s. Note that again, the "Users new to the Fedora desktop working environment" doesn't mean you can't write for a different audience from within Fedora Docs. It is just that our focus and resource directives are around that. So, for example, if you submit content for review and it is clearly for application developers using LAMP on Fedora, it won't get the same speedy response as content bound for the User Guide. > > For example, there have been numerous requests for KDE > content, but no > one has stepped up to write it. When someone does, we'll have > it. But > it isn't reasonable to ask for a change in the commitment of > resources > for what you think is a good idea. > > > I'd be happy to write KDE specific stuff but why not cover both at the > same time? [...] Mainly resources. It really does take more time and effort to explain usage of three applications instead of just one. An iterative approach goes roughly like this: 1. Document one application of every type that can appear in a default GNOME install. 2. Document one application of every type that can appear in a default KDE install. 3. Document additional applications that are popular/best-of-breed but aren't necessarily the default in one of the upstream desktop environments. Note that we absorb many standards from the upstream. KDE and GNOME decide already what is are default MIME type handlers in their install. Fedora doesn't tweak with that every much, aiui. > What I don't see is breaking everything up into if you use KDE and you > want to burn a CD do this, if you use Gnome do this. This is more a discussion of _how_ to format the documents. This has been discussed on list, and IIRC the decision was to have a GNOME app and a KDE app under every section, by task. CD burning, camera transfer, etc. Reasons: * Some writers only know one or the other set of defaults well enough to write about them; this lets them get involved without forcing them to learn other applications. * It is easy enough to explain that GNOME apps come from installing the GNOME Desktop group, and KDE from installing the KDE Desktop group, and it is possible to have both installed. But just in case someone has only one installed, here is an option from each grouping to cover the task. Still, we could just have e.g. "CD burning" and cover "a few common applciations", making sure that one from KDE group and one from GNOME group are included. IIRC, the reason we did not do that was because people are still being taught to know about the two desktop environments, and we didn't want to be drastically different and thereby confusing. As the rest of Fedora erases the differences between KDE and GNOME for a standard install, so can we erase the difference in our content. [snip about red tape] > My suggestion is just my impression as a new user and what I'm hearing > in other new user posts. Agreed that this is an impression that I hear. Glad it is obvious that we are trying to make it better, eh? :) > The CLA looks like a hassle, until you need it. > > Those complexities are ones I'm happy to leave to others :) Right, well, until it is perceived as unneeded red tape. :) > Generally people say hi, welcome to the list. Point them at a link > that generally leads to a template or other dead end. People then go > away. Look at how many new people have joined in the last six months > and how few contributions have come from them. True a certain > percentage would never contribute a word no matter how easy you make > it. Still statistically something is wrong in the process with that > high a rate of non-contribution. > > Also there is no central FAQ or repository for information related to > this project. For example to get on IRC I'd have to search through my > emails to find the server or a link to the page that has the server > listed on it. There's no room listing at all. So if your not directed > or don't do a little exploring you don't even know what rooms actually > exist. The GPG page is in one place but other account creation info in > other places. Right, definitely sounds like (ironically) an FAQ is called for. I'll start a separate thread so we can gather what in fact are the FAQs. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 22:46:14 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:46:14 -0400 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187217974.15713.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 13:59 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > > Which brings up a question. Png graphics the acceptable default? > > They are. However, if this is for GUI screenshots, note that we avoid > screenshots unless they provide something you can't get in plain text. > In such a case, they are typically diagrams rather than a shot of what > is most likely already on the user's screen. > > I can't find the reference to this guideline; I thought I put it into > the StyleGuide: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/StyleGuide/ > > ... but I can't find it. I'll have to dig up the last post on this > subject, rework it a bit, and put it in the StyleGuide. It's in the Documentation Guide currently: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/documentation-guide/en_US/sn-screenshots.html -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From draciron at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 23:10:45 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:10:45 -0500 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: On 8/15/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > > Thanks for keeping the discussion going. I know we may appear > adversarial at times, but I think it is constructive. From my POV, I've > seen you raise arguments that I think are no longer relevant or are > based on misunderstandings. It is helpful to ferret those out, and > maybe find a way to a common understanding. Where there is validity in > the arguments, we need to be sure we are fixing stuff or know why it > isn't going to be fixed. Your welcome. I've always been rather outspoken :) So I'm good for something at least :) > > > Capability isn't the point, IMO. HTML is wasteful of bandwidth, forces > formatting choices and HTML requirements on MUAs, and isn't really > necessary. Aye but Gmail and most web base email is HTML email period. With Gmail I can use pop3 but that means changing my password, actually it means unsubscribing since I use this email for important and work related tasks and pop3 sends the password in the clear. So I have to unsubscribe with this email addy, resubscribe with a new gmail since it's the only free email that I know of which has pop3 access. Then I can send in plain text. I can view in plain text all day long LOL. Just not send. My ISP is a cable modem and they may now support pop3. Don;t know. Was with Roadrunner so long and it was such a pain to get it run under Linux in the olden days that I quit using ISP based email long long ago. Technically I could point a domain at my machine, use one of the dynamic IP sites and host my own email on this machine. Just seems like a great deal of work to introduce a potential security vulnerability to my system with no gain in functionality. I tend to agree with you about the waste of bandwidth. All those useless tags can triple or quadruple an email's size but if you do want to do some fancy formating it is better than the propriatory formats that existed before HTML became the standard and better than opening attachments. Though it does introduce potential java script vulnerabilities into the email. I HATE flash period. Under Linux it is truly torture. There is a serious mem leak in the flash plugin for Firefox and once you visit a flash site Firefox is doomed. It will eventually consume all mem, usually in less than a week and then all those 50-100 of tabs I have open have to be reopened. I have to re-login into dozens of sites assuming that the session manager hasn't corrupted the session. Then I have to go into the history and get at those sites from there. So your preaching to the choir about flash. Regardless, where the desire is to communicate, the most common method > is preferable. This is why good Websites have ALT tags for images, are > usable without their CSS, and don't use images or Flash for needed page > elements. I lump HTML email in with all of that. :) > > > > This is in direct conflict with Paul's comments. Paul basically said that only one way should be documented. He appears to be strongly opposed to the idea of documenting different ways of doing things. [snip content about best of breed] > > Sorry, without Paul's comment to compare it to, I'm guessing. I presume > you mean his comments that we want to document the default installed > applications before we branch into non-defaults also available for > Fedora. My comment above is that the reason we don't have the default > camera stuff well covered is a lack of resources. Whoever is working on > the User Guide decides what are the priorities for coverage. If there > isn't a person or time to get to cameras, it is not in that guide. As for default install that I'm not as sure of. I have never used the default install. The partitioning scheme is for starters unworkable for me. I don't use the upgrade function. When I move from one Fedora version to the next I format the root partition. /home and /data contain all my user generated data and config files. Except for backing up a few things from /etc I can safely format / and lose nothing except having to install those thousands of packages I like to clutter up my hard drive with. I can't help it. I get into yum extender and see so many cool packages or figure I'll give this or that a try this time around LOL. The second aspect is many packages I consider essential for a bare functional machine such as K3b are not installed by default. So I add KDE, KDE admin tools and spend a good half hour removing and adding software on every install. I might be building a server which the default Fedora install is not well suited for, or a desktop again it's not well suited. So I have never once done a default install. Just not practical in my opinion. What I add or subtract depends on who and what I'm building the machine for. Much of it can be done post install but for many packages the installer saves a great deal of manual work opposed to configurations that need to be made if you install from yum, tarballs or rpms. So I prefer to get the core of the OS installed from the CDs right off the bat. Most of what I consider essential software lives on the CDs. It's just not installed by default. Many apps like Krusader are easily added afterwords and krusader is just nice to have not essential. What I do not see is how for example when talking about file management how a discussion of file managers is either confusing or difficult. Why not cover file managers since it is a crucial part of how any OS works? Since they are the part of the user interface many people see the most of. Make that easier for them and you've improved their Linux experience by orders of magnitude. Nautilis and Konquerer to me are poor file managers. They imitate Microsoft's very poor file management user interface but many people love that style of interface. If I were to write a doc and only cover Krusader I'd be doing the topic a great disservice. A major reason why people would visit such a topic is not to know what a file manager is. They'd never found the doc if they didn't know what a file manager is LOL. It is to help the user. In the case of file managers it would be to present different types of file managers. Krusader and midnight commander represent the popular Norton Commander style interface while Konquerer and Nautilis are based more on the Microsoft file manager which is really a windows version of the PC Tools file utilities. Both have a great deal of configurability and it would be out of scope to spend a great deal of time on that. Placing a link to project/document sites about that software though would not be confusing or out of scope. It would be informative and after all isn't it our job to distribute information? An important point to note is that no one is forcing you or anyone to > choose what to document. If you want it part of Fedora documentation, > it has to be about software that is in the galaxy of packages, that is > all. > > Our focus on the project has to be first on the default install. It > doesn't make sense to focus outside of this until those bases are > covered. > > Again, this is project focus, not personal focus. You will be steered > to document e.g. gthumb because it is default, not because we feel it is > the best of breed. That decision comes from the people doing the > development, packaging, and spinning. I posted a quick example of documenting KDE, Gnome and command line in the same set of documentation. While I need to do a serious rewrite on it as for wording the concept shows that there can be clear documentation that shows multiple ways to do things under the same topic. If a user keeps seeing all these nifty tools that exist in another desktop then they might just get the urge to try that desktop. If they do they might like it better. If they like it better they will be happier as Linux users. If they are happier as Linux users and more productive then it is good for the Linux community. Doesn't matter what desktop makes their heart sing long as their heart sings. Am I wrong? The best way is to show some of these tools and give them places to branch off to explore such tools. Again one of the hardest jobs in retaining new Linux users is getting them too tools they like. The default apps for any Distro I've tried are not the apps I would normally set a new user up with and sometimes ones I would NEVER allow a new user to use if I wanted to see them stay with Linux. VI for example. You want to scare windoze users away show them VI, or worse make them use it :) Which brings up text editing. You have Open Office, Abiword, Koffice, Kedit, Kate, Gedit, Scribe, Lnxer(sp) Emacs, Kwrite, Nedit and I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple commonly used packages. For most people Lnxer is not the way to go but for a few it will be heaven. I've found that kedit is like notepad on steroids and by far leaves windoze users the most comfortable when doing raw text editing. Most will prefer Open Office but Word Perfect fans will find Abiword a far better match. Abiword also has built in grammar checker, a thesarus package and is far easier on system resources. So a user who's running on a machine with minimal hardware may well need Abiword and be unable to really use Open Office. They flip open the Fedora docs and find that Abiword is lower on resources and suddenly they find that they don't have to buy new hardware. They can do word processing on that ancient machine. That to me is the purpose of such documentation. I haven't run Koffice for a bit but if I were to tackle the subject I would and would give as objective a description of the pros and cons of the Koffice suite. The idea is to promote Linux by delivering the best fit within reason for what people do. At the very least give them a choice. Fedora does so with it's install packages and repositories. Why should we documenting it ignore those same packages? No one is going to turn down documentation about non-default > applications. It still has to meet the same requirements of other > content, that is, it has to be well written, use clear and translatable > language, be maintained/maintainable, and other general guidelines. If > it is about non-default applications, it may be harder to find > co-maintainers. That is the challenge you accept when you focus on the > non-default applications. The way I see it is that if we get to the doing part we will see more help in the co-maintaining problem. In some areas there will only be one person and even nobody with the required level of expertise and interest to do a respectable job. Still some docs is better than no docs wouldn't you say? However, in this new Fedora world, it is hard to know what is going to > be on a default spin. It could very well be Kid3 etc., especially where > it is a KDE spin. Agreed so why not cover the commonly used stuff at least at a high level and provide a link for users to do their own footwork to do detailed comparisons? So, we repeatedly ask for help in documenting KDE defaults. I'm more than happy to do so. Though I do see a problem with KFedora vrs Fedora. It tends to make KDE users feel like 2nd class citizens. I posted a nice rant on the topic of kbuntu vrs Ubunto on the Ubunto forums for this same reason. Fedrora is not Gnome, it just defaults to a Gnome desktop. Probably most people run other desktops. Fedora is independent of the desktop manager and many machines running Fedora do not even have X installed at all. In my opinion the Admin guide and basic user guide are desktop independent. Then have a KDE, Gnome section each for specifics to those desktops such as how to add to menus, change screensavers and so on. Speaking of machines not using X. Many of the documentation guides make no provision for command line equivs. This is an issue for those who are not running a desktop manager or those running a minimal desktop manager. Other people will turn to the guide to help configure one of the many dedicated hosting servers out there running Fedora. They will do most or all of their configurations through SSH tunnels or usually rather clunky web based GUIs. So for things like file management, permissions and many other tasks it is very important to cover the command line as well as the GUI methods of doing things. I don't think there is a contradiction. We have a generic policy to > document the defaults of the various spins Fedora itself produces. As > those spins cover more software as "default", our content has to expand. > What actually gets work effort is then dependent on resources and > timing. > > If you want to see an application be documented as default, then you > need to do the work to get it recognized as the default for a formal > spin. You can spin it yourself as the default, but then you are in the > same boat as above -- as a side-effort that has to be self-maintained, > even from within the Docs Project. The default is a pretty varied animal even if you use only the server/desktop/whatever else default installs. I view default as what is normally contained on the Fedora install CDs or in the Fedora official repositories. So for me Gambas is part of the default since it's part of the extras repository and a stunningly good replacement for VB. Any talk about programming IDEs that neglected Gambas would be doing the topic a disservice. Kdevelop, Ajunta, Glade, and so on are all must covers I feel when it comes to programming IDEs. All in official Fedora repsositories. Maybe there's a difference of opinion there since I find the default Fedora workstation install as defined by you click on default install so limiting that it's not a usable work station. It does nothing for Linux advocacy which I see as a big part of our unwritten duty and it does not help many people since in the real world few use that install. The real world is my focus. Most Fedora users I know do not install many apps not found in my deffinition of default. There will be an occasional tarball or driver and there is support needed for media formats and such. But the bulk of their software can be found on the CDs/official Fedora repositories. So to me while it's a much broader class of software it is also more in line with real life usage. I'll admit I've only helped about 40 or 50 people transition to Linux specifically using Fedora. I recommend Fedora as a distro anytime I have influence in the decision. One of the reasons is that Fedora has such good support for so many good packages. Far fewer things you have to hand install. I also maintained some large networks with Fedora being the default distro as well as participated in various Fedora lists and forums and general Linux forums and lists. So my sampling of Fedora users is only hundreds of users. In all that time the only users I ever lost back to windoze were ones using default Fedora installs. That is my personal experience. To me it says if we want to keep users we show them more than one way to do things. As for resources. I need to spend probably 2 hours editing the services doc I wrote.The wording and grammar are very poor. I added about 2 minutes to the writing time to support both KDE and Gnome. Turns out there was only one difference between them. That is the first place you click. Still I used switchdesk to start a Gnome session to double check. I spend more time on the command line section than the GUI but feel it was quite essential to the topic. So supporting both took a very minimal time. I need to install XFCE so that I can document using that as well. As a writer I feel it's my job when covering a topic to be up on all 3 since all 3 are used frequently. My personal preferences may be with one or another but that doesn't help the end user who may be using something different. So I waste a bit of drive space with a window manager I don't actually use. Given todays drive sizes few if any on this list will notice the extra half gig to add all 3 window managers. Nor is it a great time expenditure to spend some time doing research on a topic. After all isn't research a crucial element in any type of writing? Most of us have technical backgrounds. So the research element will be mostly trivial if they are not accustomed or easy enough to get a co-writer to fill in the equiv in another desktop. For example somebody wanted to know what the KDE counterpart of say GRIP is I'd be happy to write up a quick doc for them or point them at that app. I'm just not seeing a large time investment in supporting KDE and Gnome and potentially XFCE. Second some docs are better than none and if nobody is around or willing to contribute the other desktop's section then so be it. > > > Anyone can get an account and edit this page: > > > > I created several Fedora accounts but never had access. I got on the > > IRC channels and asked and was directed to several different people > > but in the end still had no working account. Where should I start? > > Recreating a gpg sig? I should still have a wiki account, but it had > > no write access last time I tried to edit anything. > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/WikiEditing#Getting_Edit_Access > > I've been working for a long time at making it easier to get a Wiki > account. There were technical and legal barriers. We have overcome all > of them, and are just waiting for Moin 1.6 to be released for us to > migrate to it and have a click-through CLA. Then you can get Wiki > access just by creating an account. So, I'm very sorry for the > difficulties of the past, it was necessary to be that way, and now we > are fixing it. > > > > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/DesktopUserGuide/Photos > > > > Account creation really isn't that hard, and helpful people > > are > > everywhere. > > > > > The problems I see with the project start with the > > complexity to > > > actually write something. First nobody knows what needs > > written. > > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks > > > > Ah but what needs to be written? When you click on a link it takes you > > to a list of templates. The admin guide shows a list of topics but if > > you drill down far enough it always takes you to a list of templates. > > Part of the problem with not having enough writers on the project is the > task list is incomplete. This sounds like a good place to review the task list. I've noticed quite a few missing areas such as text processing. I'd suggest taking one section a week and building a task list from a concencious on the list. The folks doing the work around here are trying to make it easier to > find something to do, but we cannot take the time to enumerate every > single task in detail. Aside from the time effort involved, it's also > not really the way a self-directed FLOSS community works. We need to > grow contributors who are self-starters and don't require a detailed > task list forever. In other words, those tasks are to get you started, > not keep you working for months on end. > > FWIW, I think these are good tasks to get anyone started: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks/UserGuide > > The reason the Admin Guide is only a template to be filled is because no > one is leading the effort on that guide. > > > We need concrete suggestions that we haven't already > > tried. We'll > > continue to beat that old drum as you suggest, but we either > > need a new > > rhythm, a new drum, or a new drummer. > > > A suggestion is a quick FAQ. The how to create an account was pretty > > good in detail for example. Then when somebody joins up email it to > > them as well as periodically The same approach. If you'd like I can start with the admin list and build a topic list using this group to start discussions on what topics and where to put what sub topics. > We have made a conscious decision to provide information to > > users who > > may not be familiar with what is obvious to you and I. > [...] > > OK, I won't forestall with many suggestions. :) Just remember that > content for the User Guide isn't the same as for the Admin Guide, and > the UG can always hand-off more details to the AG to cover. > > > Which brings up a question. Png graphics the acceptable default? > > They are. However, if this is for GUI screenshots, note that we avoid > screenshots unless they provide something you can't get in plain text. > In such a case, they are typically diagrams rather than a shot of what > is most likely already on the user's screen. Ok, I was following convention by providing lots of screen shots. They can be a bit bulky and unfortunately change as the interface changes, but can also say quite a bit. In the screen shots in the sample services doc I sent. Would any be useful in the final doc? In the case of file managers a screen shot can say what would take pages to say. In fact a screen shot, a line or two and a link to the project would probably be the best way to handle the file managers section. Users could in minutes narrow down their favorites, install them and be up and going. I can't find the reference to this guideline; I thought I put it into > the StyleGuide: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/StyleGuide/ > > ... but I can't find it. I'll have to dig up the last post on this > subject, rework it a bit, and put it in the StyleGuide. > > > > Anyone is welcome to cover those topics, within > > legal-in-the-US > > guidelines. But as the Docs Project, we have to focus on one > > or a few > > things to be successful at it, and why not "Users new to the > > Fedora > > desktop working environment"? > > > > I understand legal issues and will stay away from MP3s. > > Note that again, the "Users new to the Fedora desktop working > environment" doesn't mean you can't write for a different audience from > within Fedora Docs. It is just that our focus and resource directives > are around that. So, for example, if you submit content for review and > it is clearly for application developers using LAMP on Fedora, it won't > get the same speedy response as content bound for the User Guide. That sounds fair to me. > > > For example, there have been numerous requests for KDE > > content, but no > > one has stepped up to write it. When someone does, we'll have > > it. But > > it isn't reasonable to ask for a change in the commitment of > > resources > > for what you think is a good idea. > > > > > > I'd be happy to write KDE specific stuff but why not cover both at the > > same time? [...] > > Mainly resources. It really does take more time and effort to explain > usage of three applications instead of just one. An iterative approach > goes roughly like this: 1. Document one application of every type that can appear in a default > GNOME install. > 2. Document one application of every type that can appear in a default > KDE install. > 3. Document additional applications that are popular/best-of-breed but > aren't necessarily the default in one of the upstream desktop > environments. In many cases though there are only trivial differences in usage but big differences in looks, speed, key bindings and such. Note that we absorb many standards from the upstream. KDE and GNOME > decide already what is are default MIME type handlers in their install. > Fedora doesn't tweak with that every much, aiui. > > > What I don't see is breaking everything up into if you use KDE and you > > want to burn a CD do this, if you use Gnome do this. > > This is more a discussion of _how_ to format the documents. This has > been discussed on list, and IIRC the decision was to have a GNOME app > and a KDE app under every section, by task. CD burning, camera > transfer, etc. Reasons: > > * Some writers only know one or the other set of defaults well enough to > write about them; this lets them get involved without forcing them to > learn other applications. > > * It is easy enough to explain that GNOME apps come from installing the > GNOME Desktop group, and KDE from installing the KDE Desktop group, and > it is possible to have both installed. But just in case someone has > only one installed, here is an option from each grouping to cover the > task. > > Still, we could just have e.g. "CD burning" and cover "a few common > applciations", making sure that one from KDE group and one from GNOME > group are included. IIRC, the reason we did not do that was because > people are still being taught to know about the two desktop > environments, and we didn't want to be drastically different and thereby > confusing. That is actually the case for most. For services, network configuration, Samba configuration, NFS and really most topics there are only minor if any differences. Usually it's because the default Gnome menu now sits on top and has the System seperated from the start button. So there's a different starting place but the rest of the steps are exactly the same. When it comes to burning from Nautilis and Konquerer it's pretty much the same. K3b, Gnomebake, XCDroast are the more traditional style of burners. Covering K3b would cover the basics for these and a quick link and screen shot would be sufficient to make users aware of alternates. When it comes to partitioning KDE defaults to QTparted and Gnome to Gparted. Essentially the same software. Diskdruid is what both see when doing the install. Parted and Fdisk are desktop independent and not even X apps. So especially with the admin guide there are few major differences. When it comes to look and feel that's where the split is prounounced. So for the KDE guide to me it'd make more sense to go after KDE configuration rather than how to burn a CD or rip audio files as those tasks are more or less desktop independent and each desktop offers multiple ways to do the same thing. Covering every possibility is of course too much but a happy middle ground I feel would best serve the community while being both practical and useful. As the rest of Fedora erases the differences between KDE and GNOME for a > standard install, so can we erase the difference in our content. > > [snip about red tape] > > > My suggestion is just my impression as a new user and what I'm hearing > > in other new user posts. > > Agreed that this is an impression that I hear. Glad it is obvious that > we are trying to make it better, eh? :) There is no shortage of good will on the list. We are of a common purpose and I've seen no hostility or malice from anybody on the list. I don't think anybody feels that anyone on this list is intentionally obstructing or playing personal fiefdoms or anything of that nature. > Generally people say hi, welcome to the list. Point them at a link > > that generally leads to a template or other dead end. People then go > > away. Look at how many new people have joined in the last six months > > and how few contributions have come from them. True a certain > > percentage would never contribute a word no matter how easy you make > > it. Still statistically something is wrong in the process with that > > high a rate of non-contribution. > > > > Also there is no central FAQ or repository for information related to > > this project. For example to get on IRC I'd have to search through my > > emails to find the server or a link to the page that has the server > > listed on it. There's no room listing at all. So if your not directed > > or don't do a little exploring you don't even know what rooms actually > > exist. The GPG page is in one place but other account creation info in > > other places. > > Right, definitely sounds like (ironically) an FAQ is called for. I'll > start a separate thread so we can gather what in fact are the FAQs. Yup it is. Reread the welcome letter to the latest guy to join the list. He was pointed at the translation section but the Wiki Account creation you put into this post for example was missing. So were quite a few things he'll need to get started. Any kind of documentation can be hard to do because for most people writing it what you are writing about is second nature. You've done it so often that you often forget the middle steps or reasoning or other essentials that a new person won't have. It make sense to you because you've done it a thousand times and know where it all is already or got that painful step out of the way so long ago that you've forgotten it exists. When I was a coder I often was surprised at how much I left out of program docs I read when those docs met a real live user in my presence. Things I took for granted were not common knowledge to the end user. So I always tested my docs out on as green a user as I could get my hands on and took volumes of notes on questions they had, mistakes they made and mistakes I made. - Karsten > -- > Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project > Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject > quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 > ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kwade at redhat.com Wed Aug 15 23:11:13 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:11:13 -0700 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187219473.5699.27.camel@erato.phig.org> Attached is the original I cut out from the email, a revised version, and a standard diff between the two. Hopefully that makes it easier to see each individual edit. I made all edits to bring the document in line with standard guide lines; this 100% edit is the level of edit I would only expect to do a few times for a writer before they picked up the changes enough to send in nearly perfect copy. Some quick observations: * This would be easy to do in the Wiki, right into the Admin Guide * Then you could get some nicer markup to e.g. differentiate commands and file paths, etc. * The WikiEditing page has a short and useful section on doing technical markup for consistency: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/WikiEditing#Marking_Technical_Terms * This is also useful for Docs-specific items: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/WritingUsingTheWiki * I trimmed all the screenshots; the text described them fine, and has the advantage of being easily translatable. Read it, you can see that the screenshots didn't add anything, especially where the text is accurate with what is seen on the screen. * When there is the need to describe command line output, just paste that directly in; it is much easier to fix, etc. It has the advantage of letting someone copy/paste commands directly from the document. * When describing anything the user sees directly, such as a command input/output or a GUI window, it is very important that what you write is 100% what the user sees. If the button is called "Stop" and not "stop", capitalize it in the writing to make it match the UI. Even if the UI is inconsistent, be consistent with it. This grows confidence in the reader. :) Since you can write this stuff fairly quickly, it is pretty good raw content as-is, and I'm sure you have the capacity to improve your writing :), let's figure out what you need to do to get a Wiki account. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 16 00:27:00 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:27:00 -0700 Subject: FDSCo Meeting 2007-08-14 IRC log Message-ID: <1187224020.5699.46.camel@erato.phig.org> HTML at: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minutes/IRCLog20070814 09:03 < quaid> 09:03 < quaid> greetings all after a hiatus :) 09:04 < jmbuser> JohnBabich 09:04 < quaid> KarstenWade ?!? 09:05 < quaid> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings#Agenda 09:05 < quaid> hmm, well, that's somewhat relevant 09:07 < quaid> wow, i'm a bit stimied 09:08 < quaid> I'm literally sitting here trying to figure out what to type 09:09 < quaid> it's not that there isn't anything to discuss, it's that ... well I'm not sure these meetings have much relevancy anymore 09:10 < quaid> I'm having a massive circle of doubt around Fedora Docs 09:10 < quaid> ok, IMO we don't have anything to meet about; 09:11 < quaid> we don't have enough people for a discussion, nothing to decide, and a large apathy:resource ratio to deal with 09:11 -!- stickster is now known as stickster_work 09:11 < quaid> so I'm going to leave things open here for a few minutes to see if anything has the desire to discuss this right now 09:11 < jmbuser> quaid: We have a great deal to discuss - how to motivate people, for one 09:11 * stickster_work is taking lunch here at desk, back in 5 min. to discuss/bitch/whine/whatever 09:11 < quaid> otherwise, i think we need a serious on-list discussion 09:12 < quaid> jmbuser: I'm getting to be unusually pessimistic about that 09:12 < quaid> as in, how many times can we beat on that horse? 09:12 < jmbuser> quaid: I've been here for a year - a very good year and I'm still motivated - but currently distracted by chaos at work 09:13 < jmbuser> quaid: I see good things happening in the toolchain and in translation 09:13 < jmbuser> Fedora 7 threw us a curve ball with the open-endedness of the application list 09:14 < quaid> well, we are more ambitiuous than we have resources for 09:14 < glezos> quaid, I'm a bit worried about that as well 09:16 < quaid> I feel disapppointed, I gues 09:16 < quaid> we've done a great job of building a scalable project 09:16 < glezos> it's probably OK with Beats/relnotes before each release -- but do we have the resources to follow the wiki -> docbook -> CVS/etc -> publishing for every doc? 09:17 < quaid> but not enough have showed up, and it's all about "the barriers" and "red tape" 09:17 < quaid> glezos: the problem is, we get ~2 people _ever_ who wnt to work in XML 09:17 < glezos> quaid, exactly. 09:17 < quaid> we're adding Plone to that -- plone => docbook => CVS etc. 09:17 < stickster_work> The problem is not the tools, it's the dedication of people to actually get the job done. 09:18 < quaid> does Docs just attract the wrong kind of people? 09:18 < stickster_work> Although there's an argument to be made that the number of tools available makes for fragmenting the workload 09:18 < quaid> those looking for something easier than we present? 09:19 < stickster_work> I don't know how it gets easier when you have people willing to hold hands 09:19 < glezos> stickster_work, I think it's also the tools -- people might be more willing to "just" create a howto/doc in a wiki page 09:19 < stickster_work> glezos: We don't want people to do that, though. 09:19 < stickster_work> We want them to agree to *maintain* it. 09:19 < stickster_work> That's a different level of work commitment. 09:20 < glezos> stickster_work, why not? better nothing than something? We could eventually put a warning on top "this is deprecated" in the worst case 09:20 < ricky> By the way, have you guys started playing with Plone more yet? 09:20 < stickster_work> glezos: That's just multiplying the problem we have now by X number of quasi-contributors 09:20 < glezos> stickster_work, for example, the L10n project would like to update the TQSG with the new stuff, but nobody is doing it because it's too hard 09:20 < ricky> I'm not completely clear on you plan on using it for, I'm just a bit curious. 09:20 < stickster_work> glezos: Actually, noriko is working on that now 09:21 < stickster_work> I was helping her on Friday night 09:21 < stickster_work> ricky: By "you guys," do you mean the ~2.5 of us that are working actively in this project? 09:21 < ricky> Oh.. I guess? 09:22 < glezos> stickster_work, what I want to say is that there is a level of committment various people are willing to take, and docbook/cvs might be too high a step for most of them to take. 09:22 < quaid> ricky: two parts 09:23 < quaid> ricky: to serve fedoraproject.org itself, which is out of the Docs scope but since daMaestro is setting up one instance ... 09:23 < stickster_work> glezos: If we're going to raise a barn together, pretty much everyone needs to commit to hammering, sawing, and hefting. 09:23 < stickster_work> glezos: People who only want to count timbers and fetch water, you only need a couple of 'em ;-) 09:23 < quaid> ricky: for docs.fp.o, Jon is adding a custom workflow that includes outputting to XML into CVS for canonical source and translation. 09:23 < quaid> glezos: I think we have made the Wiki quite available for that level 09:24 < ricky> OK. I'm not sure about status of fp.o itself at the moment. Hopefully, there will be a bit more discussion before that happens. 09:24 < quaid> and people do that for other parts of the wiki, I presume; lightweight documentation 09:24 < stickster_work> Right 09:24 < ricky> Hmm.. sounds interesting. So the final docs would still be generated from DocBook? 09:24 < glezos> stickster_work, so if we don't have the people, then we might need to rethink if we want to raise a barn or just a plain-ol bench under an oak tree. :) 09:24 < quaid> ricky: yes 09:24 < quaid> glezos: that's true, yet ... 09:24 < stickster_work> I'm not interested in bench-building, personally. 09:25 < stickster_work> I can do that on my own. I'd rather raise a barn with a dozen other people. 09:25 < stickster_work> With the wiki, anyone can "build a bench." Done. 09:26 < stickster_work> If there's going to be a FDP, we need to commit to barn-building. 09:26 < quaid> +1 09:26 < quaid> that's the point 09:26 < ricky> So basically, people don't want to edit docbook sources directly/translate with po files? 09:26 < glezos> stickster_work, personally, I think our docs infrastructure is already a shiny building I'm proud of. :) 09:26 < quaid> of we are only going to get big enough to build benches, we should dissolve all the hard work and be a SIG 09:27 < stickster_work> ricky: Well, we have plenty of people translating, no problems there as far as I can tell 09:27 < glezos> ricky, translators want to work with PO files, yes. Not with Docbook. 09:27 < quaid> ricky: people want to translate PO files 09:27 < quaid> heh 09:27 < stickster_work> That's a great community, no doubt 09:27 < ricky> So the thing is that people don't like docbook? 09:27 < quaid> ricky: the idea for a while has been to enable multiple $editors with one powerful source in the middle (DocBook) 09:27 < stickster_work> And the community of writers != community of l10n'ers 09:28 < ricky> Aha. 09:28 < quaid> we're actually quite good with that; a guide can be worked entirely in the wiki and output at the end with just a few hours of clean-up 09:28 < ricky> Heh. 09:28 < quaid> now we're adding Plone + Kupu to that 09:28 < quaid> I don't think Docbook is the problem at all 09:28 < quaid> I also don't think it is really the "red tape" 09:29 < quaid> I think it is that we are asking people to be real contributors, not toss-over-the-wallers 09:29 < quaid> and we have the same problem all other tech projects have around docs; "we need that" and "someone else has to do it, i don't have time" 09:30 < glezos> quaid, if we enable people to write docs and maintain them *on the wiki*, do you think the problem won't be solved? 09:30 < quaid> that's right 09:31 < quaid> I don't see where we have told anyone they cannot maintain a doc on the Wiki 09:31 < quaid> in fact, that's what the Docs/ space is for 09:31 < stickster_work> The wiki can accumulate deprecated docs as fast as (or faster than) any other publishing platform 09:31 < glezos> quaid, I think that people won't have a problem maintaining something on the wiki. I'd maintain the TQSG if it was on the wiki to be honest. 09:31 < quaid> we just said, if you want it translated ... 09:31 < quaid> well, my thought is to turn the wiki into a 100% community docs place 09:32 < quaid> and the question then is ... 09:32 < ricky> ^Agreed. 09:32 < quaid> should Docs feel responsible for keeping it clean. 09:32 < quaid> ? 09:32 < quaid> glezos: but how would you get the TQSG translated? 09:32 < stickster_work> ^ +1 09:32 < quaid> do we want 2 more l10n systems (Wiki, Plone) 09:32 < stickster_work> :-P 09:33 < ricky> Not necessarily responsible/high-priority, but it'd be nice :) 09:33 < glezos> quaid, I'd prefer to first worry on how to have up2date content and *then* for l10n 09:33 < ricky> My impression was that l10n was handled after the conversion to docbook (following the normal translation team workflow). 09:33 < quaid> yes 09:34 < quaid> but if a doc is maintained on the wiki ... 09:34 < stickster_work> ricky: The point is that wiki changes happen all the time and every change to a converted doc has to be manually ported in 09:34 < quaid> even if it were automated, it's still hard to track 09:34 < quaid> people don't apply any level of rigor to Wiki work like they do to other work, IME 09:34 < stickster_work> +2 09:34 < quaid> we would have to layer a whole CMS-like system -- 09:34 < ricky> Does having docs maintained on the wiki somehow increase contributor drive? 09:34 < glezos> My thinking was to have a wiki space where wiki pages are of high-quality in terms of Documentation. They have passed editorial control, they are maintained (names appearing) and if not, there is a warning about it. Lightweight docs as you said. 09:35 < quaid> Docs/ 09:35 < quaid> been there for a long time :) 09:35 < ricky> From what I've seen, most projects just have docbook in an SCM, right? 09:35 < quaid> ricky: for example ... 09:35 < stickster_work> We had an initial influx of work for wiki-based docs, but other than the release notes, people have not really done a huge amount of follow-through on drafts 09:35 < quaid> ricky: take the Mozilla Developer site; they changed from XML in CVS to a Wiki 09:36 < quaid> ricky: this was a highly technical group, but they never did their XML work; but in the Wiki, they saw contributions from the community increase 10x 09:36 < ricky> Aha. So it does help a lot. 09:36 < quaid> so experience shows that people will edit a Wiki, but not maintain there as much 09:37 < quaid> there needs to be people who dedicate themselves to doing janitorial work. 09:37 < quaid> and while that could be this project, to be honest ... 09:37 < quaid> it's not the interest of the active participants 09:37 < quaid> for the most part. 09:37 < ricky> Isn't basic cleanup really easy for bystanders to do on the wiki? 09:37 < quaid> maybe we should advertise for Wiki editors? 09:37 < glezos> quaid, right. We could help people "helping themselves" in maintaining.. Deprecation warnings, categories for obsolete docs, etc. 09:37 < stickster_work> It will be once we get moin 1.6 and the click through CLA in place, right quaid ? 09:37 < quaid> ricky: presuming they know how to write and follow a style guide, yes 09:38 < quaid> stickster_work: well, easier to get people accounts, yes 09:38 < stickster_work> quaid: That's a HUGE presumption too 09:38 < quaid> HUGE 09:39 < quaid> I think after we have Plone up to be a real CMS 09:39 < quaid> we need to reinvent the Wiki 09:39 < quaid> and do some announcemenets around that 09:39 < ricky> I'm personally somewhat afraid of Plone. 09:39 < quaid> which part? 09:40 < quaid> ricky: the reason for Plone is pretty simple 09:40 < quaid> ricky: the process to go from DocBook XML to published pages, no matter how we do it, if it is manual, we'll have about 2.5 people who know how to publish 09:40 < ricky> Well, as a frontend to editing Docbook, I'm not too concerned. 09:40 < quaid> Plone let's us put that in the hands of content area owners, and to automate the XML build so normal folks can edit/publish 09:41 < stickster_work> Best features of both wiki + docbook 09:41 < stickster_work> Easy writing for people who just want to write 09:41 < stickster_work> Toolchain options for other publishing (PDF, RPM, etc.) 09:42 < ricky> For anything something more complex (like a full-blown CMS), it can have a steep learning curve. 09:42 < quaid> well, it's a new Web app to learn 09:42 < glezos> ricky, +1 09:42 < quaid> but you can create documents and edit them with a better WYSIWYG editor than a Wiki is 09:43 < ricky> The GNOME web team has actually been trying to move over to a Plone site.. and it's been painful so far (I saw participation/activity drop down *a lot*). 09:43 < ricky> But as I said, for an editing interface, it might work well :) 09:44 < quaid> well, in terms of just Docs ... 09:44 < quaid> that is, for the Websites side, you see the benefits, right? 09:44 < quaid> I guess for Docs, I can't see how participation can get much lower. 09:45 < ricky> What do you mean about the websites side? 09:46 < quaid> what I mean is, the serving of fedorproject.org front pages 09:46 < quaid> v. having the Wiki be the front page 09:46 < quaid> or having us manually create and maintain pages, or hack up SSIs or whatever 09:47 < ricky> Well, that's where I've seen a lot of pain in other projects. I'm currently researching any other possibilities. 09:47 < quaid> right now, if you want to delegate some set of pages to a new Websites person, they need a lot experience and access 09:47 < quaid> setup pain? or maintenance pain? 09:47 < ricky> If you want to maintain clean markup and use kupu, you must know HTML decently (from what I've seen). 09:47 < quaid> I guess the usage of Plone for the front-page was an older idea that is just included with our GSoC work; it can be decoupled, though. 09:48 < quaid> hmm, I haven't edited extensively in Kupu, it just looked like straight XHTML editing. 09:48 < ricky> I don't want to rant on against Plone, but templating for it and customizing page layouts hasn't been easy for me. 09:48 < jmbuser> IMHO, the wiki presentation quality is much improved...thanks to Plone 09:49 < quaid> jmbuser: sorry, where? 09:49 < jmbuser> That's part of the communications process 09:49 < jmbuser> quaid: the main page 09:49 < ricky> Well, maybe it can be modified to remove some of the presentational tags/attributes that it produces. 09:49 < quaid> ricky: well, beat on daMaestro, definitely don't let him get away with an unmaintainable hack for the front-page stuff 09:49 < quaid> jmbuser: main page isn't Plone 09:49 < jmbuser> educate me... 09:49 < EvilBob> HI ALL! 09:49 < quaid> jmbuser: it's just plain HTML + CSS 09:50 < quaid> EvilBob: howdy 09:50 < jmbuser> ahhhh 09:50 < EvilBob> ricky: templating plone is not that hard 09:50 * jmbuser was suffering under a delusion 09:50 < ricky> I don't want to start a war over this, honestly, but I'm hoping to open up the options a bit. 09:50 < quaid> ricky: oh, hardly a war 09:50 < glezos> quaid, do you think plone will increase the number of contributors to docs? 09:51 < ricky> EvilBob: Well, I'm admittedly somewhat pedantic about having "perfectly" clean markup, etc. 09:51 < quaid> ricky: a foregone decision doesn't mean it's locked in stone 09:51 < EvilBob> ricky: http://fedorasolved.org/ 09:51 < quaid> glezos: yes, in a few ways 09:51 < quaid> glezos: number of people who can edit/publish can increase easily 09:52 < EvilBob> ricky: make it work first clean it up later 09:52 < quaid> glezos: if people can write with a Web UI editor and have that go directly into l10n and publishing without leaving the Web UI, I reckon that will help 09:53 < EvilBob> ricky: there are many sites out there running plone that most people can not tell are running plone from the outside 09:54 < ricky> EvilBob: Really? I'd be really interested to hear about some, actually. 09:54 * jmbuser has to cut and run 09:54 < EvilBob> ricky: sure we can hook up later 09:55 < ricky> EvilBob: OK, feel free to PM me if you ever want, or you know where to find me on IRC :) 09:55 -!- jmbuser [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has quit ["Leaving"] 09:55 < quaid> glezos: esp. if Plone is additive rather than replacing 09:56 < glezos> quaid, agreed. 09:56 < glezos> quaid, if we do manage to have this infrastructure, then it would be great. 09:56 < kanarip> glezos, especially when it doesn't take a year or so to save my doc updates 09:56 < EvilBob> heh 09:56 < EvilBob> wiki pains 09:57 * stickster_work wonders if his planned vfudcon How to Make Docs in CVS is simply a waste of time 09:57 * ricky will probably listen to it :) 09:57 < EvilBob> stickster_work: no 09:57 < EvilBob> not a waste 09:57 < EvilBob> we still need the skills 09:57 < EvilBob> IMO anyhow 09:57 < glezos> Q: do we know of any project (other than wikipedia), that is maintaining high-quality docs on a wiki? 09:58 < ricky> I think he mentioned developer.mozilla.org 09:58 < EvilBob> glezos: a wiki != moinmoin 09:59 < quaid> yes, developer.mozilla.org is one 10:00 < ricky> Anyway, I'm off to lunch now- thanks for taking the time to explain everything to me. 10:00 < ricky> (I'll try to somewhat keep up with the discussion later, hopefully) 10:00 < quaid> we should wrap up 10:00 < quaid> anyone want to add anything more here? 10:01 < quaid> otherwise, we'll continue on-list :) 10:03 < glezos> I'm ok.. sorry if I sounded too negative -- m just trying to think if we are 10:04 < glezos> doing something that could be improved by re-engineering some of our processes. 10:04 < EvilBob> glezos: there has been talk that we are doing more than moinmoin was designed for 10:04 < stickster_work> glezos: You're not offbase... it's just hard to see where the improvement factors come in when there isn't a sufficient sample of where our time is spent on current processes, because there are so few people using them to start with 10:05 < EvilBob> glezos: if that is what you are talking about 10:06 < glezos> agreed :) 10:06 < quaid> ok then ... 10:06 < EvilBob> IMO having to wait for page saves in excess of a minute is ridiculous 10:07 < EvilBob> I don't know where the bottle neck is in that process 10:07 < quaid> it's a design thing, and there has been research into it 10:07 < quaid> Infra has one person who did some tests, etc. 10:08 < vpv> EvilBob: afaik moin goes through all the user accounts to find which ones to notify, rayvd has been working on it, but I haven't heard from him in a while 10:08 < EvilBob> Yeah I know others know about it and have looked at it 10:08 < mmcgrath> EvilBob: Every time you save, moin has to iterate over every user file and every regex in that file to see if that user should be notified about that page. 10:08 < EvilBob> mmcgrath: that is what I thought 10:09 < mmcgrath> we even deleted a bunch of users back in the day (we deleted about 7000 IIRC) and that helpped but it only masked the problem. 10:09 < stickster_work> design-- 10:10 * mmcgrath bbiab 10:10 < ricky> Woah. 7000. 10:11 < quaid> yeah, imagine if all those people could edit, scary :) 10:11 < EvilBob> moinmoin was chosen because it met the software requirements IIRC, using python was one of them 10:11 < EvilBob> scalability was not high enough on the requirements list I guess 10:11 < quaid> well, no one knew back then 10:12 < EvilBob> right 10:12 < quaid> and we may be a rather big user of Moin compared to ohers 10:12 < f13> IIRC we're the biggest 10:13 < EvilBob> what works great for a dozen users may not work well for a dozen gross 10:13 < quaid> Fedora contributors -- more than a gross! 10:14 < EvilBob> Yeah 10:14 < ricky> Still >7000, it seems. 10:14 < ricky> Or maybe not.. hmm.. 10:15 < EvilBob> I do hope that plone on zope will scale to meet the needs of our contributor and user bases 10:15 < EvilBob> we really don't know until we start throwing stuff at it I guess 10:16 < EvilBob> I have to get back to work 10:16 < EvilBob> BBL 10:16 < ricky> Well, for the docs team, step one would be to get some highly available Plone experts around. 10:21 < quaid> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 16 00:49:28 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:49:28 -0700 Subject: FDSCo Meeting 2007-08-14 Summary Message-ID: <1187225368.5699.71.camel@erato.phig.org> Attendees: ----------- John Babich (jmbuser) Dimitris Glezos (glezos) Karsten Wade (quaid) Paul W. Frields (stickster) Ricky Zhou (ricky) Robert 'Bob' Jensen (EvilBob) Mike McGrath (mmcgrath) [dropper-in] Jesse Keating (f13) [dropper-in] Summary: --------- Mainly we discussed participation and motivation in the project. Why we don't have many active contributors, etc. Discussions and conclusions include: * Unrealistic expectations about what contributing means. "If we're going to raise a barn together, pretty much everyone needs to commit to hammering, sawing, and hefting ... People who only want to count timbers and fetch water, you only need a couple of 'em ;-)" "... if we don't have the people, then we might need to rethink if we want to raise a barn or just a plain-ol bench under an oak tree. :)" "I can do that on my own. I'd rather raise a barn with a dozen other people. ... With the wiki, anyone can "build a bench." Done. ... If there's going to be a FDP, we need to commit to barn-building." "... personally, I think our docs infrastructure is already a shiny building I'm proud of. :)" * Trying to make it "easy" means too many tools, too many processes - Fragmenting the how-to aspect - Making it hard to get one area of FDP complete "... we're actually quite good with that; a guide can be worked entirely in the wiki and output at the end with just a few hours of clean-up ..." "I don't think Docbook is the problem at all ... I also don't think it is really the "red tape" ... I think it is that we are asking people to be real contributors, not toss-over-the-wallers." "... anyone ... (can) maintain a doc on the Wiki ... in fact, that's what the Docs/ space is for ... (but) if you want it translated ... do we want 2 more l10n systems (Wiki, Plone)" "... I'd prefer to first worry on how to have up2date content and *then* for l10n" "... people don't apply any level of rigor to Wiki work like they do to other work, IME" "We had an initial influx of work for wiki-based docs, but other than the release notes, people have not really done a huge amount of follow-through on drafts" "Isn't basic cleanup really easy for bystanders to do on the wiki?" "presuming they know how to write and follow a style guide, yes" "That's a HUGE presumption too" "HUGE" - Plone could help -- easy editing, built in tools for publishing, hooks for translation: "do you think plone will increase the number of contributors to docs?" "yes, in a few ways ... number of people who can edit/publish can increase easily ... if people can write with a Web UI editor and have that go directly into l10n and publishing without leaving the Web UI, I reckon that will help" - It would be good to improve our processes, but how to know what and where? "... trying to think if we are ... doing something that could be improved by re-engineering some of our processes." "You're not offbase... it's just hard to see where the improvement factors come in when there isn't a sufficient sample of where our time is spent on current processes, because there are so few people using them to start with" -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 00:57:00 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:57:00 -0400 Subject: Using Gmail Message-ID: <1187225820.15713.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> > Aye but Gmail and most web base email is HTML email period. This is incorrect, at least for Gmail. Above the editing box, choose "<< Plain text," and the formatting bar magically disappears and your message is sent in ASCII as $DEITY intended. (The prompt changes to "Rich formatting" so you can switch back and forth as desired.) Trust Google to play nice with FOSS, they love us. > With Gmail I can use pop3 but that means changing my password, > actually it means unsubscribing since I use this email for important > and work related\tasks and pop3 sends the password in the clear. So I > have to unsubscribe with this email addy, resubscribe with a new gmail > since it's the only free email that I know of which has pop3 access. > Then I can send in plain text. I can view in plain text all day long > LOL. Also incorrect. I use Evolution with Gmail securely, by turning on the option to use SSL encryption and password authentication. The password travels over the SSL encrypted session once it is established, QED. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 01:33:52 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:33:52 -0400 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187228032.17719.10.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 18:10 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > Paul basically said that only one way should be documented. He appears > to be strongly opposed to the idea of documenting different ways of > doing things. That's a fairly inaccurate representation of what I said, so I think you may want to reread my earlier post to get the gist of it. Let me requote myself here for accuracy: "The right way to do things is not to show a slew of solutions and let the user pick. The user has already consulted documentation because they don't know how to pick; it's the job of the core documentation to give the simplest and most efficient solution. This doesn't mean there can't be auxiliary documentation about many solutions; there are many examples of good docs that do just that. But before doing any documentation in that realm, we need a stronger core docs set." That statement is actually not far removed at all from what Karsten said. > Sorry, without Paul's comment to compare it to, I'm > guessing. I presume > you mean his comments that we want to document the default > installed > applications before we branch into non-defaults also available > for > Fedora. My comment above is that the reason we don't have the > default > camera stuff well covered is a lack of resources. Whoever is > working on > the User Guide decides what are the priorities for > coverage. If there > isn't a person or time to get to cameras, it is not in that > guide. > > > As for default install that I'm not as sure of. I have never used the > default install. The core documentation, at least inasmuch as guides for beginners are involved, should concern itself precisely with the default installation. That is, in fact, what a beginner would logically install, having no basis for making any other choices. [...snip...] > Part of the problem with not having enough writers on the > project is the > task list is incomplete. > > This sounds like a good place to review the task list. I've noticed > quite a few missing areas such as text processing. I'd suggest taking > one section a week and building a task list from a concencious on the > list. Start this thread then, sounds good to me. [...snip...] -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 16 03:00:40 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:00:40 -0700 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187233240.5699.105.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 18:10 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > > > On 8/15/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > ... all those 50-100 of tabs I have open have to be reopened. You're like me in that regard (last session was 8 windows, 87 tabs.) Do you use Session Manager? It is a real hero: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2324 Tab Mix Plus is great in combination with Session Manager: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122 I didn't switch from Galeon until Firefox extensions had all these features. :) > > [snip content about best of breed] > > Sorry, without Paul's comment to compare it to, I'm > guessing. I presume > you mean his comments that we want to document the default > installed > applications before we branch into non-defaults also available > for > Fedora. My comment above is that the reason we don't have the > default > camera stuff well covered is a lack of resources. Whoever is > working on > the User Guide decides what are the priorities for > coverage. If there > isn't a person or time to get to cameras, it is not in that > guide. > > > As for default install that I'm not as sure of. I have never used the > default install. Probably a good candidate for virtualizing and trying it out. We have to assume that the average user who installs from one of the live spin media is going to not ask for more than is installed automatically. That automatic set of packages on the GNOME and KDE live spins are the "default". > The partitioning scheme is for starters unworkable for me. There is a long-standing request to get /home as a default partition. Meanwhile, we document around it. > ... Why not cover file managers since it is a crucial part of how any > OS works? Since they are the part of the user interface many people > see the most of. ... It would be informative and after all isn't it > our job to distribute information? I chose this snippage because I think it is a good representative question. Way back when people asked "Why is Fedora Docs focused only on short tutorials and how-tos?" The answer is that it is a full-time PITA to maintain a real guide, like one of the ones you find here: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ It *is* possible for a community to do that level of work, but it needs to build up to that. In the intervening years, we have built/are building infrastructure that supports that level of writing. We can really take on work from anyone, any group size, any amount of content. "Bring it on," someone once said in another context. What I get from your thoughts on this topic is that you think it is easy to do the depth and breadth of coverage that you suggest. I think you underestimate the challenges of making Fedora quality documentation out of these ideas. > I posted a quick example of documenting KDE, Gnome and command line in > the same set of documentation. That was a good example of how to interweave. It was good depth, with it getting richer the farther down you go. I think it was good for the Admin Guide, appropriate to reference from the User Guide. For the docs you see on redhat.com/docs, figure that it is eight hours of work to produce every page of the content. There are industry standards we could reference, and they are fairly accurate. About four hours to update a page, and two hours to maintain a page (check that it doesn't need further updates.) This time includes everything from research, testing, QA, editing, and re-writing. My point is that when we focus on one technology choice (the default) over others, we cut the time for those pages. Maybe not exactly in half or quarter. Perhaps third. Oh, and there is a metric to apply to the translation side. Where you add in additional applications, you increase the difficulty of translating and resulting QA, etc. > Which brings up text editing. Each content type (writing, audio, video, etc.) could use its own stand-alone guide. In the meantime ... :) > Still some docs is better than no docs wouldn't you say? To get "some docs" we need to either have a broad coverage that is not very deep (just defaults, by spin type), or have deep coverage of fewer areas. > Agreed so why not cover the commonly used stuff at least at a high > level and provide a link for users to do their own footwork to do > detailed comparisons? I don't think we're in disagreement here. The only difference of opinion may be on how much work this requires of *other* contributors. Each person is not of the same skill, experience, time, or attention level as each other. > > Speaking of machines not using X. Many of the documentation guides > make no provision for command line equivs. Not documents I write! In fact, skipping all the screenshot junk allows you spend more time on quality CLI content. I think, across Fedora, we have been mixed, but certainly tried to be CLI aware. Red Hat docs afaik always cover both methods, which is why they are so resource intensive (see above rough formulas.) > The default is a pretty varied animal even if you use only the > server/desktop/whatever else default installs. I view default as what > is normally contained on the Fedora install CDs or in the Fedora > official repositories. OK, but we as a project need to have a proper definition of default. The one we use in Fedora Docs happens to match what e.g. Release Engineering means when they say "default". At least, afaik. > In all that time the only users I ever lost back to windoze were ones > using default Fedora installs. You have identified a niche/audience we need to address. We can do that. Maybe there is a sane way to do that. * docs.fedoraproject.org/doc-name/ => focus on defaults per spin, broad and not too deep, or deep and not too broad; proper workflow to get content published, good publishing tools for self-service * fedoraproject.org/wiki => all the content that is not in the above docs, maintained at a quicker pace (fewer style or editing requirements, more wiki/community style), more "rawhide" than "released"; pull content from here for every release to bundle into docs.fp.o > Most of us have technical backgrounds. Not really the experience here; it is quite mixed in terms of the folks who have self-intro'd. But anyway, we do expect people to do basic research, even if they are just learning how; after all, we all have to get started somehow. > I'm just not seeing a large time investment in supporting KDE and > Gnome and potentially XFCE. Second some docs are better than none and > if nobody is around or willing to contribute the other desktop's > section then so be it. Maybe we're just not vocal enough. We have a serious active-contributor shortage in this project. Refer to the meeting summary from yesterday: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-August/msg00048.html I'm personally beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to do it better. I don't have much time, either. I need folks like _you_ to get on the Wiki and start writing stuff like the FAQ, etc. > This sounds like a good place to review the task list. I've noticed > quite a few missing areas such as text processing. I'd suggest taking > one section a week and building a task list from a concencious on the > list. Can you start this ... > The same approach. If you'd like I can start with the admin list and > build a topic list using this group to start discussions on what > topics and where to put what sub topics. :) ... and this? > Ok, I was following convention by providing lots of screen shots. It is not really Fedora convention. Just like we inherit RPM from Red Hat-based distros, so do we have a love for DocBook XML and a dislike of too many screenshots. Diagrams are cool. Especially SVG ones, doubly-especially when someone hacks PO (i18n) support into SVG files. > They can be a bit bulky and unfortunately change as the interface > changes, but can also say quite a bit. In the screen shots in the > sample services doc I sent. Would any be useful in the final doc? I honestly never looked at them. I looked to see if the content needed any images, and it didn't. It is also visually shorter without images inline. Much snappier read. I just recreated the commands to get content to paste into the {{{code}}} blocks. > In the case of file managers a screen shot can say what would take > pages to say. Why not just ask the user to load the application and look at it? > In fact a screen shot, a line or two and a link to the project would > probably be the best way to handle the file managers section. Users > could in minutes narrow down their favorites, install them and be up > and going. This is a different use case. These sound like canonical pages for each application, a sort of product page. Like Freshmeat, or Amazon pages. That is a good idea, I'd expect that is being worked on as part of the Online Desktop, and so we can probably inherit those/use the upstream URLs. > > 1. Document one application of every type that can appear in a > default > GNOME install. > 2. Document one application of every type that can appear in a > default > KDE install. > 3. Document additional applications that are > popular/best-of-breed but > aren't necessarily the default in one of the upstream desktop > environments. > > In many cases though there are only trivial differences in usage but > big differences in looks, speed, key bindings and such. This is an interesting POV. Teach the concept and then give a quick overview of the ways to accomplish it. Like fishing and handling rod and tackle. It can work, I just think it takes more rigor (time, resources) than we can expect of most unpaid contributors. YMMV. > > > ... Reread the welcome letter to the latest guy to join the list. He > was pointed at the translation section but the Wiki Account creation > you put into this post for example was missing. So were quite a few > things he'll need to get started. Truth, and to be honest, I did that on purpose. He came to translate, and I had to presume he had found L10N/Join or he wouldn't know to self-intro using the provided template. He also mentioned an interest in doing more technical/content contributing; my reply was intended to elicit a reply from him. Maybe I should have piled on URLs in addition? Regardless, a single FAQ with a million such links would be a great place to start and a nice single URL to hand over for all cases. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From draciron at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 06:51:23 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:51:23 -0500 Subject: Using Gmail In-Reply-To: <1187225820.15713.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1187225820.15713.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: Hey Paul On 8/15/07, Paul W. Frields wrote: > > Aye but Gmail and most web base email is HTML email period. > > This is incorrect, at least for Gmail. Above the editing box, choose > "<< Plain text," and the formatting bar magically disappears and your > message is sent in ASCII as $DEITY intended. (The prompt changes to > "Rich formatting" so you can switch back and forth as desired.) Trust > Google to play nice with FOSS, they love us. > LOL @ $DEITY :) Giving it a try, I was under the impression that it only changed recieved email to plain text. Aye I've been mostly impressed with Google's support of FOSS. Except for Google Earth a couple other minor annoyances such as no Google talk client, though I have it set up in Pidgin so it;s only a slight as I'd use Pidgin anyway but having a Linux client would mean somebody was paid to do Linux development and would help windoze users see Linux support out there and improve their view of Linux. > > With Gmail I can use pop3 but that means changing my password, > > actually it means unsubscribing since I use this email for important > > and work related\tasks and pop3 sends the password in the clear. So I > > have to unsubscribe with this email addy, resubscribe with a new gmail > > since it's the only free email that I know of which has pop3 access. > > Then I can send in plain text. I can view in plain text all day long > > LOL. > > Also incorrect. I use Evolution with Gmail securely, by turning on the > option to use SSL encryption and password authentication. The password > travels over the SSL encrypted session once it is established, QED. > Gah, I hate Evolution. I'll have too look and see if Kmail or Thunderbird has SSL support. Was unaware Google was offering SSL support for Pop3. Evolution is a resource hog. I have to manually kill all the evil proccesses is spawns. Heard there's a kill script out there or will get unlazy and write one myself but I tend to leave email up 24/7 for months at a time if it doesn't eat all my mem like Evolution does. Not real fond of the Outlook like interface either. Cut my teeth on BBS email and Eudora. Never could stand using Outlook. At least Evolution allows you to customize the look and feel. Thanks on the tips. Drac > -- > Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ > gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 > Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields > irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > From draciron at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 10:14:21 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:14:21 -0500 Subject: Admin guide skeleton structure discussion thread Message-ID: Ok folks this week it's the admin guide. I have fleshed out the skeleton a bit from the existing admin guide. The purpose of this is to formulate the sub topics, many of which will be easier to write than trying to tackle the whole topic in one fell swoop. For example instead of attempting to tackle the whole printing document many of us in a half hour could do up the printing to PDFs sub topic. The concept is to add and edit this rough overview of the topics/subtopics. A good way to work this I suspect would be to use the >> diff convention to denote suggested changes at the start of your commments/addition. I'll try to put this in the WIKI if I EVER get my account there straitened out. Will make it much easier to read. This is no means exhaustive, except to read :) I've forgotten a ton of stuff. This is just to get the ball rolling. Next week I'll do the same for the User/Desktop guide. Admin guide Undestanding the dir structure * The Filesystem Heirarchy * Locations for Software (commonly asked question) * Locations for Data Working with user accounts Understanding Logins and Sessions Local user accounts LDAP link to LDAP section NIS Link to SAMBA doc for interaction with windoze. "Windows account interaction" Securing User Accounts Good password pracitices and tools No login accounts and SUDO accounts Groups Overview Management Link to VPN section, "VPN users" How to reset the root password (link to Rescue ops resetting root pw) >> * Managing User Accounts (creating, modifying and deleting) This is specific to the tools. Local user accounts can be cover with both GUI and CLI tools. For LDAP the process is very different than for a local user. Best covered in the sub section in which the context is relavent. >> * Managing Groups Feel that simply groups will be more intuitive than Managing groups which implies technical expertise. Those who have no idea what a group is will be less inclined to click on managing groups than just plain groups. Those seeking management tips will not be deterred by the simplified title. By simply titling it groups it implies and overview while managing groups implies a lack of an overview. Permissions and Access Control Overview What they are Organization (ie why home dir should never be world read write) Numeric and alphanumeric meanings chmod usage Using ACL * Managing Permissions (on files and directories) * Understanding Access Control Lists (they have to be acknowledged, but not all software actually supports them) Managing storage and partitions Quick what is a parition Extended, logical, primary Common partitioning schemes Short description/common usage reasons and link to LVM doc File system types and link to mounting usage and tips Ext 2 & 3 FAT NTFS Other Working with fstab Link to sub section in Samba doc "Mounting Windows shares" Link to Network explorer/Network manager services. Backups Overview Amanda and GP back up software. Using secondary drives as backups and links to SW used for that Link to Rsynch doc Using external media Link to tape drives CDRom/DVD backup software Short tutorial on using DD Short tutorial on using tar and gzip for copying/archiving large dir stuctures Working with disks and removable storage File system types (almost redundant with partitioning but more detail on Common uses and basic does and don'ts.) Link to LVM guide Link to mounting guide /mnt and /net purpose and use. Link to dir overview covering these 2. USB/flash drives Short overview and common usage. Troubleshooting FAQ SCSI devices Short overview and common usage. Troubleshooting FAQ Zip and Syquest drives Short overview and common usage. Troubleshooting FAQ Hot swap SATA and SCSI Short overview and common usage. Troubleshooting FAQ Floppies Short overview and common usage. MDOS tools Troubleshooting FAQ Link to Tape drives Short overview and common usage. Troubleshooting FAQ Networked file systems (suggesting a change from using "the" Network file system Overview that includes differences, advantages and short capability comparision NFS4 Configuration Exporting Mounting Trouble shooting NFS through firewalls (NFS3) Configuration Exporting Mounting Trouble shooting SMB Linux to Linux guide Configuration Exporting Mounting Trouble shooting Working with Windows shares link to SMB guide GFS Configuration Exporting Mounting Trouble shooting Link to Rsynch doc Managing Software Overview Yum Yum GUIs RPM Overview Checking for installed software and versions Manual install options Repair and troubleshooting Tarballs/GZIP 2/Zip Extracting the files Type I (./configure then make) Type II (Binary install packages) Type III (other) Binary installations Apt-get Managing Services GUI Command line Primitives >> * Managing Firewall Ports Shouldn't this be under security? I did not cover it in my draft on managing services because this seems to me to be a security not services topic. Modifying the Startup Process * Understanding Boot Loaders * Advanced Boot Options * Managing Kernels * Running Commands on Startup Using the Common UNIX Printing System CUPs Overview Adding a Printer local Network Linux Network Windows Link to printers supported by Fedora Sharing a printer Managing Print Jobs Creating a print server LPR and CLI tools Print ques Printing to PDFs Modifying the X Window Graphics System Understanding the X Window System Overview of desktop managers Overveiew of desktops link to KDE doc link to Gnome doc link to XFCE doc link to Beyrl doc Window maker Sawfish and others Switching between desktop managers and adding new ones. Switchdesk Remotely controlling a Linux machine Link to SSH tunneling Link to X11fowarding Link to VNC Tunneling VNC through SSH Isn't there a new third way? Remotely controlling a windows machine Link to VNC Rdesktop Consoles overview and usage Adding the X Window System (after installation) Configuring Graphics Hardware (system-config-display) Location of files and what they do Common modifications Resolution Dual heads Networking Configuring your nic cards DHCP Static Hosts Configuring DNS/bind Configuring in Linux to be Master browser in Windows network * Selecting Graphical Desktops (switching between them, and adding new ones) >> * Configuring Remote Desktop Access You mean as in X11 forwarding, VNC, etc? To me sounds confusing. I broke those out into separate sub topics. >> * Attaching a Remote Desktop Isn't that part of the specific method for connecting remotely? Since all of the remote desktop methods are going to be referenced in other sections I feel it'd be better to give them their own topic page. These are also topics people will directly search for and it would be helpful to have them up at a higher level. Monitoring the System Logs /var/log messages dmesg secure others Default locations for HTTPD, MySQL, Postgress and other log files. Link to SELinux troubleshooter RCP Top, Htop, Ntop and related tools Sysguard ps GUI log tools Systat and related tools Link to Tripwire, AIDE and other IDS systems Using tail and related tools Enabling E-mail Reports Configuring Advanced Logging (setting up a log analyzer, redirecting syslog to a separate server) Link to nmap guide Network monitors CLI tools GUI tools like etherape Network manager guide SchedulingTasks Understanding cron and anacron GUI cron and anacron tools Scheduling a Task Using crontab Schedules Note that /etc/cron.* directories are sufficient for most tasks, but crontab ought to be mentioned for more precise control. File sharing Setting up shared dirs Using groups for file sharing Collaboration software Security Firewalls Link to securing a Fedora system best practices Patching your system Ports Link to common ports list link to Nmap Link to RCP Permissions from a security context SELinux Understanding SELinux Adjusting the SELinux Policy (using system-config-securitylevel) Repairing File Contexts with fixfiles Rootkits Rootkit hunter Shells from a security perspective Link to jail shells Link to no login shells User accounts Philosophy Link to security subsection of user section. Deny hosts and other log watchers IDS systems Vulnerability scanners Password best practices guide Links to Linux security resources Why to not use RSH, Telnet and FTP Link to external securing apache tips VPNs Link to vpn section >>To me it seems logical to move LVM out to it's own doc since it is likely to be referenced from several documents. LVM (Logical Volume Management) is the default for Fedora systems. * Understanding LVM (overview, see Installation Guide) * Adding a Drive (includes formatting partitions) * Resizing LVM Partitions * LVM Snapshotting The LVM HOWTO provides detailed information: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ Managing Software >> Understanding Software Packages (link to the separate yum tutorial) Wouldn't under managing software be a good home for yum? Where else would it be referenced or searched for? > * Managing Scripts and Web Applications (same principles apply to both) Confused by this title. Are you talking about installing Firefox extensions and enabling Java script installation when you mean web applications? When it comes to scripts those are fairly rare today. How many packages do you install that are not either an RPM or a type I tarball or a binary (which is sometimes a script but to the end user looks like an executable) ? > * Working with Source Code But people know it as tarballs. The words source code will strike fear into many. Probably best to call them tar balls as that is the common usage and also a gentler term for the technophobic. >> * Exporting a Directory (as an NFS share) * Mounting a Remote Directory But is that NFS4 or NFS? Lots of people keep NFS 3 around because it's there, it works and why change something that isn't broken? What are the advantages/disadvantages of NFS4 vrs NFS3? They clearly work in different ways. So I broke that up into NFS and NFS4 sections. From draciron at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 11:38:54 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:38:54 -0500 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1187233240.5699.105.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187211561.6168.148.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187233240.5699.105.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: On 8/15/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > On 8/15/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > > > ... all those 50-100 of tabs I have open have to be reopened. > > You're like me in that regard (last session was 8 windows, 87 tabs.) Do > you use Session Manager? It is a real hero: > https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2324 > > Tab Mix Plus is great in combination with Session Manager: > > https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122 > > I didn't switch from Galeon until Firefox extensions had all these > features. :) LOL at least I'm not alone. Tab mix pro I consider essential :) The session manager and what ones are compatable with which is a little confusing. Lately I've been getting a number of corrupted sessions. I once added the tab counter extension just to see how many tabs I literally do have open. I usually have 5-15 windows open with dozens of tabs each. Got over 100 when I used the tab counter but figured it was wasting ram and took it off. > > > > [snip content about best of breed] > > > > Sorry, without Paul's comment to compare it to, I'm > > guessing. I presume > > you mean his comments that we want to document the default > > installed > > applications before we branch into non-defaults also available > > for > > Fedora. My comment above is that the reason we don't have the > > default > > camera stuff well covered is a lack of resources. Whoever is > > working on > > the User Guide decides what are the priorities for > > coverage. If there > > isn't a person or time to get to cameras, it is not in that > > guide. > > As part of the admin skeleton approach I proposed people writing smaller sections. The example I used was printing to PDFs. That topic is about half a page to cover in detail and by breaking it into smaller peices I think people can find more time to tackle such a task than to try to do the whole printing topic. > > As for default install that I'm not as sure of. I have never used the > > default install. > > Probably a good candidate for virtualizing and trying it out. We have > to assume that the average user who installs from one of the live spin > media is going to not ask for more than is installed automatically. > That automatic set of packages on the GNOME and KDE live spins are the > "default". Run the Xen and am curious about QUMU is it? Also use DOSbox to run some treasured ancient DOS games :) What I haven't done was take the time yet to figure out how to create a virtual image to use with Xen and such. Used VMWare extensively back in the late 90s and early 00s. Unfortunately too poor to afford VMWare and have been itching to use Xen. Though I've found the Xen kernel to be very picky about hardware. Can't use it on my AMD 64, at least out of the box. I'm sure there's a way to get it too work. Just haven't had time to dink with it. I have an ancient MIDI app that converts guitar notes as played to standard notation from a special pickup that I've yet to get to work under a virtual machine. Hoping it'll work under Xen, but I have to use Win95 as that is all the software understands. Wine didn't like it. App loaded but wouldn't talk to the pickup :( I also used the Crossover plugin for a short time but found it was a waste of money. Better ways to do everything than Crossover. So I have moderate experience in the virtualization topic area. > > The partitioning scheme is for starters unworkable for me. > > There is a long-standing request to get /home as a default partition. > Meanwhile, we document around it. I am surprised that Fedora is so adament about the current partitioning scheme. I remember RH days it wanted to create a zillion partitions by default LOL. I was doing the opposite back then and condensing partitions. For servers though /var really should be a separate partition. Can't count how many times I've been called in to rescue a system only to find MySQL or Apache had filled up the root partition with logs. Deleted the logs and all was well. .xsessionerrors has a nasty habit of filling up /home and if /home lives on / then the OS gets to complaining. Those are all topics I've covered on the partitioning guide I wrote for this group. I also covered dual booting, use of a /data to separate configuration from user data, creating partitions for document sharing, small drive partitions, dedicated server partitioning. All have their own considerations. > > ... Why not cover file managers since it is a crucial part of how any > > OS works? Since they are the part of the user interface many people > > see the most of. ... It would be informative and after all isn't it > > our job to distribute information? > > I chose this snippage because I think it is a good representative > question. > > Way back when people asked "Why is Fedora Docs focused only on short > tutorials and how-tos?" The answer is that it is a full-time PITA to > maintain a real guide, like one of the ones you find here: > > http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/ > > It *is* possible for a community to do that level of work, but it needs > to build up to that. In the intervening years, we have built/are > building infrastructure that supports that level of writing. We can > really take on work from anyone, any group size, any amount of content. > "Bring it on," someone once said in another context. > > What I get from your thoughts on this topic is that you think it is easy > to do the depth and breadth of coverage that you suggest. I think you > underestimate the challenges of making Fedora quality documentation out > of these ideas. > > > I posted a quick example of documenting KDE, Gnome and command line in > > the same set of documentation. > > That was a good example of how to interweave. It was good depth, with > it getting richer the farther down you go. I think it was good for the > Admin Guide, appropriate to reference from the User Guide. I could expand the run level description. For the most part most people today only use Run level 3 and 5. There's a couple run levels I'm pretty foggy about and most I haven't used in years if ever. Though I once did an init 0 just to see what the run level was like LOL I found out pretty quickly :) > For the docs you see on redhat.com/docs, figure that it is eight hours > of work to produce every page of the content. There are industry > standards we could reference, and they are fairly accurate. About four > hours to update a page, and two hours to maintain a page (check that it > doesn't need further updates.) This time includes everything from > research, testing, QA, editing, and re-writing. > > My point is that when we focus on one technology choice (the default) > over others, we cut the time for those pages. Maybe not exactly in half > or quarter. Perhaps third. I'm not good with time. Ask any of my ex's, in fact my poor time utilization skills (such as saying I'll be back from jamming at 10pm and getting home at 1am) is one reason I have so many ex's. For some reason the ladies take exception to fuzzy time estimates :) So I'll defer on the time per document estimate. That does bring up the idea. How can we shorten the time it takes to write a section without reducing the quality of the output? > Oh, and there is a metric to apply to the translation side. Where you > add in additional applications, you increase the difficulty of > translating and resulting QA, etc. > Good point. I hadn't considered the translation issues. Makes sense now when dealing with screenshots as it would be impossible to get translated screen shots and keep them synched and up to date if there were very many of them. Would be interesting to see if Babel fish could speed up translations. People fluent in both languages would be needed to create usable translations. If something like Babelfish though could do the bulk work and translators were left with fixing grammar, fixing translations errors and correcting minor things of that sort it could greatly speed translations or it might take longer as the translations are so badly mangled that they are worse than full manual translation. Even in 4 word drive to beat a pun :) > > Which brings up text editing. > > Each content type (writing, audio, video, etc.) could use its own > stand-alone guide. In the meantime ... :) Ah. makes sense. > > Still some docs is better than no docs wouldn't you say? > > To get "some docs" we need to either have a broad coverage that is not > very deep (just defaults, by spin type), or have deep coverage of fewer > areas. > I don't think we're in disagreement here. The only difference of > opinion may be on how much work this requires of *other* contributors. > Each person is not of the same skill, experience, time, or attention > level as each other. What were we talking about? :) J/K... On this I'll refer back to micro-tasks to create workloads that are better suited for individual expertise and time constraints. > > > > Speaking of machines not using X. Many of the documentation guides > > make no provision for command line equivs. > > Not documents I write! In fact, skipping all the screenshot junk allows > you spend more time on quality CLI content. Point taken. > I think, across Fedora, we have been mixed, but certainly tried to be > CLI aware. Red Hat docs afaik always cover both methods, which is why > they are so resource intensive (see above rough formulas.) True, sometimes CLI is quite resource intensive but also the only practical way to go. FC3 for example so badly mangled my internal network's settings that It wasn't until FC6 that I even thought about using a GUI to configure networking again. Every time I even accidentally hit the network tools it'd reset my netmasks and such. Though I am curious why the MAC is included in ifcfg files for more recent FC versions. It makes copying old versions a pain. Until recently I'd just save off my ifcfg files and copy them strait in and have fully functional networks in seconds. Now I have to do a GUI config to detect the MAC, swipe that and merge it in. If I leave out the MAC the nic card can sometimes get flaky on me. That's one thing I'd LOVE to see documented by somebody. I'm sure there's an easier way. > > The default is a pretty varied animal even if you use only the > > server/desktop/whatever else default installs. I view default as what > > is normally contained on the Fedora install CDs or in the Fedora > > official repositories. > > OK, but we as a project need to have a proper definition of default. > The one we use in Fedora Docs happens to match what e.g. Release > Engineering means when they say "default". At least, afaik. Which is? > > In all that time the only users I ever lost back to windoze were ones > > using default Fedora installs. > > You have identified a niche/audience we need to address. We can do > that. Maybe there is a sane way to do that. Actually it begs the intended audience. The project is not likely to be able to maintain extremely in depth documentation any time soon and that does not seem to be the intent even if the resources existed. So highly experienced users won't find many of our documentation efforts useful. Only in areas they've never really done anything. Users with medium experience levels will I suspect periodically visit the docs. That leaves new users as the vast bulk of our audience. I suspect %99.9 of these new users will be coming from a windoze background. Fedora being the top distro out there it will be the one that windoze users tend to gravitate toward and it also has the friendliest distro for a recent windoze convert. A second aspect is quite literally Linux is in a fight to the death with M$. M$ has openly and less openly attacked Linux on multiple fronts. The only thing M$ really has going for it is momentum. If Linux gained a %30 desktop share the other %60 would convert rapidly to Linux. If LInux cannot obtain at least a %20 market share in the next decade it will not be supported in hardware advances and all the gains we've made will evaporate as M$ will finally find a way to exclude Linux users from essential abilities or even the ability to run on new hardware which may be owned totally or partially owned by Microsoft. For example look at their tactics in the game market. Linux support was starting to come out by many PC games makers but once M$ bought into most of the game makers and deliberatly put the others out of biz few commercial games were distributed for Linux. If M$ were to do the same thing with hardware manufacturers then the Linux community could be SOL. A %20 market share of desktops would assure that there would always be a profitable market for Linux compatable hardware. A %30 market share would see the tide rapidly turning just as Firefox has eclipsed IE in the browser wars and is gaining serious momentum even still. So Linux advocacy I feel is an essential aspect of any Linux documentation project. New users come in scared. They are confused, bewildered and chant the mantra of "I just want it to work" but in reality they mean I want it to work in a way I am comfortable with. Linux still carries with it some stigmas. Some are false such as windoze being easir to install or run. Linux is by far easier to maintain and install than windoze. Others are true. You can't go buy bleeding edge hardware. There is almost certainly no Linux drivers out yet for it. In the way of games Linux is finally making some inroads but it's still miles behind. You call tech support I've found the quickest way to either get hung up on or esculated is to tell them you use Linux. You wait for that little gasp of fear as you've just stepped miles past their comprehension and they then transfer you to the 2nd level support who often know nothing about Linux but at least are technically know something besides how to look up answers in a knowledge base. To overcome this Linux needs to offer positives that are obvious to a new user. To somebody who isn't going to yet be aware of the durability or efficiency in which Linux leaves Windoze choking in the dust. The best way in my opinion is to turn them on to apps they cannot live without. Addict them to Linux apps they cannot get in windoze or that are not as cool in windoze as in Linux. Show them some eye candy. Make them feel at least a little technically enabled. Give them knowledge that helps them control their own computer but parcel it out in digestible steps. All it takes is one important app that annoys a user and they go back to the comforts of a known evil. When I crutched into Linux back in the mid 90s I still did all my interenet stuff on windoze. It was just plain easier to my perception than under Linux. The reality was Linux would have given me more control but I didn't know that. The docs were either too sparse to be useful or to cryptic to be useful. They assumed Nix expertise and were written in the old school manner which will be very unappealing to those crossing over from the windoze world. So basically I see this not as a niche but a core part of what the Fedora docs are about. The majority of our audience will be windoze converts in the first year or two of the conversion process. While it would be out of place to doc windoze/Linux equivs in the main topics, a good list of such would be a good idea. More so when writing it would be I feel very important to phrase things in ways windoze converts will understand. To be Linux advocates and to addict new users to the whiz band things Linux has to offer. When showing a new user what Linux is about the place I start first is the wallpapers for desktops. I know it sounds trivial but it's eye candy that windoze is incapable of matching. Right there in the first seconds I've established that Linux has things to offer that Windoze cannot hope to match and I did it with a few quick clicks of the mouse. This helps batter down resistance when I start explaining more technical advantages and lends credibility to me when I start talking about how Linux is a better multi-tasker how you don't reboot Linux and how much control you really have over your own system. KDE has more eye candy and the key bindings on KDE apps are more likely to be CDE which will close match windoze apps in menu formats and in shortcut keys. This means a smoother transition. Less of a learning curve. I point them too apps like K3b, XMMS/Audacious because again they are very well written apps that look nice, operate extremely ruggidly and will have little or no learning curve for them to adapt too. Think of every app they can use without having to read docs except to find that app as them getting deeper and deeper into Linux. The more apps they can master quickly the more likely they are to dive in and become long time Linux users. The more comfortable they are with their favorite apps the less they are likely to miss windoze and the more tolerance they'll have to the stigmas that remain with Linux use. The more of them that switch the less stigma all of us Linux users face when it comes to calling tech support, getting drivers for bleeding edge software and being able to use a site like Rhapsody with full support for everything. It also is an advancement for all FOSS software. Firefox and MySQL have really opened peoples minds to FOSS and usage of those apps has in turn put Linux in a kinder light. The old can't get support misnomer is fading away and M$ has to come up with a new lie to attack Linux with. Anyway that's my $50 on the subject :) No wonder I'm always broke :) > * docs.fedoraproject.org/doc-name/ => focus on defaults per spin, broad > and not too deep, or deep and not too broad; proper workflow to get > content published, good publishing tools for self-service > > * fedoraproject.org/wiki => all the content that is not in the above > docs, maintained at a quicker pace (fewer style or editing requirements, > more wiki/community style), more "rawhide" than "released"; pull content > from here for every release to bundle into docs.fp.o > > > I'm just not seeing a large time investment in supporting KDE and > > Gnome and potentially XFCE. Second some docs are better than none and > > if nobody is around or willing to contribute the other desktop's > > section then so be it. > > Maybe we're just not vocal enough. We have a serious active-contributor > shortage in this project. Refer to the meeting summary from yesterday: > > http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2007-August/msg00048.html > > I'm personally beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how > to do it better. I don't have much time, either. I need folks like > _you_ to get on the Wiki and start writing stuff like the FAQ, etc. > > > This sounds like a good place to review the task list. I've noticed > > quite a few missing areas such as text processing. I'd suggest taking > > one section a week and building a task list from a concencious on the > > list. Done and posted to the list. I'm sure it will generate a flurry of posts. The flurry of posts will likely generate greater interest which will in turn hopefully generate more active writing. Perhaps even people racing to pick the low hanging fruit. At least thats the idea. Submited the admin guide today. Will submit the user guide same way hopefully next week. > Can you start this ... Working on it. > > The same approach. If you'd like I can start with the admin list and > > build a topic list using this group to start discussions on what > > topics and where to put what sub topics. > > :) ... and this? > Already did. > > Ok, I was following convention by providing lots of screen shots. > > It is not really Fedora convention. Just like we inherit RPM from Red > Hat-based distros, so do we have a love for DocBook XML and a dislike of > too many screenshots. The translation issue to me is the best reason not to include lots of screen shots. Makes sense for most topics as the attempt to recreate those screenshots in other languages would be impossible to maintain. Some topics language is not really an issue as they only want a general idea of the interface and will seek out details. > Diagrams are cool. Especially SVG ones, doubly-especially when someone > hacks PO (i18n) support into SVG files. I think I'll let somebody else do that :) > I honestly never looked at them. I looked to see if the content needed > any images, and it didn't. It is also visually shorter without images > inline. Much snappier read. I just recreated the commands to get > content to paste into the {{{code}}} blocks. It's cool. After reading your comments I'll edit to remove references, though your attachment didn't come through. Only file attached to the email was your sig. > > In the case of file managers a screen shot can say what would take > > pages to say. > > Why not just ask the user to load the application and look at it? Because it may or may not be installed and is quite time consuming given the large number of potentials. A quick glance can narrow it down to 2 or 3 for them and those they can load rather quickly and easily try. > This is a different use case. These sound like canonical pages for each > application, a sort of product page. Like Freshmeat, or Amazon pages. > That is a good idea, I'd expect that is being worked on as part of the > Online Desktop, and so we can probably inherit those/use the upstream > URLs. Cool, that's basically the idea. > > 1. Document one application of every type that can appear in a > > default > > GNOME install. > > 2. Document one application of every type that can appear in a > > default > > KDE install. > > 3. Document additional applications that are > > popular/best-of-breed but > > aren't necessarily the default in one of the upstream desktop > > environments. > > > > In many cases though there are only trivial differences in usage but > > big differences in looks, speed, key bindings and such. In general Gnome key bindings are rather random and often frustrating. One reason I don't use Gnome is that I've been using CDE since before M$ adopted it. I like it, I know it and I face a learning curve to relearn a bunch of keyboard shortcuts that are typically CDE in KDE apps. So no learning curve there. Few KDE apps use other than CDE key bindings and the user interface in KDE apps tends to be pretty uniform. There are of course exceptions. Just going by the bulk of the apps. Speed tends to be relative and often a non factor as functionality and interface often override app execution speed. I will gladly use an app with better UI that runs slower because it's a more satisfying experience and because after you factor in UI contstraints it takes me just as long. Since Linux is an excellent multi-tasker and so little needs to be done that second among computer tasks if it takes 30 seconds longer to do the same thing but is easier to use the easier to use will win out every time. It is often 20 mins or more before I look at it again anyway as I'm off hitting a web site, writing an email, creating a doc after launching the app. It is not like windoze where you have to sequentially complete program execution to move on to the next task. I run multiple machines and may have dozens of active tasks running on these multiple machines. So time to run on most apps is really not a factor. Though I'm considering removing Beagle from all my systems if I can't find an easy way to background the thing. The indexing is gruesome on CPU time and refuses to be nice. > Truth, and to be honest, I did that on purpose. He came to translate, > and I had to presume he had found L10N/Join or he wouldn't know to > self-intro using the provided template. He also mentioned an interest > in doing more technical/content contributing; my reply was intended to > elicit a reply from him. Maybe I should have piled on URLs in addition? > > Regardless, a single FAQ with a million such links would be a great > place to start and a nice single URL to hand over for all cases. > I am not the right person for gathering the links as I've failed miserably in account creation LOL. I remember now what the problem was. When I first registered my GPG sig there was a glitch and it wasn't imediately availible. So I created a new one. That one was so I signed my CLI with the new one. Then I applied for an account and had 3 GPG keys registered to me and it caused some sort of issue for the account creation. Which got me bounced around to various people. So I tried to start over creating yet another sig, then going through the whole process again and that just added to the complications. So I really have no idea which key is the right one to use. I'm also out of email addies to create new ones and the delete function does not seem to remove the email addy from the db only the key. It's at a point I'll never remember my login info if I have to use a throw away addy to generate the key and re-register yet again. Anyway I think that's the limbo I'm stuck in. I'll give it another try again tonight. From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 16 13:24:10 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:24:10 -0400 Subject: Admin guide skeleton structure discussion thread In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1187270650.17719.19.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-08-16 at 05:14 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > Ok folks this week it's the admin guide. I have fleshed out the > skeleton a bit from the existing admin guide. The purpose of this is > to formulate the sub topics, many of which will be easier to write > than trying to tackle the whole topic in one fell swoop. For example > instead of attempting to tackle the whole printing document many of us > in a half hour could do up the printing to PDFs sub topic. The concept > is to add and edit this rough overview of the topics/subtopics. > > A good way to work this I suspect would be to use the >> diff > convention to denote suggested changes at the start of your > commments/addition. I'll try to put this in the WIKI if I EVER get my > account there straitened out. Will make it much easier to read. This > is no means exhaustive, except to read :) I've forgotten a ton of > stuff. This is just to get the ball rolling. Next week I'll do the > same for the User/Desktop guide. [...snip...] Posting here is probably not as effective or efficient as doing this on the wiki. Once you have that account straightened out -- if it's not working already -- make yourself a sandbox there in your personal namespace and simply post a link (e.g. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DanSmith/AdminGuide). Otherwise you're not as likely to get as much useful feedback. By using the wiki, people can make corrections directly on the document like a scratchpad or whiteboard. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Tue Aug 21 15:48:29 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:48:29 -0700 Subject: meeting reminder 1600 UTC Message-ID: <1187711309.5699.534.camel@erato.phig.org> I'm updating the agenda right now. -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From dimitris at glezos.com Tue Aug 21 17:01:55 2007 From: dimitris at glezos.com (Dimitris Glezos) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:01:55 +0100 Subject: Docs Project: how well are we doing? Message-ID: <46CB1A83.3080408@glezos.com> Hi all. Fedora 8 is approaching, as it happened in the past, there are very few people actively working on our Docs -- so few we are thinking of just focusing on delivering the release notes and install-guide for this release. The Desktop user guide hasn't even been updated for F7. While it seems that we've got very few contributors, on the other hand, we see a bunch of people joining the project, posting self introductions that show willingness to help! Which is great! An obvious Question comes in mind then: what are we doing wrong and all you new contributors aren't involved in a Doc having fun and everything? What didn't you like when you first joined the project? What did you expect and where did you get disappointed? Also, what could we do better and how? If you would re-engineer the whole project from ground up, what would you do differently? -d -- Dimitris Glezos Jabber ID: glezos at jabber.org, GPG: 0xA5A04C3B http://dimitris.glezos.com/ "He who gives up functionality for ease of use loses both and deserves neither." (Anonymous) -- From kwade at redhat.com Tue Aug 21 17:39:16 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:39:16 -0700 Subject: FDSCo Meeting 2007-08-21 IRC log Message-ID: <1187717956.14030.24.camel@erato.phig.org> HTML version: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minutes/IRCLog20070821 09:02 < quaid> 09:03 < quaid> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings#Agenda 09:03 -!- Irssi: #fedora-docs: Total of 29 nicks [1 ops, 0 halfops, 0 voices, 28 normal] 09:03 < quaid> nman64, stickster, StillBob, couf, glezos, EvilBob, vpv -- good $time_of_day 09:04 < couf> same to ya quaid 09:04 < quaid> jmbuser, hmmm, that's who isn't on that list 09:04 < quaid> but he was on Wiki earlier 09:04 < quaid> anyway, we can get started as-is 09:04 < quaid> couf: how are ya? 09:05 * EvilBob is in a phone meeting 09:05 < quaid> ok, let's run down the agenda so we can get to the fun stuff 09:05 < couf> bit sick, but overall doing well, got bit tied up in life last months, trying to catch up 09:06 -!- JonRob [n=jon at 88-111-164-189.dynamic.dsl.as9105.com] has quit ["Lost terminal"] 09:06 < quaid> one-sheet release notes ... f13, we're planning on following the same style we made up last time, which is the one-sheet of notes on the Wiki for test1 and test2, have test3 be the first 'beta release notes', then lock them for trans for gold 09:07 -!- |DrJef| [n=onefjef at fedora/Jef] has joined #fedora-docs 09:07 < quaid> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Schedule#relnotes-schedule 09:08 < f13> quaid: ok, so you'll have something new in fedora-release-notes for test2? 09:08 < quaid> f13: not on that schedule; nothing new in the package until test3 09:08 < f13> quaid: also, I want to talk about the file layout in release-notes. For the HTML/ content can we do HTML/release-notes// and HTML/readme-burning-isos// ? 09:09 < quaid> I'd like stickster input on that question 09:09 < quaid> he's so distracted at work he forgot to add _work to his nick :) 09:09 < f13> This way I can just grab the release-nots and readme-burning-isos directories and plop them on the iso and have translated content there, and copy the English verisons to the top dir as well. 09:09 < f13> heh 09:09 < glezos> yo 09:09 < quaid> f13: maybe we can do the new file layout with blank content for test2? 09:10 < quaid> then you can test all the deploy toolage 09:10 < f13> quaid: I'd appreciate it, gives us the time to get it right in Anaconda. 09:10 < quaid> makes sense 09:10 < couf> +1 09:10 < quaid> f13: same deadline on those package changes as the rest of the packages then 09:11 < quaid> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/Schedule?action=show&redirect=Schedule 09:11 < quaid> umm, so, that would be ... 28 Aug 09:13 < quaid> ok, schedule updated 09:13 < quaid> f13: thanks, I think that's it; I'll make sure Paul sees the minutes and you guys can discuss the changes 09:13 < glezos> f13, are we going forward with the renaming of the ISO files? 09:14 < quaid> so one the one-sheet ... 09:14 < quaid> actually, f13 is there anyone in RelEng or Testing with a good overview to own content for the one-sheet? 09:15 < quaid> maybe ask wwoods? 09:15 < f13> quaid: poelcat might have good content regarding features 09:15 < quaid> f13: well, that's for the final relnotes, yes 09:15 < f13> we should have some blurbs for test2 as well, since features need to be in a testable state, and we want them tested. 09:15 < quaid> f13: the one-sheet can have a pointer to that content on the wiki 09:16 < f13> it's not easy to grok from the wiki what needs testing and how 09:16 < quaid> f13: but it will need latest, updated info about the test release 09:16 < f13> shouldn't be hard to come up with some stuff in a week 09:16 * quaid forgets the Wiki namespace we used last time 09:16 < quaid> we also want a pointer to that from wherever people look for relnotes on the ISO 09:16 < couf> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F8Test1/ReleaseNotes 09:17 < quaid> so ... in the package? on the Firefox homepage? 09:17 < quaid> couf: thx 09:17 -!- jmbuser [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has joined #fedora-docs 09:18 < quaid> ok, I asked wwoods to drop by about http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F8Test2/ReleaseNotes (next version) 09:18 < quaid> I think Fedora Docs has done it's part there, unless we need to update `fedora-release-notes` package with pointers to that page? 09:19 < couf> what was in the package for T1? 09:19 < quaid> dunno 09:20 -!- jmbuser [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has quit [Remote closed the connection] 09:20 < quaid> but one thing that happened on F7t1 was people looked in the ISO and wondered where the content was, so we need pointers from there, i think 09:20 * quaid tosses a quarter in the 'buy jmbuser a better country to get broadband from' fund jar 09:21 < couf> right, so say we add a small .txt in the top-dir which point to f8t2/relnotes 09:21 < quaid> or do we want to update the default browser page? 09:22 < couf> hmm yeah, that's part of the package :-/ 09:23 < quaid> how about this ... 09:23 < quaid> let's push that decision to Paul to review when updating the package paths and such with jesse 09:24 < couf> aye, maybe best 09:24 < quaid> ok then 09:24 < quaid> we need to get started on the Beats 09:25 < quaid> and that may dovetail into the overall "activating contributors" discussion 09:25 < quaid> but at the least, a reminder to beat writers to fire up their keyboards ... 09:25 < quaid> FWN has been great at this; the weekly beat updating is coo 09:25 < quaid> cool 09:25 -!- jmbuser [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has joined #fedora-docs 09:26 -!- jmbuser [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has quit [Remote closed the connection] 09:26 < glezos> quaid, really cool. 09:26 < quaid> that's all i have on that topic 09:27 < quaid> just hoping to broaden help there 09:27 < quaid> get Testing and RelEng and f-maintainers to actually contribute 09:27 < quaid> ok, next is the IG ... 09:27 -!- jmbuser_ [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has joined #fedora-docs 09:27 < glezos> quaid, sending reminders is always a good idea I guess 09:27 < quaid> here's what I'm thinking on that, and I need to take this on list but here's the warning alvo 09:27 < quaid> s/alvo/salvo/ 09:28 < quaid> I think the only things we can commit to for 8 are relnotes + IG 09:28 * quaid sees black text there, that was weird 09:28 < quaid> I think the only things we can commit to for F8 are relnotes + IG 09:29 -!- jmbuser_ [n=jmbuser at 195.229.24.83] has quit [Remote closed the connection] 09:29 < quaid> sorry, had a Ctrl+F in there :) 09:30 < quaid> anyway 09:30 < glezos> quaid, does the DUG need updating for F8? 09:30 < quaid> dude 09:30 < quaid> it needs updating for _F7_ 09:30 < quaid> this is no skin on the people involved 09:30 < quaid> this is across the whole project 09:30 < quaid> we have mainly failed to be able to maintain full guides 09:31 -!- JonRob [n=jon at 88-111-164-189.dynamic.dsl.as9105.com] has joined #fedora-docs 09:31 < glezos> quaid, what I meant was that it's kind of a non-release-specific doc. 09:31 < glezos> quaid, agreed on that 09:31 -!- couf_ [n=bart at fedora/couf] has joined #fedora-docs 09:31 < quaid> my hope is that opening the Wiki to more contributors will help with the small one-off, how-to, and maybe we'll be able to draw from that somehow 09:31 < quaid> glezos: well, yes, but there are always changes that need to be tweaked across release 09:31 < couf_> sorry, power failed here 09:31 < glezos> quaid, right 09:31 -!- couf [n=bart at fedora/couf] has quit [Nick collision from services.] 09:32 -!- couf_ is now known as couf 09:32 < quaid> but i think as a project, the only things we've proven ourselves consistently able to deliver are: 09:32 < quaid> * release notes 09:32 < quaid> * installation guide 09:32 < quaid> * really freaking awesome tools 09:32 < quaid> and that is all a testament to the interests of the people involved 09:32 < quaid> so I'm tempted to just work with that for this release 09:33 < quaid> anyway, like i said, a good topic for the list 09:33 < quaid> just heads up to what I'm personally thinking/feeling 09:34 < quaid> so, on to more interesting stuff 09:34 < quaid> it appears we are near the end of "Summer" for the various coding projects 09:34 * couf needs to run for a while, will keep watching though 09:34 < quaid> my major concern is helping everyone finish successful 09:34 < quaid> *fully 09:35 < quaid> vpv: what do you need from the mentor side? what is the timing/schedule we are working with? 09:35 < quaid> glezos: I think I know what GSoC needs from me; how do you think things are going? 09:36 < quaid> nman64: daMaestro isn't around, but let us know if you need anything from this group for the GSoC stuff 09:36 < glezos> quaid, my goals in terms of development were reached a while ago 09:36 < vpv> quaid: I'm having some problems with DocBook, other than that, it seems to be alright. I have time at least until August 31, probably even a couple of days after that 09:36 -!- wfoster [i=wfoster at nat/redhat/x-330892ca034367aa] has joined #fedora-docs 09:37 < quaid> glezos: yeah, you make it easy for me 09:37 < glezos> quaid, deployment might take some time to make sure security is OK 09:37 < quaid> ok 09:38 * glezos notes that GSoC says that students should be judged for their code as it was on August 20 09:38 < nman64> quaid: daMaestro sent me what he had yesterday. I'll be reviewing it ASAP. 09:39 < glezos> quaid, I'll do a fresh install of transifex to make sure the install instructions are ok and let you know to check the code out. 09:40 < quaid> glezos: thanks 09:41 < quaid> we have a transifex user for Fedora? or one for testing? 09:41 * quaid wants to setup locally and commit from here 09:42 < quaid> I can also use e.g. another SVN I own as a test spot; set it up to be an upstream for a translator 09:42 < quaid> ok, that's cool then ... 09:42 < glezos> quaid, no transifex user for Fedora. 09:42 < glezos> quaid, transifex initializes 4 local repos to play with 09:42 < quaid> ok,cool 09:43 < quaid> moving on .... 09:43 * quaid waits a second or two first 09:44 < quaid> so on to election stuff 09:44 < quaid> so, the irony is ... 09:45 < quaid> no one seems to have the time to work on making an election happen 09:45 < quaid> which means we are all derelict of duty and should resign as unable to fulfill our duties as leaders 09:45 < quaid> which means an election would be needed to fill the seats 09:45 < glezos> lol 09:45 < quaid> etc. ... 09:46 < quaid> I'd bring this up on list, but I'm getting a little tire of only talking with Paul and Rahul on there 09:46 < quaid> s/tire/tired/ 09:46 < glezos> elections every 6 months are probably a bit overkill 09:46 < quaid> maybe so 09:48 < glezos> quaid, do you think it might help it we asked people what do they think we are doing wrong as a project? 09:48 < quaid> hmm ... well, yes, but ... 09:48 < glezos> or, to rephrase, what we could do better? What prevents them from contributing and participating? 09:48 < quaid> will people only read it if that is the Subject:? 09:48 * couf returns 09:48 < quaid> because it looks to me like there has been such discussion on list 09:49 < quaid> glezos: could you drop a quick email with that question? might as well ask it straight out 09:49 < quaid> and maybe we are trying to do too much or with too many tools or something, I dunno 09:49 < glezos> quaid, ok, was thinking of suggesting that 09:49 < glezos> quaid, and too few active contributors 09:49 < quaid> yeah 09:49 < quaid> we have enough folks here right now to vote to postpone elections, I reckon 09:50 < quaid> couf, EvilBob - the question on the table is, should we postpone the elections until the next yearly cycle, figuring that 6 months is too often for FDP? 09:50 < quaid> we discussed this initially and weren't sure then, either 09:50 < EvilBob> quaid: +1 09:50 < couf> quaid: +1 09:50 < glezos> quaid, +1 09:50 < quaid> fwiw, we can still elect a new chair :) 09:51 < quaid> well, +1 from me since I proposed it :) 09:51 < EvilBob> I have just been swamped here again to ge the leg work done 09:51 < EvilBob> Just when I think I will have 20 minutes to get it going anything comes up 09:52 < quaid> I'd rather our energy on what matters for the release 09:52 < quaid> that after all is the Prime Imperative 09:52 < quaid> well, that was easy 09:53 < EvilBob> -1 on new chair 09:53 < quaid> I propose we take the discussion about activating contributors to the list 09:53 < quaid> EvilBob: I see the plan, keep me too busy to resign? 09:53 < couf> +1 to the plan :-) 09:53 < quaid> ... and with that discussion moving, we can either AOB or close the meeting 09:54 < EvilBob> new chair should happen after the election that should have happened last week, with that getting pushed 6 more months I think the chair has to wait also 09:54 < EvilBob> quaid: however If you need to step down none of us will hold it against you 09:55 < quaid> well, I didn't propose it yet, but I get the point that time is passing 09:55 * EvilBob motions to close the meeting 09:55 < quaid> 2nd! 09:55 < quaid> 5 ... 09:55 < quaid> 4 ... 09:55 < quaid> 3 ... 09:55 < quaid> 2 ... 09:55 < quaid> psyche! 09:55 < quaid> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Tue Aug 21 17:42:44 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:42:44 -0700 Subject: FDSCo Meeting 2007-08-21 Summary Message-ID: <1187718164.14030.27.camel@erato.phig.org> Remove this line, then fill in date above along with other details below Attendees: ----------- Karsten Wade (quaid)* Bart Couvreur (couf)* Jesse Keating (f13) Dimitris Glezos (glezos)* Ville-Pekka Vaivo (vpv) Robert 'Bob' Jensen (EvilBob)* (* FDSCo member) Summary: --------- * Asking Fedora Testing to own content for F8TestX/ReleaseNotes page (quaid to ask wwoods) * fedora-release-notes package needs updating; Paul to coordinate with Jesse - Include pointer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F8Test2/ReleaseNotes * Reminder to Beat writers; start keeping notes on the Wiki, tracking changes - quaid to send email to f-docs-l and f-maintainers about: 1. relnotes scheme reminder for test2 2. beats for test3 and beyond * Karsten to bring a discussion to the list about focus for F8 (relnotes, IG) * Summer coding projects are all updated and underway; no testing requests of Fedora Docs at this time * FDSCo realizes every six month elections are crazy, so have postponed FDSCo elections until next year (for the full year cycle); FDSCo positions that are voted upon by the board may still be cycled more frequently. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From jonathan.roberts.uk at googlemail.com Tue Aug 21 18:07:44 2007 From: jonathan.roberts.uk at googlemail.com (Jonathan Roberts) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:07:44 +0100 Subject: Docs Project: how well are we doing? In-Reply-To: <46CB1A83.3080408@glezos.com> References: <46CB1A83.3080408@glezos.com> Message-ID: <3263b11b0708211107n601f532awcf3f6fbd9fdd8f1@mail.gmail.com> Hey, Sorry if this is long or not what was wanted, but hey, if it is just skip over it! > Fedora 8 is approaching, as it happened in the past, there are very few people > actively working on our Docs -- so few we are thinking of just focusing on > delivering the release notes and install-guide for this release. The Desktop > user guide hasn't even been updated for F7. I did some work on updating this guide in the build up to Fedora 7's release, but I didn't go further because I felt like the goals of the doc/direction it was going in weren't clear and I didn't know what still needed doing. I asked a couple of times, and thanks to jmbuser for providing some pointers Re: this, but I still felt lost in the end, like the guide was aimless. Maybe I should have pushed further, but some other things came up at the same time and my attention was switched. > While it seems that we've got very few contributors, on the other hand, we see a > bunch of people joining the project, posting self introductions that show > willingness to help! Which is great! > > An obvious Question comes in mind then: what are we doing wrong and all you new > contributors aren't involved in a Doc having fun and everything? What didn't you > like when you first joined the project? What did you expect and where did you > get disappointed? Hmm, it's difficult to be specific with this question, but I'll do my best. I came along with a huge amount of enthusiasm (mostly as a result of wanting to give something back for all the software I've had for free, wanting to help others out, the usual reasons) and time. I think initially I did some useful work? I hope so! As time wore on though, I found myself with a bit less time than I had before, and felt a little bit confused about where to contribute. Some of the ideas that were tried, with respect to direction, had real promise I think - the timetable, focusing on one guide at a time etc - but none of them really picked up momentum (see my earlier point about the DUG). Another thing that put me off was the very formal style selected by the project. I appreciate that there are good reasons behind this - consistency, clarity, authoritative tone etc - but it's a bit of a chore to write like that: it doesn't feel natural (maybe just me?), and it's dull to read back. One thing that I think the project should consider, as the wider Fedora project has been discussing lately, is "what is our target audience?": while the formal style is great for docs from Red Hat/Microsoft etc (wow never thought I'd write that!) which are aimed at cooperate users, is it right for $fedora_target_audience - is it suitable for, what is currently a small team, to maintain? Perhaps alternative styles of docs could be tried? I've recently been playing with openSUSE a bit (as a result of the target audience discussions) and found that they've got a project to create community contributed "cook books". A Fedora implementation could perhaps see community contributed recipes, through whatever medium (e-mail even!? legal aside), while the small core team could edit and pull things together (polish), and obviously write recipes themselves!? Other things I think are important I've talked about in the past: clear to-do lists of what needs doing so contributors know what to do etc. I hope this is useful to people? I'd love to start contributing again in the future but starting uni next month may take up some of my time, at least while I get settled; maybe in a few months I can become more active again, and hopefully I won't feel so lost then as well :D Also, my apologies about the Revisor guides - I still hope to be of some use with these in the future! Jon p.s. You guys do great work as it is: rel notes/inst guide/tools etc are superb! From araneus81 at googlemail.com Tue Aug 21 19:47:55 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:47:55 +0200 Subject: Self-Introduction: Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach Message-ID: <46CB416B.607@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi I'll try to go through the information requested on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SelfIntroduction and then go on to write some more about myself (hoping to get it right the first time and to not make too much of a fool of myself ;)). Full legal name: Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach City: Stuttgart Country: Germany Student status: Beginning 10 September, student at a school for information management My goals in the Fedora Project: Tough one... trying to help where help is needed. I think I've got sufficient experience to do some translations from English to German and vice versa and to do localisations of American to British English texts. Thus, translations is what I'm mostly interested in and probably what I'm best at. If the opportunity arises I'd also like to try myself at writing (bits of) drafts for projects/applications/how-tos/... I'm also interested in contributing to the wiki. Historical qualifications: I've attended a school for commercial correspondence, where I was trained in doing translations from my mother-tongue to English and vice versa. I'm occasionally doing translations for the IBKA (a German organisation which I'm a member of). If you want to have a look at a translation I did, you can do so here: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html I've got several years experience with UNIX-like operating systems. I started out with SuSE Linux in 2003, have switched to Debian in 2004, then to Ubuntu in early 2006. At the end of the year I discovered FreeBSD and became quite infatuated with it. I'm still eagerly awaiting the 7.0 release which is scheduled for later this year. Also, admittedly not too long ago, I discovered Fedora (Core 6 at that time) which struck me as much more professional than most of the other distributions out there and I genuinely like it. So, my two main interests regarding operating systems are Fedora and FreeBSD. I use Fedora more frequently, though, partly because, coming from a Linux background, I'm still more comfortable with it and partly because of Fedora itself. :) I've got some programming experience. I'm quite good at Perl, I daresay, and I also program in C and C++ now and again. At the moment I'm trying to teach myself some Java. Here is my GPG fingerprint: pub 1024D/C6EC36E7 2007-08-21 [expires: 2008-08-20] Key fingerprint = 23C8 878C 1650 7D82 C7F0 AEAA 9F6D BEB9 C6EC 36E7 uid Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach aka araneus aka edderkopp) sub 2048g/071F9964 2007-08-21 [expires: 2008-08-20] Well, I think (hope) that about sums it up. I'll be happy to respond to any questions you might have and I look forward to contributing to the Fedora Project. :) Greetings Sven-Thorsten -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGy0Fqn22+ucbsNucRAiwHAJ9Inliht8qWvzAjaTXb+8T5KVOoJgCggi14 wtSoW+77qRE+kW0GDzSLi+0= =EF1Y -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From kwade at redhat.com Tue Aug 21 20:18:43 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:18:43 -0700 Subject: FAQs for Fedora Docs contributors Message-ID: <1187727523.14030.94.camel@erato.phig.org> What are the frequently asked questions that we get from new contributors to this project? List ... What are some questions you might still have as a contributor? With stuff scattered all over the wiki, it could help new docs contributors to have one page with all the answers. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From adam_hammond at bigpond.com Wed Aug 22 13:34:01 2007 From: adam_hammond at bigpond.com (Adam Hammond) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:34:01 +1000 Subject: Self-Introduction: Adam Hammond Message-ID: <000b01c7e4c1$1a1085e0$6500a8c0@themis> Adam Hammond Brisbane, Australia Student - Queensland University of Technology Goals in Fedora Project: To learn more about the OS itself by learning skills through the docs project and then relaying the knowledge learnt to the general public. Historical Qualifications: I have not worked on projects so far, due to the fact that I have just finished school. I have ~mid-range computer skills (currently studying a bachelor of IT w/previous experience). I am able to program (intermediately) in Perl and PHP and (basicly) in Java. I am currently working on learning JSP. I feel that I am excellent for this project as I have not been exposed to the wider documentation community as of yet and therefore I will be able to write documentation with a clear perspective of the project. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- pub 1024D/BDF531C5 2007-08-22 [expires: 2008-02-18] Key fingerprint = 5C7C 78F4 186B A808 9E47 482C E798 61E4 BDF5 31C5 uid Adam Hammond (Fedora Docs Project) sub 1024g/55A96D2B 2007-08-22 [expires: 2008-02-18] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From draciron at gmail.com Wed Aug 22 17:27:51 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:27:51 -0500 Subject: FAQs for Fedora Docs contributors In-Reply-To: <1187727523.14030.94.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1187727523.14030.94.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: A central page with links in succession to the various pages would be a huge help in getting started. Also an explanation what each account you create does for you. In a previous post to this list it was mentioned that many of the users won't have a technical background. When creating an account the step of adding the ssh pub key might throw the inexperienced users for a short loop. First you have to create the key. Easy enough to do with keygen, then the second thing that might cause them difficulty is getting to the file. Recent FF versions will not allow you to browse to the dot dirs. With your pub key living in .ssh that can cause a bit of a temporary quandry for a new user. Easily solved by either copying the file up a dir or creating a symbolic link to the dir or file. So it might be worth mentioning if we do have inexperienced users. Could save them a bit of aggravation. To the non-technical user it appears they do not have that dir as by default hidden dirs are not displayed in the GUI file managers. Firefox's upload dialog won't traverse that dir even if they can find it. Most inexperienced users won't think of using the CLI to look. If they do the ls -al won't come to mind anyway. Then if they can get to the dir the file they need doesn't exist. Gotta put yourself in their place when they hit those obstacles. Another thing that would help I think would be a page with basic IRC info. Most people this day an age use IM and many have never heard of IRC. When I did the MMORPG thing I had to hand hold hundreds of users while teaching them how to use IRC. Been trying out pIdgin for IRC and it seems to work pretty well so far. Pigin is installed on just about everything. So might be a good idea to give a quick half page rundown on how to set up pidgin for IRC, how to register a nic and how how to join the fedora-docs channel. IRC is obviously the best choice for this kind of work. Many folks though will need an introduction too it. Right now I hit a dead end. I think I have all the necessary accounts. Now what? Can't edit anything, can't create a new topic, least doesn't appear that I can. Those are my first thoughts on the topic. On 8/21/07, Karsten Wade wrote: > What are the frequently asked questions that we get from new > contributors to this project? List ... > > What are some questions you might still have as a contributor? > > With stuff scattered all over the wiki, it could help new docs > contributors to have one page with all the answers. > > - Karsten > -- > Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project > Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject > quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 > ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > From stickster at gmail.com Wed Aug 22 18:08:18 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:08:18 -0400 Subject: FAQs for Fedora Docs contributors In-Reply-To: References: <1187727523.14030.94.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187806098.4406.0.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 12:27 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > Right now I hit a dead end. I think I have all the necessary accounts. > Now what? Can't edit anything, can't create a new topic, least > doesn't appear that I can. I see that Karsten added you to the EditGroup (account "DracironSmith"), so you should be able to edit the wiki now. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From kwade at redhat.com Thu Aug 23 03:57:54 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:57:54 -0700 Subject: what makes you write community documentation? In-Reply-To: <1187219473.5699.27.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <1186339876.27970.624.camel@erato.phig.org> <1186483747.27970.849.camel@erato.phig.org> <1187219473.5699.27.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1187841474.14030.277.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 16:11 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote: > Attached is the original I cut out from the email, a revised version, > and a standard diff between the two. Forgot to actually attach them; this is a better place: http://quaid.fedorapeople.org/drop/services-draft.txt http://quaid.fedorapeople.org/drop/services-draft-kwade_edit.txt http://quaid.fedorapeople.org/drop/services-draft.kwade.patch - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From noriko at redhat.com Thu Aug 23 05:00:26 2007 From: noriko at redhat.com (Noriko Mizumoto) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:00:26 +1000 Subject: Translation Quick Start Guide Message-ID: <46CD146A.1020605@redhat.com> Hi Splitting main file into multiple files has just been completed now. All files have been added and committed in existing translataion-quick-start/ directory. I have successfully built english, so hopefully everything should work. * File structure Since most of works were cut&paste, it may look ugly somewhere. Please feel free to make it nicer. * po/ directory for translation I have not touched at all as no idea how makefile works with. Could someone please have a look and fix accordingly? * Update each chapter Please grab any file and make update. Before you work, please insert your name beside of the chapter at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks/TQSG. Once finish, do not forget to update rpm-info.xml. * Expand the guide Please feel free to add new file as new chapter. Before you work, please add new chapter name and insert your name beside it at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks/TQSG. Once finish, do not forget to update Makefile and rpm-info.xml. cheers noriko From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 23 13:03:25 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:03:25 -0400 Subject: Translation Quick Start Guide In-Reply-To: <46CD146A.1020605@redhat.com> References: <46CD146A.1020605@redhat.com> Message-ID: <1187874205.8058.9.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 15:00 +1000, Noriko Mizumoto wrote: > Hi > > Splitting main file into multiple files has just been completed now. > All files have been added and committed in existing > translataion-quick-start/ directory. I have successfully built english, > so hopefully everything should work. > > * File structure > Since most of works were cut&paste, it may look ugly somewhere. Please > feel free to make it nicer. No problem. I can prettify this later; everything validates and builds, so you did it right! :-) > * po/ directory for translation > I have not touched at all as no idea how makefile works with. > Could someone please have a look and fix accordingly? Any time you change the content, you can run "make pot" to update the POT file, and "make po" to merge the changes into all the existing PO files. (Or just do one step, "make pot po".) > * Update each chapter > Please grab any file and make update. > Before you work, please insert your name beside of the chapter at > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks/TQSG. > Once finish, do not forget to update rpm-info.xml. One point here -- our list of authors is getting unmanageably long. I think it would be a good idea to: (1) keep all the elements in place where they are, since that's an easy way of seeing who worked on the TQSG; and (2) add a single representing the group "Fedora Translation Project," and use that worker as the single to shorten the title page. We've done this with other documents such as the Release Notes and it means that readers see the content right away rather than a huge list of names. Perhaps this calls for an enhancement to our build tools that allow for a colophon at the end of a document if desired, using the element content from rpm-info.xml. > * Expand the guide > Please feel free to add new file as new chapter. > Before you work, please add new chapter name and insert your name beside > it at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Tasks/TQSG. > Once finish, do not forget to update Makefile and rpm-info.xml. Awesome! Translators creating content in Docs CVS using DocBook XML! I could practically hug all of you. Now if we could only get lurking Docs people to jump in the pool.... ;-) -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From araneus81 at googlemail.com Thu Aug 23 14:57:45 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:57:45 +0200 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation Message-ID: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all Being a new Documentation Project member and eager to get started I browsed through the Wiki and discovered the DocIdeas page (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas). The proposal for the "Guide to Useful Linux Documentation" (suggested by Karsten Wade) seems to have no editor assigned to it yet and it's something I feel able to get started with. I'm a bit insecure yet, though. How sophisticated does a first draft of such a guide have to be? Is a single, well-formatted page with links to TLDP (and possibly other useful resources), sorted into different categories, enough for a start? And, finally, how can I get the page assigned to me? Is it okay to just start writing? Thanks for your help. :) Sven-Thorsten - -- About me (GPG key): http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SvenThorstenFahrbach The Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject IBKA: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGzaBon22+ucbsNucRAvtuAJ9ff4noy8a9xHFi0ZsO7zs+o7uOYQCglba/ ku5MR1HmR2mNRQh1qptHBG0= =0t0l -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Thu Aug 23 15:07:42 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:37:42 +0530 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> Message-ID: <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hi all > > Being a new Documentation Project member and eager to get started I > browsed through the Wiki and discovered the DocIdeas page > (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas). > The proposal for the "Guide to Useful Linux Documentation" (suggested > by Karsten Wade) seems to have no editor assigned to it yet and it's > something I feel able to get started with. I'm a bit insecure yet, > though. How sophisticated does a first draft of such a guide have to > be? Is a single, well-formatted page with links to TLDP (and possibly > other useful resources), sorted into different categories, enough for > a start? > And, finally, how can I get the page assigned to me? Is it okay to > just start writing? > > Thanks for your help. :) Yes. It is perfectly fine to just start writing and not worry about the details just yet. Rahul From araneus81 at googlemail.com Thu Aug 23 15:13:37 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:13:37 +0200 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <46CDA421.6080109@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rahul Sundaram skrev: > Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >> >> Hi all >> >> Being a new Documentation Project member and eager to get started >> I browsed through the Wiki and discovered the DocIdeas page >> (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas). The >> proposal for the "Guide to Useful Linux Documentation" (suggested >> by Karsten Wade) seems to have no editor assigned to it yet and >> it's something I feel able to get started with. I'm a bit >> insecure yet, though. How sophisticated does a first draft of >> such a guide have to be? Is a single, well-formatted page with >> links to TLDP (and possibly other useful resources), sorted into >> different categories, enough for a start? And, finally, how can I >> get the page assigned to me? Is it okay to just start writing? >> >> Thanks for your help. :) > > Yes. It is perfectly fine to just start writing and not worry about > the details just yet. > > Rahul > Thank you for your fast reply! I'll do just that. :) Sven-Thorsten - -- About me (GPG key): http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SvenThorstenFahrbach The Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject IBKA: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD4DBQFGzaQgn22+ucbsNucRArF5AKCnp3y1gWR4dB0BrMCNKXGNgjmNmwCYtmEM xG6/CqjokswpeY2fMDsghQ== =avYK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From max_list at fedorafaq.org Thu Aug 23 20:17:31 2007 From: max_list at fedorafaq.org (Max Kanat-Alexander) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:17:31 -0700 Subject: [OT] Help Bugzilla with Documentation! Message-ID: <20070823201732.EFCEA88800A@help.trusthosting.net> Hello folks! Some of you know that in addition to being the author of FedoraFAQ.org, I'm also one of the two primary developers of Bugzilla. This is the best documentation community that I know of, so I wanted to say that the Bugzilla Project is actively seeking somebody to work on the documentation! You would essentially have full control over the docs, as nobody is working on them currently. They're in DocBook. Currently we use Jade to compile them, but we'd dearly love to switch to xmlto. They need a lot of love. :-) *Any* help with them would be greatly appreciated. If you want to help out, you can contact me at mkanat[at]bugzilla[dot]org, or just show up in our IRC channel (#mozwebtools on irc.mozilla.org). Or, just start submitting patches on bugzilla.mozilla.org. :-) -Max -- http://www.insiderfaq.com/ The Insider FAQ: Linux Made Simple. From max_list at fedorafaq.org Thu Aug 23 21:13:26 2007 From: max_list at fedorafaq.org (Max Kanat-Alexander) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:13:26 -0700 Subject: [OT] Help Bugzilla with Documentation! In-Reply-To: <20070823201732.EFCEA88800A@help.trusthosting.net> References: <20070823201732.EFCEA88800A@help.trusthosting.net> Message-ID: <20070823211328.9BD3988800A@help.trusthosting.net> On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:17:31 -0700 Max Kanat-Alexander wrote: > This is the best documentation community that I know of, so I > wanted to say that the Bugzilla Project is actively seeking somebody > to work on the documentation! Oh, for anybody interested, the HTML format of the built docs is here: http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/tip/html/ And you can get the source from CVS by doing: cvs -d :pserver:anonymous at cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co -d bugzilla-docs mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/docs/ -Max -- http://www.insiderfaq.com/ The Insider FAQ: Linux Made Simple. From dreamcarrior at yahoo.com Fri Aug 24 07:48:48 2007 From: dreamcarrior at yahoo.com (Sam Chen) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:48:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Self-Introduction: Shen-En Chen (Sam) Message-ID: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Full legal name: Shen-En Chen ---> Or just go by Sam Waco, Texas, USA Timezone -6 US central time I am a student at Baylor University. My goals in the Fedora Project are to help translate useful documents or write documents from English to Chinese or vice versa. Either documentation for software or a system wide message. What other documentation do you want to see published? Just anything that people think is important and significant. Anything else you'd like to do? Historical qualifications What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past? I am a biochemist. So far I have a paper in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry letters in 2004, and a page for international student magazine. What level and type of computer skills do you have? I started my computer life with microsoft windows 3.1 many years ago. I like and used to microsoft windows until five or six years ago, in a research pproject I had to use unix based system to solve problems. Since then I learned how to install, configure and administer unix-like systems. What other skills do you have that might be applicable? User interface design, other so-called soft skills (people skills), programming, etc. What makes you an excellent match for the project? I use unix-like systems for work and I believe I can contribute at least as a regular user. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz From stickster at gmail.com Fri Aug 24 15:45:15 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:45:15 -0400 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1187970315.28985.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 20:37 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Hi all > > > > Being a new Documentation Project member and eager to get started I > > browsed through the Wiki and discovered the DocIdeas page > > (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas). > > The proposal for the "Guide to Useful Linux Documentation" (suggested > > by Karsten Wade) seems to have no editor assigned to it yet and it's > > something I feel able to get started with. I'm a bit insecure yet, > > though. How sophisticated does a first draft of such a guide have to > > be? Is a single, well-formatted page with links to TLDP (and possibly > > other useful resources), sorted into different categories, enough for > > a start? > > And, finally, how can I get the page assigned to me? Is it okay to > > just start writing? > > > > Thanks for your help. :) > > Yes. It is perfectly fine to just start writing and not worry about the > details just yet. +1, and thanks for getting involved! Go ahead and just draft it on the wiki under (say) Docs/Drafts/UsefulLinuxDocs and we'll be sure to see it as you work on it. (Many folks put "watches" on the wiki which alert them to page updates.) -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From araneus81 at googlemail.com Fri Aug 24 16:25:58 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:25:58 +0200 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <1187970315.28985.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> <1187970315.28985.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <46CF0696.4070801@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Paul W. Frields wrote: > On Thu, 2007-08-23 at 20:37 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: >> Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: >>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >>> >>> Hi all >>> >>> Being a new Documentation Project member and eager to get >>> started I browsed through the Wiki and discovered the DocIdeas >>> page (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas). The >>> proposal for the "Guide to Useful Linux Documentation" >>> (suggested by Karsten Wade) seems to have no editor assigned to >>> it yet and it's something I feel able to get started with. I'm >>> a bit insecure yet, though. How sophisticated does a first >>> draft of such a guide have to be? Is a single, well-formatted >>> page with links to TLDP (and possibly other useful resources), >>> sorted into different categories, enough for a start? And, >>> finally, how can I get the page assigned to me? Is it okay to >>> just start writing? >>> >>> Thanks for your help. :) >> Yes. It is perfectly fine to just start writing and not worry >> about the details just yet. > > +1, and thanks for getting involved! Go ahead and just draft it on > the wiki under (say) Docs/Drafts/UsefulLinuxDocs and we'll be sure > to see it as you work on it. (Many folks put "watches" on the wiki > which alert them to page updates.) > Thanks! :) I did already start on it - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/GuideToUsefulLinuxDocumentation - - and I hope that it looks reasonably well so far. It would be great though, if one or two more editors got involved to get more ideas for links to more documentation etc. This is my first piece of work on the DocsProject, so please don't hesitate to tell me if something needs to be done differently/better. :) Sven-Thorsten - -- About me (GPG key): http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SvenThorstenFahrbach The Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject IBKA: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGzwaVn22+ucbsNucRAjvgAJsETR1O3lgHcv6ObN1dUjmcT7pgwACgrn2J z2XxUKsvCe0gAekQAEJyByo= =iJCx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From stickster at gmail.com Fri Aug 24 16:38:53 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:38:53 -0400 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <46CF0696.4070801@googlemail.com> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> <1187970315.28985.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> <46CF0696.4070801@googlemail.com> Message-ID: <1187973533.28985.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 18:25 +0200, Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: > Thanks! :) I did already start on it - > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/GuideToUsefulLinuxDocumentation > - - and I hope that it looks reasonably well so far. It would be great > though, if one or two more editors got involved to get more ideas for > links to more documentation etc. > This is my first piece of work on the DocsProject, so please don't > hesitate to tell me if something needs to be done differently/better. :) Thus far, a great start. Thanks for including the "Purpose," "Audience," and "Assumptions" at top -- these statements are incredibly important to writing good documentation, because referring back to them reminds you when you must explain concepts, and when you can make reference to them. I look forward to seeing more as you flesh it out. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Fri Aug 24 16:49:00 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:49:00 -0400 Subject: Self-Introduction: Shen-En Chen (Sam) In-Reply-To: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1187974140.28985.9.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 00:48 -0700, Sam Chen wrote: > Full legal name: Shen-En Chen ---> Or just go by Sam > Waco, Texas, USA Timezone -6 US central time > I am a student at Baylor University. > My goals in the Fedora Project are to help translate useful documents > or write documents from English to Chinese or vice versa. Either > documentation for software or a system wide message. > What other documentation do you want to see published? Just anything > that people think is important and significant. > Anything else you'd like to do? > Historical qualifications > What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past? I am a > biochemist. So far I have a paper in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry > letters in 2004, and a page for international student magazine. > What level and type of computer skills do you have? I started my > computer life with microsoft windows 3.1 many years ago. I like and > used to microsoft windows until five or six years ago, in a research > pproject I had to use unix based system to solve problems. Since then I > learned how to install, configure and administer unix-like systems. > What other skills do you have that might be applicable? User interface > design, other so-called soft skills (people skills), programming, etc. > What makes you an excellent match for the project? I use unix-like > systems for work and I believe I can contribute at least as a regular > user. Welcome Sam! You can find some ideas by looking at our Tasks pages, especially http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks . Do you have a specific document you would like to work on? You can find a list of drafts at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts -- feel free to jump in and just start editing once you have a wiki account. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From bbbush.yuan at gmail.com Fri Aug 24 17:30:30 2007 From: bbbush.yuan at gmail.com (Yuan Yijun) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 01:30:30 +0800 Subject: Self-Introduction: Shen-En Chen (Sam) In-Reply-To: <1187974140.28985.9.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1187974140.28985.9.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <76e72f800708241030g22afcdegf9ec6390c49db5e5@mail.gmail.com> 2007/8/25, Paul W. Frields : > On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 00:48 -0700, Sam Chen wrote: > > Full legal name: Shen-En Chen ---> Or just go by Sam > > Waco, Texas, USA Timezone -6 US central time > > I am a student at Baylor University. > > My goals in the Fedora Project are to help translate useful documents > > or write documents from English to Chinese or vice versa. Either > > documentation for software or a system wide message. > > What other documentation do you want to see published? Just anything > > that people think is important and significant. > > Anything else you'd like to do? > > Historical qualifications > > What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past? I am a > > biochemist. So far I have a paper in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry > > letters in 2004, and a page for international student magazine. > > What level and type of computer skills do you have? I started my > > computer life with microsoft windows 3.1 many years ago. I like and > > used to microsoft windows until five or six years ago, in a research > > pproject I had to use unix based system to solve problems. Since then I > > learned how to install, configure and administer unix-like systems. > > What other skills do you have that might be applicable? User interface > > design, other so-called soft skills (people skills), programming, etc. > > What makes you an excellent match for the project? I use unix-like > > systems for work and I believe I can contribute at least as a regular > > user. > > Welcome Sam! You can find some ideas by looking at our Tasks pages, > especially http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tasks . > > Do you have a specific document you would like to work on? You can find > a list of drafts at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts -- feel > free to jump in and just start editing once you have a wiki account. > Hi, Now we have regular meetings at #fedora-cn every Friday 20:00 (CCT or GMT+0800). Come here and let's talk about everything! We write documents on wiki, we translate, we do packaging, we help each others. Thanks! -- bbbush ^_^ From kwade at redhat.com Sat Aug 25 00:34:47 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:34:47 -0700 Subject: FAQs for Fedora Docs contributors In-Reply-To: References: <1187727523.14030.94.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <1188002088.5237.30.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 12:27 -0500, Dan Smith wrote: > A central page with links in succession to the various pages would be > a huge help in getting started. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Join http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Join/CheckList How would you improve those? I think they address all your items below: > Also an explanation what each account you create does for you. > > In a previous post to this list it was mentioned that many of the > users won't have a technical background. When creating an account the > step of adding the ssh pub key might throw the inexperienced users for > a short loop. First you have to create the key. Easy enough to do > with keygen, then the second thing that might cause them difficulty is > getting to the file. Recent FF versions will not allow you to browse > to the dot dirs. With your pub key living in .ssh that can cause a bit > of a temporary quandry for a new user. Easily solved by either copying > the file up a dir or creating a symbolic link to the dir or file. So > it might be worth mentioning if we do have inexperienced users. Could > save them a bit of aggravation. To the non-technical user it appears > they do not have that dir as by default hidden dirs are not displayed > in the GUI file managers. Firefox's upload dialog won't traverse that > dir even if they can find it. Most inexperienced users won't think of > using the CLI to look. If they do the ls -al won't come to mind > anyway. Then if they can get to the dir the file they need doesn't > exist. Gotta put yourself in their place when they hit those > obstacles. > > Another thing that would help I think would be a page with basic IRC > info. Most people this day an age use IM and many have never heard of > IRC. When I did the MMORPG thing I had to hand hold hundreds of users > while teaching them how to use IRC. Been trying out pIdgin for IRC > and it seems to work pretty well so far. Pigin is installed on just > about everything. So might be a good idea to give a quick half page > rundown on how to set up pidgin for IRC, how to register a nic and how > how to join the fedora-docs channel. IRC is obviously the best choice > for this kind of work. Many folks though will need an introduction too > it. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Join/CheckList Where would you link that in? It does not seem to be on DocsProject/Join nor on DocsProject. So far, I think these aren't FAQ items. The instructions and links are there, or should be. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From kwade at redhat.com Sat Aug 25 00:40:10 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:40:10 -0700 Subject: Self-Introduction: Adam Hammond In-Reply-To: <000b01c7e4c1$1a1085e0$6500a8c0@themis> References: <000b01c7e4c1$1a1085e0$6500a8c0@themis> Message-ID: <1188002410.5237.37.camel@erato.phig.org> On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 23:34 +1000, Adam Hammond wrote: > Adam Hammond > Brisbane, Australia > Student - Queensland University of Technology > > Goals in Fedora Project: > To learn more about the OS itself by learning skills through the docs > project and then relaying the knowledge learnt to the general public. > > Historical Qualifications: > I have not worked on projects so far, due to the fact that I have just > finished school. I have ~mid-range computer skills (currently studying > a bachelor of IT w/previous experience). I am able to program > (intermediately) in Perl and PHP and (basicly) in Java. I am currently > working on learning JSP. I feel that I am excellent for this project > as I have not been exposed to the wider documentation community as of > yet and therefore I will be able to write documentation with a clear > perspective of the project. Welcome Adam. Have you found all you need here? http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Join Under the section, "How You Can Help", what strikes our fancy? If you are looking for suggestions ... Are you interested in working on Fedora-specific developer content? There is a new Develoment SIG starting up that is focusing on making Fedora a premier development environment. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Development Having a writer or two focused on that is a good idea. You could help cover the beat for the release notes for Fedora 8: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats/Devel Just as an opening ideas. :) - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From kwade at redhat.com Sat Aug 25 00:45:55 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:45:55 -0700 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <1187973533.28985.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> <1187970315.28985.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> <46CF0696.4070801@googlemail.com> <1187973533.28985.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1188002755.5237.43.camel@erato.phig.org> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 12:38 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > Thus far, a great start. +1 Good application of keeping it simple and straightforward. There are a couple of project just finishing up that provide all of the manual (man) and info pages for each version of Fedora. One is straight HTML output, the other a Wiki for interactive potential. Those students could put appropriate links on the Docs/Drafts/GuideToUsefulLinuxDocumentation page; or provide a template to apply to other subjects, since most of the topics covered have an associated man/info page. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From kwade at redhat.com Sat Aug 25 00:46:36 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:46:36 -0700 Subject: Self-Introduction: Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach In-Reply-To: <46CB416B.607@googlemail.com> References: <46CB416B.607@googlemail.com> Message-ID: <1188002796.5237.45.camel@erato.phig.org> On Tue, 2007-08-21 at 21:47 +0200, Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: > I'll try to go through the information requested on > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SelfIntroduction and then go > on to write some more about myself (hoping to get it right the first > time and to not make too much of a fool of myself ;)). Welcome, btw. ;-) - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From kwade at redhat.com Sat Aug 25 00:51:54 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:51:54 -0700 Subject: Self-Introduction: Shen-En Chen (Sam) In-Reply-To: <76e72f800708241030g22afcdegf9ec6390c49db5e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1187974140.28985.9.camel@localhost.localdomain> <76e72f800708241030g22afcdegf9ec6390c49db5e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1188003114.5237.50.camel@erato.phig.org> On Sat, 2007-08-25 at 01:30 +0800, Yuan Yijun wrote: > Now we have regular meetings at #fedora-cn every Friday 20:00 (CCT or > GMT+0800). Come here and let's talk about everything! We write > documents on wiki, we translate, we do packaging, we help each others. I'll take this chance to point out ... We can have any language as the base language for a document. If you write using the XML toolchain, then you can make documents written in Chinese made available for translation. :) All you need is one or more writers and one or more editors. All must be able to read/write fluently in the language. If the grammar editor does not know the technical material, have a technical editor edit the document. - Karsten -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From araneus81 at googlemail.com Sat Aug 25 13:20:05 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:20:05 +0200 Subject: Fedora Guide to Useful Linux Documentation In-Reply-To: <1188002755.5237.43.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46CDA069.6080506@googlemail.com> <46CDA2BE.4080409@fedoraproject.org> <1187970315.28985.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> <46CF0696.4070801@googlemail.com> <1187973533.28985.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1188002755.5237.43.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <46D02C85.8090703@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Karsten Wade wrote: > On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 12:38 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote: > >> Thus far, a great start. > > +1 Good application of keeping it simple and straightforward. Thank you. :) > > There are a couple of project just finishing up that provide all of > the manual (man) and info pages for each version of Fedora. One is > straight HTML output, the other a Wiki for interactive potential. Cool. If anybody's got the URL to the project(s) I'd be glad to add it/them - or someone could do it directly, as mentioned below. Either way, thanks for the information! > > Those students could put appropriate links on the > Docs/Drafts/GuideToUsefulLinuxDocumentation page; Sven-Thorsten - -- About me (GPG key): http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SvenThorstenFahrbach The Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject IBKA: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG0CyEn22+ucbsNucRAm64AKC50RapvPEURcCwhp/ocaNcJbiDAQCgnh8L yAzV9X2QQpmwZTLY0K8ty04= =j/5v -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From araneus81 at googlemail.com Sat Aug 25 13:20:52 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:20:52 +0200 Subject: Self-Introduction: Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach In-Reply-To: <1188002796.5237.45.camel@erato.phig.org> References: <46CB416B.607@googlemail.com> <1188002796.5237.45.camel@erato.phig.org> Message-ID: <46D02CB4.6090003@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Karsten Wade wrote: > On Tue, 2007-08-21 at 21:47 +0200, Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach wrote: > >> I'll try to go through the information requested on >> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SelfIntroduction and >> then go on to write some more about myself (hoping to get it >> right the first time and to not make too much of a fool of myself >> ;)). > > Welcome, btw. ;-) Hi! :) Sven-Thorsten - -- About me (GPG key): http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SvenThorstenFahrbach The Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject IBKA: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG0Cyzn22+ucbsNucRAtlHAKCJF0vEQrpv1c93edT1AmNYQMqr/wCgtb99 6hl0wYBKXJlVFzcu53Ienes= =Rmwa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From draciron at gmail.com Sat Aug 25 15:24:08 2007 From: draciron at gmail.com (Dan Smith) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 10:24:08 -0500 Subject: Looking for writing partner to take care of asthetics. Message-ID: Figure this is worth a try. I am expending more time on formating than content right now. I am hoping that somebody here would be interested in teaming up with me and covering the formating allowing me to concentrate on content. This would be ideal for somebody who is not very technical but would like to contribute to the effort. I was never especially good at making things look purty :) If you are interested email me and I'll put you to work ASAP. From araneus81 at googlemail.com Sat Aug 25 15:33:27 2007 From: araneus81 at googlemail.com (Sven-Thorsten Fahrbach) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:33:27 +0200 Subject: Looking for writing partner to take care of asthetics. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46D04BC7.3050807@googlemail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dan Smith wrote: > Figure this is worth a try. I am expending more time on formating > than content right now. I am hoping that somebody here would be > interested in teaming up with me and covering the formating > allowing me to concentrate on content. This would be ideal for > somebody who is not very technical but would like to contribute to > the effort. That sounds like me... ;-) > I was never especially good at making things look purty :) I think I could at least give it a try - is there something like a probation period? ;-) > If you are interested email me and I'll put you to work ASAP Which are the pages in question? I would like to contribute but I don't want to promise something I can't keep. (BTW: As far as design is concerned you can have a look at my profile on the Wiki (in the sig below) and on the page I'm currently working on - it's linked there. If this looks good enough, I'll probably be up to the task. :)). Sven-Thorsten - -- About me (GPG key): http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SvenThorstenFahrbach The Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject IBKA: http://www.ibka.org/en/infos/ibka.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG0EvGn22+ucbsNucRAs45AJ948BwsAOUOFNaZ+QRtqf+crMviOwCeLuHK rc9ibdikDHtVJd0etuoieks= =nohG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From bbbush.yuan at gmail.com Sun Aug 26 01:11:19 2007 From: bbbush.yuan at gmail.com (Yuan Yijun) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:11:19 +0800 Subject: Self-Introduction: Shen-En Chen (Sam) In-Reply-To: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <315697.84004.qm@web32713.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1188090679.4791.28.camel@localhost.localdomain> ? 2007-08-24?? 00:48 -0700?Sam Chen??? > Full legal name: Shen-En Chen ---> Or just go by Sam > Waco, Texas, USA Timezone -6 US central time > I am a student at Baylor University. > My goals in the Fedora Project are to help translate useful documents > or write documents from English to Chinese or vice versa. Either > documentation for software or a system wide message. > What other documentation do you want to see published? Just anything > that people think is important and significant. > Anything else you'd like to do? > Historical qualifications > What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past? I am a > biochemist. So far I have a paper in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry > letters in 2004, and a page for international student magazine. > What level and type of computer skills do you have? I started my > computer life with microsoft windows 3.1 many years ago. I like and > used to microsoft windows until five or six years ago, in a research > pproject I had to use unix based system to solve problems. Since then I > learned how to install, configure and administer unix-like systems. > What other skills do you have that might be applicable? User interface > design, other so-called soft skills (people skills), programming, etc. > What makes you an excellent match for the project? I use unix-like > systems for work and I believe I can contribute at least as a regular > user. > > Hi, Sam Do you have a fedora account? Have you registered your wiki name ``SamChen`` or ``ShenEnChen``? Thanks! -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: ??????????? URL: From jmbabich at gmail.com Sun Aug 26 08:37:24 2007 From: jmbabich at gmail.com (John Babich) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 11:37:24 +0300 Subject: Excellent blog entry on documentation Message-ID: <9d2c731f0708260137rb8d5ac4r961959e7d216b6bc@mail.gmail.com> I think a lot of us in the Fedora Docs Project can agree with the views expressed in Tom Adelson's blog at http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000273 Here's an excerpt: "The Open Source community has so many developers, I find it remarkable. But, projects where 98% of the volunteers develop leaves a wide gap in documentation. You can have all the wikis you want, but if people don't write in them, edit them, publish security problems and instructions for installing and using applications, then those wikis are useless." The whole entry is worth reading, not as negative criticism, but as food for thought.. John Babich Volunteer, Fedora Docs Project From richard.bukovansky at atlas.cz Mon Aug 27 20:55:04 2007 From: richard.bukovansky at atlas.cz (Bukovansky Richard) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:55:04 +0200 Subject: Self-Introduction: Richard Bukovansky Message-ID: <46D33A28.9060009@atlas.cz> Hello everyone, as requested on Docs page, little bit of self-introduction... Name: Richard Bukovansky Location: Prague, Czech Republic Status: Release Engineer Company: Monster Technologies Prague Goals: Provide Czech translation of Fedora Docs as it's in very bad shape and also translate other texts (Wiki, FWN etc.) Qualifications: I have translated a few applications for Israel based company SBSH (www.sbsh.net), which is developing Windows Mobile and Symbian applications, and few other free (as free beer) Symbian applications. Computer history: More then 10 years Windows (client and server) sysadmin and developer in ASP/VBScript/SQL and in .NET/C# (5 years). I'm also Red Hat Linux 6 & 7 and Fedora Core 6 user, currently almost happily running Fedora 7 on my laptop. GPG stuff: pub 1024D/5CFF60FB 2007-08-15 [expires: 2008-08-14] Key fingerprint = CB96 D12E B368 BE85 C637 4211 FD0A 7896 5CFF 60FB uid Richard Bukovansky (Richard Bukovansky Fedora Account System) sub 1024g/7628E6C2 2007-08-15 [expires: 2008-08-14] Thank you for your patience. -- Bukovansky Richard richard.bukovansky at atlas.cz From ravisagar at gmail.com Tue Aug 28 04:10:22 2007 From: ravisagar at gmail.com (ravisagar at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:40:22 +0530 Subject: Self-Introduction: Ravi Sagar Message-ID: <9ef639d90708272110t557f2816naf11eeb9ee08caf8@mail.gmail.com> - Full legal name (as you use it is fine): RAVI SAGAR - City, Country; you may use your timezone if you have a compelling reason not to specify your city or country: DELHI, INDIA - Profession or Student status: PROJECT COORDINATOR - Company, School, or other affiliation: KAPLAN INDIA - Your goals in the Fedora Project - What do you want to write about?: TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION, TESTING, MAINTAINING FEDORA WEBSITES, OS DEVELOPMENT - What other documentation do you want to see published? GENERAL TOPICS - Anything else you'd like to do? - Historical qualifications - What other projects or writing have you worked on in the past? THIS IS MY FIRST TIME WITH FEDORA - What level and type of computer skills do you have? EXPERT USER, PROGRAMMING - What other skills do you have that might be applicable? User interface design, other so-called soft skills (people skills), programming, etc. : PROJECT MANAGEMENT, LITTLE BIT PROGRAMMING - What makes you an excellent match for the project? I AM INTO PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATING THROUGH EMAILS AND TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS IS A PART OF MY JOB - GPG KEYID and fingerprint pub 1024D/43307D2A 2007-08-26 Key fingerprint = 2DA7 AC73 457E 3C36 7BD1 4D52 8ACC 931E 4330 7D2A uid Ravi Sagar sub 1024g/AF338DFF 2007-08-26 Thanks!! Ravi Sagar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kwade at redhat.com Tue Aug 28 23:43:55 2007 From: kwade at redhat.com (Karsten Wade) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:43:55 -0700 Subject: apologies for missing today Message-ID: <1188344635.8400.172.camel@erato.phig.org> Sorry folks for missing the meeting today. I am in training this week and was supposed to be here in class in time to at least tell you all if I was going to be in the meeting or not. Unfortunately, traffic did not oblige, I was late, and didn't get connectivity until many hours later. Better luck next time! -- Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41 ////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ From dreamcarrior at yahoo.com Wed Aug 29 01:51:42 2007 From: dreamcarrior at yahoo.com (Sam Chen) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:51:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: My Fedora Wikiname In-Reply-To: <20070826160022.8EEA37337F@hormel.redhat.com> Message-ID: <749698.29422.qm@web32715.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi, Yuan Yijun, My Fedora Wikiname is ShenenChen. I generated gpg several days ago using FC4, and I forgot to attached it to self-introduction letter. Two days ago, I switched from FC4 to FC6. I have not formatted the FC4 partition yet, so I might be able to recover the the gpgkey. However, since I am new to gpg, it will take me some time before I can recover it and migrate it to FC6. Thanks for reminding me of getting a Fedora Wikiname. Best Regards, Sam > Hi, Sam > > Do you have a fedora account? Have you registered your wiki name > ``SamChen`` or ``ShenEnChen``? > > Thanks! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/ From bbbush.yuan at gmail.com Wed Aug 29 06:28:47 2007 From: bbbush.yuan at gmail.com (Yuan Yijun) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:28:47 +0800 Subject: My Fedora Wikiname In-Reply-To: <749698.29422.qm@web32715.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20070826160022.8EEA37337F@hormel.redhat.com> <749698.29422.qm@web32715.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <76e72f800708282328k5a5b350atdb41c57319455277@mail.gmail.com> 2007/8/29, Sam Chen : > Hi, Yuan Yijun, > > My Fedora Wikiname is ShenenChen. I generated gpg several days ago > using FC4, and I forgot to attached it to self-introduction letter. Two > days ago, I switched from FC4 to FC6. I have not formatted the FC4 > partition yet, so I might be able to recover the the gpgkey. However, > since I am new to gpg, it will take me some time before I can recover > it and migrate it to FC6. Hi, Sam It is more important to get a fedora account. Please follow this page http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/zh_CN/AccountSystem to make a new account. If you have any questions, either read the links in that page, or come to #fedora-cn to ask us directly. If you want to discuss it in Chinese, please join the fedora-cn list (at google groups). Thanks! -- bbbush ^_^ From stickster at gmail.com Wed Aug 29 15:35:36 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:35:36 -0400 Subject: New release-notes component Message-ID: <1188401736.3652.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> Over the next day or so I would like to add a new module, "readme-live," to our CVS, to be included in the fedora-release-notes collection. This file will be included on live spins so anyone who receives one will have some clues what to do with it. The document was generously drafted by Nelson Strother, by the way; I will do an editorial pass on it in CVS and do the necessary Makefile-cobbling to get it included. Followups, questions, and concerns to the fedora-docs-list are appreciated and happily addressed! :-) -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Wed Aug 29 15:47:20 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:17:20 +0530 Subject: New release-notes component In-Reply-To: <1188401736.3652.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1188401736.3652.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <46D59508.8080607@fedoraproject.org> Paul W. Frields wrote: > Over the next day or so I would like to add a new module, "readme-live," > to our CVS, to be included in the fedora-release-notes collection. This > file will be included on live spins so anyone who receives one will have > some clues what to do with it. The document was generously drafted by > Nelson Strother, by the way; I will do an editorial pass on it in CVS > and do the necessary Makefile-cobbling to get it included. > > Followups, questions, and concerns to the fedora-docs-list are > appreciated and happily addressed! :-) Where is the document available now for reviewing it? Is drafts going to be maintained in the wiki? Rahul From stickster at gmail.com Wed Aug 29 15:53:48 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:53:48 -0400 Subject: New release-notes component In-Reply-To: <46D59508.8080607@fedoraproject.org> References: <1188401736.3652.23.camel@localhost.localdomain> <46D59508.8080607@fedoraproject.org> Message-ID: <1188402828.3652.34.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 21:17 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > Paul W. Frields wrote: > > Over the next day or so I would like to add a new module, "readme-live," > > to our CVS, to be included in the fedora-release-notes collection. This > > file will be included on live spins so anyone who receives one will have > > some clues what to do with it. The document was generously drafted by > > Nelson Strother, by the way; I will do an editorial pass on it in CVS > > and do the necessary Makefile-cobbling to get it included. > > > > Followups, questions, and concerns to the fedora-docs-list are > > appreciated and happily addressed! :-) > > Where is the document available now for reviewing it? Is drafts going to > be maintained in the wiki? http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveOS_README Once it moves to CVS, we should maintain it there under formal control as we do with other pieces of fedora-release-notes. When Plone rolls out, this becomes less cumbersome since changes will hopefully commute into CVS from the XHTML directly. -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 30 12:04:35 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:04:35 -0400 Subject: Easy task #1 Message-ID: <1188475475.3652.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> If there are any new Docs Project contributors looking for somewhere to start, you could try this task: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=251736 The ever-vigilant Till Maas reported we have some redundancy and confusion between two wiki pages. Any contributor with wiki access can look at the two pages, come up with a strategy for consolidating them, and go to it! Anyone up for this small task? -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From stickster at gmail.com Thu Aug 30 18:48:13 2007 From: stickster at gmail.com (Paul W. Frields) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:48:13 -0400 Subject: README for official ISO spins Message-ID: <1188499693.3652.63.camel@localhost.localdomain> The Fedora Documentation Project would like an updated README on the official ISO spin for F8. Currently, we are using the updated version of the same README that dates back to at least Red Hat Linux 5.2, according to one prominent engineering guru. This would be a good effort for Marketing, and to make sure we cover the bases, I've left a short outline on a wiki page for drafting. This page is editable by anyone and we can set a deadline of 10 days for content, which we would like to get into the test3 spin if at all possible. If you'd like to be involved, visit this wiki page and follow the outline: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/README If you see something missing, please feel free to add it. The Docs Project volunteers will edit for grammar and usage, although good grammar and usage is always appreciated. :-) -- Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: From ravisagar at gmail.com Fri Aug 31 12:19:23 2007 From: ravisagar at gmail.com (ravisagar at gmail.com) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:49:23 +0530 Subject: README for official ISO spins In-Reply-To: <1188499693.3652.63.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1188499693.3652.63.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <9ef639d90708310519t4ac4dc9dq8ee64addf2ecd58f@mail.gmail.com> Paul, I saw My name is Ravi Sagar. I recently joined Ambassador group. I would like to give my inputs for updating README page. Should I update this page http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/README directly? Let me know. Thanks On 8/31/07, Paul W. Frields wrote: > > The Fedora Documentation Project would like an updated README on the > official ISO spin for F8. Currently, we are using the updated version > of the same README that dates back to at least Red Hat Linux 5.2, > according to one prominent engineering guru. > > This would be a good effort for Marketing, and to make sure we cover the > bases, I've left a short outline on a wiki page for drafting. This page > is editable by anyone and we can set a deadline of 10 days for content, > which we would like to get into the test3 spin if at all possible. > > If you'd like to be involved, visit this wiki page and follow the > outline: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/README > > If you see something missing, please feel free to add it. The Docs > Project volunteers will edit for grammar and usage, although good > grammar and usage is always appreciated. :-) > > -- > Paul W. Frields, RHCE http://paul.frields.org/ > gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 > Fedora Project: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields > irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug > > -- > fedora-docs-list mailing list > fedora-docs-list at redhat.com > To unsubscribe: > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sundaram at fedoraproject.org Fri Aug 31 14:08:51 2007 From: sundaram at fedoraproject.org (Rahul Sundaram) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:38:51 +0530 Subject: README for official ISO spins In-Reply-To: <9ef639d90708310519t4ac4dc9dq8ee64addf2ecd58f@mail.gmail.com> References: <1188499693.3652.63.camel@localhost.localdomain> <9ef639d90708310519t4ac4dc9dq8ee64addf2ecd58f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46D820F3.1080000@fedoraproject.org> ravisagar at gmail.com wrote: > Paul, > > I saw My name is Ravi Sagar. I recently joined Ambassador group. > I would like to give my inputs for updating README page. Should I update > this page http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/README > directly? > > Let me know. Yes. Rahul