Fedora 7 Test 1 and release notes

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 17:26 -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 04:19 -0800, Karsten Wade wrote:
> > BTW ... I had a developer complain that "beats don't make sense to me so
> > I ignore it because it is too jargony", or something to that effect.  Do
> > we need to change the namespace/convention?  As long as it makes sense
> > to describe a modular document.  Thoughts?
> 
> My first thought is, "hogwash."  Sorry the person in question didn't
> understand what the word "beat" meant, but the definition, as intended,
> shows up as #8 and #9 in my gdict application.  And that is probably the
> lamest excuse I can imagine for not participating -- because one doesn't
> agree with a namespace label?  Riiiiight.

To be clear, the objection AIUI was that when the developer (pjones)
went to a page in the Wiki to input content, he was faced with jargon
that didn't make sense ('beat' and ...?).  Rather than take the time to
understand what was going on, he went away.  His objection (AIUI) is
that we are turning developer/contributors away with non-developer
jargon in front.

> (Please excuse my negativity, but having just spent last weekend with a
> dedicated, smart group of individuals who -- in large part -- are
> generously giving of their free time to do all kinds of really neat
> stuff for Fedora, that kind of dismissive attitude just bugs the
> bejeebus out of me.  OTOH, maybe I'm just having a bad ${WORKWEEK}.)
> 
> I added the definition to the Beats page anyway.  And as for changing
> the convention, I vote not only "no," but "HELL, NO."  Unless, of
> course, the developer in question would like to concomitantly eliminate
> forevermore his use of the words "bug," "hack," and "push."

Peter Jones is hereby Cc:'d and called to the table to explain himself
in more detail.  He raised this with me (in public IRC, so he can't hide
now!), and we didn't get to address this at FUDCon.

My reasoning for using 'beat' is simple:  it is the correct word that
describes the situation, and it is specific to the writing craft.  Since
a goal of the FDP is to increase the quantity and quality of writers in
Fedora, we are specifically trying to attract those who can write.

What I said to Paul is that, in the end, if the word 'beat' is getting
in our way more than helping, then we should change it.  Our current big
problem is *not* a lack of writers but a lack of contributions to the
release notes from the rest of Fedora.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, 108 Editor    ^     Fedora Documentation Project 
 Sr. Developer Relations Mgr.     |  fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
   quaid.108.redhat.com           |          gpg key: AD0E0C41
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