Maintenance/Brevity vs. Explicit Instructions

[Matthew Daniels]

The other day I noticed someone mention in #fedora-docs how much of a  
maintenance nightmare it is to have the same user instructions  
replicated over multiple places.  In the process of editing the UG,  
I've been thinking; is there a good reason that this happens, or is it  
just because of the way docs get tangled up over time?

For example, the User Guide has multiple places where the user is  
instructed to install new software.  I understand that there is some  
value in repeating the instructions every time this happens, but is it  
worth the nightmare is causes with maintenance and uniformity?  Would  
it not be better to simply keep the canon set of instructions in one  
place (like User Guide - Managing Software) and consistently refer the  
user to these instructions?

Just curious for everyone's opinion on this.  Kinda wanted to bounce  
it around before I change everything.

-Matthew