FC2 doubtful quality?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004, Craig White wrote:
...
> I would suggest that rather than trying to convince people to lower
> their expectations, it would be more beneficial to suggest that we work
> together to solve the problems and develop a better sense of humor (i.e.
> less whining) about the problems we face.

   since i apparently started this barroom brawl, let me make a suggestion 
that might solve a lot of problems.  what FC2 (and future FC releases) 
needs is a structured, somewhat-moderated repository of well-written and 
important info for new users.  quite simply, it needs a moderated wiki.

   why a wiki?  as it stands, there's *loads* of info out there on FC2. 
there's fedora.redhat.com, there's the mailing list(s) and their archives, 
there's private websites like fedoranews.org and fedorafaq.org, and on and 
on and on.  quite simply, there's just *too* *much* information out there, 
a lot of it redundant, a lot of it almost but not quite usable, a lot of 
it non-searchable, many people reinventing the wheel, etc.

   all of those repositories have their strengths and weaknesses.  the 
mailing list archives are a perfect example.  someone asks, "how do i do 
X?".  many respond (sometimes a bit testily), "hey, it's in the archives, 
go look there."  so one goes to the archives and starts looking at all 
postings related to X, and finds:

   * half of them *asking* about X
   * half of the remainder saying, "yeah, i had that problem, too"
   * half of what's left saying, "funny, *i* didn't get that problem"
   * still half of what's left suggesting incomplete fixes that just
     happen to work on *their* system, but might not work on anyone
     else's ...
   * ... and the occasional posting actually saying, "hey, *here's* why
     that's happening and *here's* how you fix it."  (whew)

is it any wonder that lots of folks are kind of reluctant to dive into the
archives?  the point is that, when folks have a problem, they're not so 
much concerned about getting *a* solution, what they really want is *the* 
solution.  that is, the complete explanation about why a problem exists 
and how to deal with it.  and there don't need to be 500 different 
versions of this, just one, well-written, edited, and at least somewhat 
quality-tested version, in a well-known place.

what i imagine is a mixture of fedoranews.org and fedorafaq.org. 
fedornews has loads of great little articles and HOWTOs, but not in any 
semblance of organization and (IMHO) too much stuff that has nothing to 
do with fedora.  fedorafaq doesn't have *near* the content, but 
it has a nicer layout, even if i think it could be refined even further
into more subcategories.

wouldn't it be great if, at a single site, once could find articles 
organized as follows:

    Fedora Core 2

Known issues
 	The infamous XP dual-boot problem -- how not to screw yourself
 	PCMCIA won't start at boot time, why the heck not?
 	...

Filesystems
 	How to get NTFS support
 	How to create encrypted filesystems
 	What is LVM and how do I use it?
 	...

Multimedia
 	How to get ALSA sound working
 	How do I play MP3s?
 	How to play DVDs
 	Digital video under Linux
 	...

The FC desktop
 	How do I edit my &^#^^%(* GNOME menus?
 	How can I add additional fonts?
 	...

and on and on -- you get the idea.

   now, the trick is that this approach would take a little extra effort. 
first, someone would have to occasionally restructure the top level 
topics, if it seems justified.  and, second, one or a small group of 
people would be responsible for QA, to make sure that submissions are 
correct and complete.  as an example, as an explanation of how to get NTFS 
support, it wouldn't be acceptable to write, "go to ntfs.sourceforge.net, 
get the module and load it."  a bit more detail would, i think, be in 
order; perhaps how to build a kernel to add your own support as well,
dangers involved, etc.

   it wouldn't even be necessary to write totally new submissions -- it 
would be perfectly reasonable to link elsewhere if good explanations 
already exist.  the important thing is to have good and organized docs in 
a single place so people aren't bouncing around all over the net and, just 
as important, to make sure this info is always kept up to date.  (a rapid 
response wiki, so to speak.)

   keith lofstrom proposed starting a new mailing list.  i don't think a 
new mailing list would solve the problem, but a disciplined wiki would
go a long way to removing a lot of the current frustration.

   thoughts?

rday