Added to what Paul said, I think is easier for someone looking up for help to find and read things if they're written topic based in sets of short articles.
On Fri, 2016-08-12 at 10:57 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 07:08:44PM -0500, Glen Rundblom wrote:
On 8/11/2016 8:34 AM, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
This email is to drive some discussion around $subject. It follows from
a blog soon to be posted on the Fedora Community blog
(https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org). The text below is copied
from that blog:
Should we stop publishing the current guides now?
The requirement to keep publishing the current guides feels very
self-imposed. Continuing to publish them is a challenge for the new
tooling as it has to be built to accommodate the past and therefore
slows down the future.
Additionally, publishing the current books spreads our resources very
thinly, if not past the breaking point. It also creates inertia which
prevents the move to topics. Confusion can result from this as well
because contributors don't know what to update (old books or new
topics).
Lastly, there is a growing belief in the larger documentation community
that no docs is better than old docs. Here this is a direct reference to
the fact that we don't republish all the docs for every release and we
don't thoroughly review every doc that is published. Versioned docs are
important, but some old materials is probably going to cause problems
(i.e. references to yum or iptables.)
One proposal was to have a "flag day" where we stop updating the current
docs and another day (or same day) where we stop the publication. this
would definitely need to be moderated for versions not end of lifed.
Hi Brian, and everyone out there.
I am torn at this question for a few reasons:
1. I enjoy working on the Virtualization Getting Started Guide
2. I work in the Education system, so during the October release of Fedora,
updating the guide is a super-human effort
3. I would relish the idea of being able to no longer be responsible for the
guide, yet, I do enjoy working on it. To me the Virtualization Getting
Started Guide kind of feels a little bit like a ball and chain. I feel like
I must update it because I am not sure anyone else has the interest or the
time to update it.
So most of that is just personal feelings, and no facts behind it. Hopefully
it contributes something to the discussion.
Very thoughtful response IMHO, Glen. My feeling is that if we were
writing shorter, task-based documentation, the level of effort would
decrease. I tend to think a set of short articles covering much the
same ground as the VGSG would make it easier for new community members
to join you in the work.