Re: bug tracking system (was: mini-HOWTO)

[David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org>]

On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 11:14:20AM +0000, Terry Dawson wrote:
> David Lawyer wrote:
> 
> > I think it would save us a lot of work to get them to turn their docs
> > into LDP docs and help them do this if required.  Suppose they submit
> > a new update every month in their own format which we need to munge.
> > That's a lot of work for us.  To encourage them to put it into sgml,
> > we need to make this as simple as possible.  We might put their doc
> > (or at least the first page of it) into say linuxdoc and then ask them
> > to continue with it.
> 
> You're presupposing there are still vast numbers of people out there
> that care enough about the LDP to bother. 

Where did I say this?  There are some people out there that we could
convince to turn their doc into a simple linuxdoc-sgml if someone was
willing to help them do it.

> People will write documents in
> formats that the LDP doesn't support, just as they always have, except
> now instead of sitting out on isolated web servers on the net there is a
> good chance they'll go to the OSWG.
> 
I think we need to accept such documents and have a separate
(non-std-format) section for them.  They can be entered into the
HOWTO-INDEX etc.  We will ask for volunteers to get them into a format
we support with much of the effort going into getting the person who
maintains the doc to use a format we support.  If they will not do it,
then it would either remain in the non-std-format section or be
converted by us each time a new version is released.

> > The feedback you propose will likely contain a lot of noise and be
> > tedious to search.  For example, people often write me about something
> 
> How is this any less true for any other feedback mechanism? The point
> here is that sometimes it takes an author a week, a month, three months
> or six months to produce a new version of a document.

It shouldn't take this long.  As soon as it's realized that something
important (that people are asking about) is missing (or hidden) in a
HOWTO, the author should modify the doc and create a new version the
next day.  Then we need an automated submission system that will
upload this the same day.  This fast revision of HOWTOs is IMO better
than posting the correspondence between readers and authors.  We could
do both but the first priority should be the fast revision (one day or
so) of HOWTOs.

> In that time there
> is a good chance they may be asked the same question over and over. If
> there is somewhere where the question is visible then there is some
> chance that some of those questions could be avoided. If the questions
> are invisible then there is no chance of that happening.

Per my proposal, they would be visible in the revised version of the
HOWTO.  Putting it into the HOWTO puts the new info in context and
gets it out to anyone downloading the revised HOWTO.  One could have a
"What's new in this version" subsection in the HOWTO that would alert
readers to this new info.  
-- 
			David Lawyer


--  
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to ldp-discuss-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org