Re: Thinking strategically

[David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org>]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 12:08:01PM -0600, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been concerned about the way things are going and I would like to
> add some comments for some feedback as to how things, strategically, can
> be implemented to help with the LDP direction and to increase the
> adoption and migration of Linux.  This is in no way a SPAM of LDP,
> things can only go as far as 24/7 time can provide.
> 
[snip]
> -------
> Issue: HOWTO's and newsgroups diverge the solution process by making it
> inefficient in finding answers.  Redundancy of answers to problems
> across the newsgroups and web sites (linux.com, dejanews, linuxcare,
> etc.) is an inefficient use of Linux users resources.
> 
> Issue: Because of this inefficiency, people don't want to fool with
> Linux which reduces the adoption and migration rate of new users.
> 
> Solution:  Collaboration of either "merging" HOWTOs with newsgroups
> "style" updates or using (maybe, but I'm not a technologist) an XML type
> of data sharing between HOWTOs and newsgroups "updates."

What we need is more authors (and possibly co-authors) so they can
spend more time with newsgroups.  In some cases the conclusions
reached from newsgroup discussions need to be incorporated into a
howto.  Perhaps at the end of a discussion when a solution is found,
the final summary (if there is one or the last few posts if there
isn't) should be sent to the HOWTO maintainer.  This almost never
happens. 

The discussions may contain incorrect info., incomplete descriptions
of the problem, etc.  Furthermore to find out the outcome of a thread
one may need to spend a lot of time reading it, while a final
statement of what all the entire thread said would be much better.
But who's going to do this?  It's a lot of effort and requires good
knowledge of the topic.  In some cases someone asks a question in a
newsgroup but no one posts an answer.  Yet a search engine will find
this which is of no help except to make you feel better knowing that
someone else asked the same question you did but also couldn't get an
answer.

So discussions contain a lot of "noise" which needs to be filtered out.
But who is going to do this?  Possibly HOWTO authors if the had the
time.  Also, if a HOWTO author notices that someone is posting good
answers to a newsgroup, they might invite that person to become a
HOWTO author.

			David Lawyer


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