[asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
The -user and -dev mailing lists are a valuable resource -- when they are not cluttered by posts unrelated to the charter of the lists. In my limited memory, this last weekend represents a new low in the relevant subject to noise ratio. Replying to requests with meaningless, misleading, or misspelled subject lines (I need help, asterisk help, Ntework Card) encourage careless posting and obfuscate useful replies from search engines. Also, while replying to such requests may seem helpful, some of the requests indicate such a lack of basic understanding that giving the answer is like giving a small child a very sharp knife when they ask for a slice of bread. For example: How do I delete these files that end in that squiggly thing in my current directory and all directories below? Since most of these users are probably running as root, a simple extra space here and a missed character there (rm --force --recursive /* ~ vs rm --force --recursive ./*~ can have catastrophic consequences. In an attempt to improve the quality of the lists, I propose the following: For a user's first 10 posts, they will receive a reply with a link to a web page and have to answer the following questions: 0) I acknowledge that I am asking for free help and I acknowledge that following the conventions below increase my chances of engaging another list member with relevant expertise and resolving my request. 1) I am posting a new request. a) My request cannot be answered on a more general list such as Beginning Unix, or on a distribution specific list. b) My request cannot be answered on a more specific list such as an AsteriskNow or Trixbox list. c) I have attempted to search for an answer using a search engine such as Google. d) I know what thread hijacking is and I created this request from scratch. e) I have created a meaningful subject line that indicates with as much specificity as reasonable which part of Asterisk I need help with and why. f) I am not posting a self-serving message directing someone to my product that would be better posted to the -biz list. g) I am not posting in HTML. h) I am posting in English. i) I am fluent in English or I have attempted to have someone who is review my request. j) I have run my request through my spell checking resources. or 2) I am posting a reply to a post. a) I know what top posting is and I am not ignoring the convention of the list. b) I am not posting a self-serving message directing someone to my product that would be better posted to the -biz list or only to the requester. c) I am not posting in HTML. d) I am posting in English. e) I am fluent in English or I have attempted to have someone who is review my post. f) I have trimmed the previous post down to just the point(s) I am replying to. g) I have run my request through my spell checking resources. For -dev, the following questions would be added: ) My post directly relates to changes in the Asterisk C source code. ) I am not reporting a bug or a posting a patch that should be directed to bugs.digium.com. Included in the web page would be the original message with the ability to change the list the message is to be posted to, the subject line, and the body of the message. Comments? Thanks in advance, Steve Edwards sedwa...@sedwards.com Voice: +1-760-468-3867 PST Newline Fax: +1-760-731-3000 ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
The higher you raise the barrier for entry to the mailing list, the more you decrease the amount good the mailing list is actually capable of doing. (barrier height is inversely related to how much help we can provide to the people that need help the most) I agree with you regarding the subject spelling/misspelling as it pertains to indexing on the search engines, etc. But if you require those posting to jump through your *10* hoops for the first *10* times they post something (yes, that's 100 hoops. I'm tired of jumping already), you are artificially limiting the number of users that this list can actually help. I don't like getting broken English replies and questions that don't make any sense any more than the next person, but I also get a good chuckle out of reading them. And reading replies that tell people to 'rm -rf /*' gives me a good laugh, too. The only way to REALLY learn is to make mistakes, even if you're making those mistakes because you took the 'advice' that someone gave you for free on the mailing list... Give me a break :) Mailing lists are supposed to be fun and get off topic sometimes. That's what makes them interesting. --Dave PS: Can anyone help me with my broken *.? the ntework card is blinking red and the sips are dropping with echoes. Tai? LOL. -Original Message- From: asterisk-users-boun...@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-boun...@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Steve Edwards Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:58 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List Subject: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists The -user and -dev mailing lists are a valuable resource -- when they are not cluttered by posts unrelated to the charter of the lists. In my limited memory, this last weekend represents a new low in the relevant subject to noise ratio. Replying to requests with meaningless, misleading, or misspelled subject lines (I need help, asterisk help, Ntework Card) encourage careless posting and obfuscate useful replies from search engines. Also, while replying to such requests may seem helpful, some of the requests indicate such a lack of basic understanding that giving the answer is like giving a small child a very sharp knife when they ask for a slice of bread. For example: How do I delete these files that end in that squiggly thing in my current directory and all directories below? Since most of these users are probably running as root, a simple extra space here and a missed character there (rm --force --recursive /* ~ vs rm --force --recursive ./*~ can have catastrophic consequences. In an attempt to improve the quality of the lists, I propose the following: For a user's first 10 posts, they will receive a reply with a link to a web page and have to answer the following questions: 0) I acknowledge that I am asking for free help and I acknowledge that following the conventions below increase my chances of engaging another list member with relevant expertise and resolving my request. 1) I am posting a new request. a) My request cannot be answered on a more general list such as Beginning Unix, or on a distribution specific list. b) My request cannot be answered on a more specific list such as an AsteriskNow or Trixbox list. c) I have attempted to search for an answer using a search engine such as Google. d) I know what thread hijacking is and I created this request from scratch. e) I have created a meaningful subject line that indicates with as much specificity as reasonable which part of Asterisk I need help with and why. f) I am not posting a self-serving message directing someone to my product that would be better posted to the -biz list. g) I am not posting in HTML. h) I am posting in English. i) I am fluent in English or I have attempted to have someone who is review my request. j) I have run my request through my spell checking resources. or 2) I am posting a reply to a post. a) I know what top posting is and I am not ignoring the convention of the list. b) I am not posting a self-serving message directing someone to my product that would be better posted to the -biz list or only to the requester. c) I am not posting in HTML. d) I am posting in English. e) I am fluent in English or I have attempted to have someone who is review my post. f) I have trimmed the previous post down to just the point(s) I am replying to. g) I have run my request through my spell checking resources. For -dev, the following questions would be added: ) My post directly relates to changes in the Asterisk C source code. ) I am not reporting a bug or a posting a patch that should be directed to bugs.digium.com. Included in the web page would be the original message with the ability to change the list the message is to be posted to, the subject line, and the body of the message. Comments? Thanks in advance, Steve Edwards sedwa...@sedwards.com
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
On Tuesday 27 January 2009 09:57:54 Steve Edwards wrote: The -user and -dev mailing lists are a valuable resource -- when they are not cluttered by posts unrelated to the charter of the lists. In my limited memory, this last weekend represents a new low in the relevant subject to noise ratio. Replying to requests with meaningless, misleading, or misspelled subject lines (I need help, asterisk help, Ntework Card) encourage careless posting and obfuscate useful replies from search engines. Also, while replying to such requests may seem helpful, some of the requests indicate such a lack of basic understanding that giving the answer is like giving a small child a very sharp knife when they ask for a slice of bread. For example: How do I delete these files that end in that squiggly thing in my current directory and all directories below? Since most of these users are probably running as root, a simple extra space here and a missed character there (rm --force --recursive /* ~ vs rm --force --recursive ./*~ can have catastrophic consequences. In an attempt to improve the quality of the lists, I propose the following: For a user's first 10 posts, they will receive a reply with a link to a web page and have to answer the following questions: While I agree with your overall sentiment, I believe a few of these items are a bit over the top, and perhaps I'm reading this with more seriousness than it merits. i) I am fluent in English or I have attempted to have someone who is review my request. In many cases, this just isn't possible. While it would be nice to have all posts in the King's English, a great many users are in locales which don't have an English-speaking population. These are likely the only lists to which they have ready access which understand both enough English, as well as enough telephony knowledge to process their questions intelligently. j) I have run my request through my spell checking resources. Even I don't do this, and I know that I occasionally misspell some words. Included in the web page would be the original message with the ability to change the list the message is to be posted to, the subject line, and the body of the message. Comments? I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. -- Tilghman ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. I agree with this 100% I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
It seems to me that everything one may want to know would be contained on voip-info.org People don't ask stupid questions because of a lack of a FAQ to read, they ask stupid questions because they're too lazy do to the footwork. Robert Broyles wrote: I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. I agree with this 100% I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
I wouldn't say that voip-info.org has everything that a person would want to know. This is especially true of any recent changes to dialplan applications (and their available options) Voip-info.org is a great place to start, and often you will find an answer there. But not always. People are always going to ask stupid questions. There's no way to avoid that. But I do believe the documentation is somewhat lacking. Mik Cheez wrote: It seems to me that everything one may want to know would be contained on voip-info.org People don't ask stupid questions because of a lack of a FAQ to read, they ask stupid questions because they're too lazy do to the footwork. Robert Broyles wrote: I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. I agree with this 100% I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
It seems to me that everything one may want to know would be contained on voip-info.org Hmm. Dangerous statement. There are many things on the WIKI that are quite outdated, and a great many other things that aren't there at all. People don't ask stupid questions because of a lack of a FAQ to read, they ask stupid questions because they're too lazy do to the footwork. True. They may not know how to look up the answers to the stupid questions, though. I think a FAQ would help greatly in these cases. - Noah Robert Broyles wrote: I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. I agree with this 100% I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
It seems to me that everything one may want to know would be contained on voip-info.org My own experience is that it covers a very broad spectrum (far broader than Asterisk) and in a rather terse manner. I have spent an hour or two at a time pouring over a topic there and come away little more enlightened than when I started. Most people who know enough to create useful entries there, assume too much of the reader. They assume that everyone reading the post works with Linux 40 hours a week at the command line level, and only needs a few VoIP clues to take an idea and run with it. A better assumption would be that they know how to log on. It shouldn't even be assumed that they know the difference between suand su - I realize that this is challenging because different distros do things different ways. That is another topic of its own, but is also one of the banes of Linux that is hurting its usability considerably. Wilton ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
If you find something on a WIKI that is outdated, guess what you have an opportunity to do . . . Noah Miller wrote: It seems to me that everything one may want to know would be contained on voip-info.org Hmm. Dangerous statement. There are many things on the WIKI that are quite outdated, and a great many other things that aren't there at all. People don't ask stupid questions because of a lack of a FAQ to read, they ask stupid questions because they're too lazy do to the footwork. True. They may not know how to look up the answers to the stupid questions, though. I think a FAQ would help greatly in these cases. - Noah Robert Broyles wrote: I think we'd be better off posting a regular FAQ, perhaps weekly, with some of these suggestions, as well as providing a link to that FAQ from the mailing list signup page, along with a STRONG suggestion to peruse the FAQ first. I agree with this 100% I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
At 09:30 AM 1/27/2009, you wrote: People are always going to ask stupid questions. For me it's not so much the stupid questions as the expectations that we're here to solve their problems according to their needs. If that continues to happen and the noise level gets high enough those that have the most to offer will leave and all will be lost. Maybe there needs to be a beginner list and posting on this becomes invite only from people who participate on that list. Ira ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
Ira wrote: At 09:30 AM 1/27/2009, you wrote: People are always going to ask stupid questions. For me it's not so much the stupid questions as the expectations that we're here to solve their problems according to their needs. If that continues to happen and the noise level gets high enough those that have the most to offer will leave and all will be lost. Maybe there needs to be a beginner list and posting on this becomes invite only from people who participate on that list. Ira And which kind soul is going to post on the beginner list to help beginners, but still be annoyed to the point that he'd leave the non-beginner list because of all the beginner questions? And who does the inviting? Suddenly, I see poor John Todd having wy too much to do. ;) N. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:13 -0700, Robert Broyles wrote: I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. Asterisk is truly an open-source community, and that pertains to documentation as well. The quality and quantity of the documentation depends heavily on contribution from the community at large. Digium has and will continue to put resources towards Asterisk documentation, but every contribution from the community at large helps. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) Alas, you've mentioned the one thing that both makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy that people find it useful, and that O'Reilly was kind enough to let us publish it under a Creative Commons license (and put the PDF on the web for free!)... and sad that it takes so much time and effort to keep up to date. (And just for the record, the time that the other authors and I spend on writing the O'Reilly book is our own personal time -- I'm not working on it during company time!) I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. If you're interested and serious about writing, join the asterisk-docs mailing list and let's try to get something started. I've been beating the documentation drum for almost seven years now, and I'd love to see the -docs mailing list come back to life. -- Jared Smith Digium, Inc. | Training Manager ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
How pompous are we now? What happened to the 'open source community'? There's a give and take involved; you answer questions you know how to answer in the hopes that someone with greater experience and knowledge of the software will answer your questions. Yikes. -Original Message- From: asterisk-users-boun...@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-boun...@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Ira Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 1:59 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists At 09:30 AM 1/27/2009, you wrote: People are always going to ask stupid questions. For me it's not so much the stupid questions as the expectations that we're here to solve their problems according to their needs. If that continues to happen and the noise level gets high enough those that have the most to offer will leave and all will be lost. Maybe there needs to be a beginner list and posting on this becomes invite only from people who participate on that list. Ira ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
Jared Smith wrote: On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:13 -0700, Robert Broyles wrote: I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. Asterisk is truly an open-source community, and that pertains to documentation as well. The quality and quantity of the documentation depends heavily on contribution from the community at large. Digium has and will continue to put resources towards Asterisk documentation, but every contribution from the community at large helps. I understand. As someone else already mentioned, Voip-Info.org is for more than just Asterisk. Perhaps if we created a single source that was just for Asterisk...where everyone could contribute towards making the documentation better. I would be very interested in helping sponsoring such a project, just so long as we have enough contributors. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) Alas, you've mentioned the one thing that both makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy that people find it useful, and that O'Reilly was kind enough to let us publish it under a Creative Commons license (and put the PDF on the web for free!)... and sad that it takes so much time and effort to keep up to date. (And just for the record, the time that the other authors and I spend on writing the O'Reilly book is our own personal time -- I'm not working on it during company time!) This was an excellent read. I'm sad to say that I was one that didn't purchase the book, but made good use of the PDF. I was hoping to win one of the books during your sessions at AstriCon this past year. Too bad. :-( I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. If you're interested and serious about writing, join the asterisk-docs mailing list and let's try to get something started. I've been beating the documentation drum for almost seven years now, and I'd love to see the -docs mailing list come back to life. I'll be checking this out. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
On Tuesday 27 January 2009 12:35:15 Wilton Helm wrote: It seems to me that everything one may want to know would be contained on voip-info.org My own experience is that it covers a very broad spectrum (far broader than Asterisk) and in a rather terse manner. I have spent an hour or two at a time pouring over a topic there and come away little more enlightened than when I started. Most people who know enough to create useful entries there, assume too much of the reader. They assume that everyone reading the post works with Linux 40 hours a week at the command line level, and only needs a few VoIP clues to take an idea and run with it. A better assumption would be that they know how to log on. It shouldn't even be assumed that they know the difference between suand su - Yes, but voip-info.org is not meant to be the end-all be-all for users who are new to Linux. There are far better resources out there for teaching Linux newbies. Instead, voip-info.org attempts to provide the sorts of information that is useful for those already familiar with Linux and need the push up to learn this particular application. You could certainly compare and contrast the documentation for other large daemon applications, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or BIND, to see what each large application considers worthy of its documentation, versus documentation for bringing a Linux newbie up to speed. Note that I specifically chose applications which are primarily daemons and do not contain a GUI, as those are most comparable to Asterisk. I realize that this is challenging because different distros do things different ways. That is another topic of its own, but is also one of the banes of Linux that is hurting its usability considerably. Actually, the diversity of the Linux ecosystem is considered to be one of its strengths. The friendly competition between projects ensures that each continues to strive for the best. Any project which stagnates quickly falls by the wayside. It's certainly instructive that the continuing advances in open source browser technology was what spurred Microsoft to once again invest time into its own browser (whose development had stagnated after the demise of its previous main competitor, Netscape). -- Tilghman ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
** I understand. As someone else already mentioned, Voip-Info.org is for more than just Asterisk. Perhaps if we created a single source that was just for Asterisk...where everyone could contribute towards making the documentation better. I would be very interested in helping sponsoring such a project, just so long as we have enough contributors. ** We have some documentation and I can contribute that. Also we can provide the physical resources (Domain, Web hosting, bandwidth, storage, database etc). Ofcourse need a team with designated responsibilities. -Jai Rangi www.didforsale.com On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Robert Broyles rob...@poornam.com wrote: Jared Smith wrote: On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:13 -0700, Robert Broyles wrote: I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. Asterisk is truly an open-source community, and that pertains to documentation as well. The quality and quantity of the documentation depends heavily on contribution from the community at large. Digium has and will continue to put resources towards Asterisk documentation, but every contribution from the community at large helps. I understand. As someone else already mentioned, Voip-Info.org is for more than just Asterisk. Perhaps if we created a single source that was just for Asterisk...where everyone could contribute towards making the documentation better. I would be very interested in helping sponsoring such a project, just so long as we have enough contributors. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book -http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) Alas, you've mentioned the one thing that both makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy that people find it useful, and that O'Reilly was kind enough to let us publish it under a Creative Commons license (and put the PDF on the web for free!)... and sad that it takes so much time and effort to keep up to date. (And just for the record, the time that the other authors and I spend on writing the O'Reilly book is our own personal time -- I'm not working on it during company time!) This was an excellent read. I'm sad to say that I was one that didn't purchase the book, but made good use of the PDF. I was hoping to win one of the books during your sessions at AstriCon this past year. Too bad. :-( I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. If you're interested and serious about writing, join the asterisk-docs mailing list and let's try to get something started. I've been beating the documentation drum for almost seven years now, and I'd love to see the -docs mailing list come back to life. I'll be checking this out. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RFC -- Improving the quality of the mailing lists
Don't over think this, guys. Again, the point of having a WIKI is to allow for customization. A landing page for Asterisk documentation within voip-info.org is all you need, not a whole new source of documentation. Jai Rangi wrote: ** I understand. As someone else already mentioned, Voip-Info.org is for more than just Asterisk. Perhaps if we created a single source that was just for Asterisk...where everyone could contribute towards making the documentation better. I would be very interested in helping sponsoring such a project, just so long as we have enough contributors. ** We have some documentation and I can contribute that. Also we can provide the physical resources (Domain, Web hosting, bandwidth, storage, database etc). Ofcourse need a team with designated responsibilities. -Jai Rangi www.didforsale.com http://www.didforsale.com On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Robert Broyles rob...@poornam.com mailto:rob...@poornam.com wrote: Jared Smith wrote: On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 10:13 -0700, Robert Broyles wrote: I'm still pretty new to the mailing lists myself. I don't consider myself a novice Asterisk user, but one of my biggest 'complaints' is the lack of a well documented FAQ or Manual for Asterisk. Asterisk is truly an open-source community, and that pertains to documentation as well. The quality and quantity of the documentation depends heavily on contribution from the community at large. Digium has and will continue to put resources towards Asterisk documentation, but every contribution from the community at large helps. I understand. As someone else already mentioned, Voip-Info.org is for more than just Asterisk. Perhaps if we created a single source that was just for Asterisk...where everyone could contribute towards making the documentation better. I would be very interested in helping sponsoring such a project, just so long as we have enough contributors. (Unless one is willing to buy or read O'Reilly's Book - http://www.asteriskdocs.org - which quickly will be outdated again.) Alas, you've mentioned the one thing that both makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy that people find it useful, and that O'Reilly was kind enough to let us publish it under a Creative Commons license (and put the PDF on the web for free!)... and sad that it takes so much time and effort to keep up to date. (And just for the record, the time that the other authors and I spend on writing the O'Reilly book is our own personal time -- I'm not working on it during company time!) This was an excellent read. I'm sad to say that I was one that didn't purchase the book, but made good use of the PDF. I was hoping to win one of the books during your sessions at AstriCon this past year. Too bad. :-( I have made it a personal aim to document all my findings in a blog, so that it's at least searchable by others through Google, in hopes that others might find it useful. But if we had a REGULARLY updated FAQ/Manual ... I think that would greatly cut down on the clutter posts. If you're interested and serious about writing, join the asterisk-docs mailing list and let's try to get something started. I've been beating the documentation drum for almost seven years now, and I'd love to see the -docs mailing list come back to life. I'll be checking this out. ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
