[authors] Writer Guide 2.3 folders

[Jean Hollis Weber]

There are two folders for Writer Guide 2.3. One, that I set up 
last June, is /writer_V2_3/, labelled "For OOo V2.3"; it contains 
all the updated chapters, all in a Published state. (Chapters 
that have not been updated are not there, so the list is incomplete.)

The other folder, which I believe Gary set up in December, is 
/V2.3.x/, labelled "Published chapters -- version 2.3.x"; it 
contains a smaller group of chapters, not all of them in a 
Published state (despite the label on the folder).

This proliferation of folders may be good for keeping track of 
what's been updated, but it causes confusion among many 
contributors to OOoAuthors and makes it very difficult to keep up 
to date the lists in the overall "Published chapter" folder: 
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/published/
That page is intended to provide quick and easy access for casual 
visitors to the latest source files (ODTs) for the published 
chapters; entries there are links, not copies of the files.

The problem is similar for the other books, but less so because 
they have fewer folders for updated files.

Although the dates in the "Modified" column give a clue about 
which files are the most recent, they can be misleading because 
many actions on the website change that date even if the contents 
of the file itself are unchanged. Chapters in various stages of 
draft have a date in their filename, but published chapters 
usually don't. (Changing the date in the filename just compounds 
the problem of keeping up to date links in the 
/userguide2/published/ folder, although it otherwise makes it 
easier to determine the latest iteration of a chapter.)

Perhaps it's time to rethink how and where we provide the ODTs, 
or links to them.

Indeed, perhaps it's time to rethink our entire workflow and how 
we keep track of things. Our current workflow worked well when we 
were writing the books from scratch, but it doesn't work so well 
now that we are into the maintenance stage for most of the books, 
and software updates are occurring faster than our small team can 
review the docs and update when necessary, as well as rewriting 
to improve the docs (not just keep them up to date).

I don't have answers or even good ideas, sorry. But whatever we 
decide to do, someone (emphatically not me!) needs to write up 
the process so it's easy for volunteers to follow. The 
instructions on the website now are often incomplete and in some 
cases may be out of date.

--Jean