On 24.06.21 22:58, Brian Thompson wrote:
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 08:42:24PM +0200, Marco Möller wrote:
Even as a simple user, not about contributing to the project, I never know
where to best search for the really up to date information, and common
search engines usually link me to obsolete pages which are not clearly
marked as obsolete pages.
Tip: The major search engines like Google allow you to filter on a given
website. e.g. "site:debian.org BTS" will limit searches of the string
BTS to the debian.org site.
Thanks for the tip. There is also a tag by which this search engine can
be restricted to results "not older than" - but this is unfortunately
not always very effective.
The problems is more about the documentation offered on the Debian
web-site than about how to use a search engine. For instance, there is
this page:
https://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals
It links i.e. to the "APT User's Guide" and following this link we find
the information marked with "Copyright © 1998 Jason Gunthorpe". The
trained users are unlikely to have a need to read this document and
might not be aware about the status of it. Maybe this information is
still up to date. Maybe it was forgotten to be moved to the obsolete
documents. How should the new user know this? The common search engines,
and also the hierarchy of the Debian web-site suggest you this document
and the new user landing there has maybe a difficult start into Debian.
It is not about a specific document to exist SINCE a certain date and
maybe still being valid and of high value, but it is about its validity
and value UNTIL a certain date. For comparison, here is a site offering
documentation which gets this problem nicely under control:
https://docs.julialang.org/
I suggest to learn from such approach to the benefit of Debian. And I am
aware that some dissonance could arise if joining an established
community and asking for changes on the already achieved results from
former hard efforts. But it might be worth it.
Well, Mechtilde in her post kindly offered to discuss ideas, and I will
contact her in order to do so, and to learn from her how to friendly and
respectfully join the community.
Marco.
