Rob Weir wrote:
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Keith N. McKenna
<keith.mcke...@comcast.net> wrote:
Rob Weir wrote:
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna
<keith.mcke...@comcast.net> wrote:
Rob Weir wrote:
On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti <pesce...@apache.org>
wrote:
On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote:
[Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ.
I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an
"OpenOffice FAQ" easily reachable by search engines at
http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know
whether
it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so).
Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it
from
the current site?
The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That
is valuable and worth preserving.
But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot
of work to update/correct them.
Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the
static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to
maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML
definition lists (<dl>) would be easier and could be maintained via
the CMS web interface.
There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki:
http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ
These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version
would be easier to maintain.
So one possible resolution could be:
1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at
http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on
the wiki
2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki
3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question)
4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that
directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's.
-Rob
-Rob
Regards,
Andrea.
Rob;
I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged
as
needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and
clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way
we
decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it
is
already categorized with a toc on the main page.
The other FAQ on the website is also categorized:
http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html
So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and
consolidate.
In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here.
But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers
to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a
+1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from
the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ
for the project.
Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs:
http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html
http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html
http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html
Maybe a simplifying assumption could be:
1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product
and the project
2) We have the "internal" project-facing FAQ's on
openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format.
-Rob
Regards
Keith
Rob;
Though your simplifying assumption appears on the surface to be a good
compromise the process engineer in me says I see a potential maintenance
disaster looming. It creates essentially two different processes with
different tools to accomplish the same basic task something that I prefer to
avoid if possible. By using one or the other you cut down on the training
necessary to bring new people up to speed and you centralize the maintenance
and lessen the chance that something slips under the radar.
We already have different tools and different processes: static HTML,
static mdtext and wiki. I'm proposing reducing it from 3 to 2.
Agreed, all I am saying is that the more ways there are to do the same
thing the greater both the possibility and the probability of
maintainability headaches.
As far as process goes, I think the product-related questions will
generally be updated by those interested in documentation and support.
Agreed. One reason that I tend toward using the wiki for these is that
it could attract volunteers to help update and even add new ones that
may be hesitant about editing a web page.
But the project-related questions -- the ones currently on
openoffice.apache.org -- will probably be updated by the PMC. I think
those questions, which deal with project membership, process
definition, etc., are quasi-official in nature and it is not a bad
thing if editing them is harder and more restricted than editing a
public wiki.
I agree here also. I do believe that there are ways to lock down
sections of the wiki also. So either way is doable.
And let's not forget the harsh transition that some has navigating
from an openoffice.apache.org web page to the wiki. The look is
different and there is no context or reverse navigation. The user has
been teleported into another galaxy.
This is all to true. Hell I go back and fourth everyday and feel like I
have been transported to another galaxy!
I sometimes wonder whether we should move *all* of the
openoffice.apache.org website contents onto the www.openoffice.org
website, and work to unify the look and feel of the other pieces, a
larger reworking of:
You are not alone in wondering this. What amazes me is that users manage
to figure it all out some how and don't just throw up there hands in
disgust.
1) Move openoffice.apache.org onto www.openoffice.org
2) Move all CWiki pages into MWiki
3) Setup redirect of blog from blogs.apache.org/ooo to blog.openoffice.org
What we have now is very fragmented. But that is a topic for another day....
You do not want to get me started on that topic. The one thing I can say
is that what we have today has the major attribute of a good vacuum
cleaner. It manages to work, I just do not for the life of me know how.
I already know what kind of shape the documentation section of the wiki is
in. Let me take a look at the FAQ's on the web site and see how far out of
date they are. It may be that rewriting the user ones in dtet may make more
sense.
Sounds good.
-Rob
I looked through the FAQ pages on the web site and they are in as bad a
shape as the wiki ones are. The major difference is that there are more
of them on the wiki. No matter which way we go this is not going to be a
simple and straight forward procedure. There is going to be a lot of axe
wielding needed to clear the deadwood and some decisions will need to be
made around how much data around older versions do we keep. The general
rule of thumb on the documentation section of the wiki was update it,
but keep all the old information also. As a result there is info in some
articles about version 2 and even version 1.
Regards
Keith
