Re: constructive criticism

[Ferenc Wagner]

Han-Wen Nienhuys <address@hidden> writes:

> address@hidden writes:
>
>>>     If you are looking for something, and you cannot
>>>     find it by using the index, that is considered a
>>>     bug.  In that case, please file a bug report.
>> 
>> What if you allowed users to do it in smaller bites?
>
> How much smaller than a bugreport can a bite be?

Bugreports are not the best way to improve documentation,
unless the reporter literally includes the piece of text she
wants.  It is more work (and more effort) than typing the
same text straight into the documentation you are reading.

>> Would you consider a "manual with comments" (like php and
>> mysql have) on the web, or even a wiki manual?
>> 
>> The "manual with comments" would allow the users to
>> easily make comments on the manual, and you could
>> incorporate changes from (or based on) the comments into
>> the manual as time permits.
>
> I'm OK with everything, as long as it improves the
> documentation *and* decreases the time that I have to
> spend on it.

Merging from anything can not be harder than merging from a
non-Texinfo bug report, I suppose.

> In practice, this means that I don't want to setup the
> site, monitor it, get the patches, or edit the text.

You would not have to.  The best thing in this scheme is
that it would work without anybody working continuously in
the middle.

> This means that in the end, someone has to take the text
> out of the site, and put it into .texinfo to produce patch
> for me to integrate. Why not edit the texinfo source
> directly, and send a patch?

I for one do not speak Texinfo.  People who do could
translate the (already stabilised) chunks written by the
rest and send you patches.  And writing a Texinfo patch is
less rewarding, being less instantaneous. 

All right, I am dreaming.  We probably could not put the
manual on a Wiki because of the Lily fragments (what a
challenge!), but we could put a link at the bottom of each
manual page to a corresponding Wiki page.  The Wiki offers
creating the page if it does not exists... and whatnot.
Unfortunately, I have got no machines which could host
something like this in the long term, but will think about
it...

Feri.