Re: it's all up to you users (was: Please forget LM MG NR IR SL AU)

[John Mandereau]

2008/8/18 Graham Percival <address@hidden>:
> On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:42:38 +0200
> "John Mandereau" <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Why not doing both?
>
> Because it's impossible to do both at the same time.  It takes
> time and energy to answer emails or write docs.
>
> That seems trivial -- surely everybody knows this already -- so
> let's discuss a specific example.

Don't spend too much time beating a dead horse... be it me or
Valentin.  In this case, I don't mean writing long and polite emails
when handling related doc additions, but writing concise replies to
let users know we're doing something to address some problem or lack
in the docs, and if necessary having some discussion to make details
clearer.


> There's also some trickle down effects to consider.  I've told
> some doc helpers *not* to get involved with programming (or at
> least to restrict their efforts in this direction) so that we
> retain an actual "doc team".  If we have 6 people working on the
> docs, they can share the load, comment on each other's work, and
> generally bolster each other's morale.  If we only had 2 or 3
> people working on the docs, the strain on each person becomes much
> larger.

You have a very good point here.  Maybe I'm going to dissappoint you
(or maybe did I so a while ago? :-P), but I'm not going to spend a lot
of time writing docs, although I'm interested a lot in proofreading.
I'm starting a Master in IT, acoustics and signal processing applied
to music, so it's vital I start hacking Lily in the coming months; I
may want to start with new features easy to add like useful music
functions, fingering diagrams for woodwinds...


> I'm not saying this because I don't care about new users -- after
> all, the whole *point* of documentation is to help users -- but
> rather because I know that Valentin's concerned about the general
> well-being of the project.  And I'm concerned about Valentin
> spending so much effort.

I'm concerned about your effort in so long emails, although I'm going
to miss their "inimitable" style :-).  If you can't convince me in 5
to 15 lines, then a longer email won't do it better.  Mathematicians,
and math students like me concise and clear proofs -- you're clear but
not always concise.


> I'm infamous within my research group for being a "no-man".  In
> English slang, a "yes-man" is somebody who always agrees with his
> boss.

FWIW the French term for this is "béni oui-oui" :-)


> Is this lilypond-user-fr?  It looks like a very low-traffic list.

It usually is, but it sometimes balloons up to ten emails a day, for 3
or 4 days.

Best,
John