Re: Capital Gains FAQ entry

[cicko]

Hi, David,

Thanks a lot for the insights on GnuCash documentation in general!
The Guide was, for a long time, my main reference to GnuCash. That is, until
I started scratching the surface and look for more details on how to some
"dirty" work after switching to GnuCash, or after running into some
unexplainable issues that I considered bugs. Especially after I started
writing some tools and views I was used to but are missing in GnuCash at the
moment.
Thanks to Google, we can now access pretty much any piece of text ever
published about GnuCash and that certainly does not help one get around. :)
Additionally, if you look at the paragraph on the main wiki page under
"Getting involved in the GnuCash project", it clearly states that the Wiki
is to become The one and replace everything else. Statements like that
create certain expectations on the side of the reader, just like the text
about Lots. I, as a reader, create an image of GnuCash in the order of the
information I receive, not necessarily in the order it was written. 

>From the technical perspective, I'd prefer wiki just for the simplicity of
access and editing. This would require someone to police and edit the
contributions, of course, as well as arrange them by the application version
number they apply to. Not an easy task, I know. However, I hope that the
agility provided by wiki would work for a hobby project.

In any case, the main point is -yes - I thought that the Uservoice link
would be helpful on the main www.gnucash.org page, if it officially accepted
way of providing suggestions and voting on them. 

Alen



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Re: Capital Gains FAQ entry

[David T. via gnucash-devel]

Alen,

I appreciate your message, as well as your effort and attitude.

I have worked over the years to improve the official documentation (that is, 
the Help Manual and the Guide), and make those documents as accurate, clear, 
and up to date as possible. Although there is still a lot of work that can be 
done to improve these documents, they still represent the place where the most 
amount of editorial and writing effort have been expended by the GnuCash 
community. Because of this (and because of my own background in technical 
writing), I tend to prefer information in those documents—if it exists—over 
information that is put on the wiki. When duplication occurs, I believe that 
the information in the docs should be used (and referred to) and wiki 
information changed to reference the docs, rather than keeping information in 
multiple places.

I want to acknowledge that my opinion on this is not necessarily that of the 
rest of the community, and that others like to see more complete information on 
the wiki, at the cost of some duplication.

With regards to the Lots issue, I think that in the longer run, the Concept of 
Lots page should be removed altogether from the wiki, and any remaining special 
information on it should be put into the Guide in Chapter 9. Such an action 
would require someone to go through both, and incorporate information from the 
Wiki page into the existing chapter in a meaningful manner. I also believe that 
the Guide section “Selling Shares” covers gains and lots in MUCH greater detail 
than the original FAQ entry ever did. I recommend that you take a closer look 
at it. That was why I opted to remove the Wiki text altogether.

In regards to Uservoice, there already is a reference on the wiki to it. If you 
look at the main Wiki page under “Filing Bugs and Enhancement Requests” you 
will see reference to the Uservoice page. It would probably be nice to improve 
the visibility of that link. Such a change will require a special request, 
however, as the main Wiki page is locked from Edits by Mortals. Or were you 
proposing adding that link to www.gnucash.org ?

David T.

> On Jan 22, 2018, at 2:11 PM, Alen Siljak  wrote:
> 
> Thanks, David. I'm refraining from deleting any text unless it is glaringly 
> obvious that it is wrong.
> What I'm trying to do is to link various related pieces of information 
> together. As you say, sometimes it can be contradictory because one side is 
> quite outdated. I believe that, with having links, this would become easier 
> to navigate and eventually correct.
> Sometimes I run into a page describing some concept and I can not find it 
> afterwards.
> Multiple entry points to documentation are also extremely confusing to me - 
> faq, wiki, user docs, doxygen, txt files, descriptions in the repo, etc. So, 
> I guess, the ability to clean up is equally important as adding new text. :)
>  
> The Lots Concept guide page, which I linked to the Concept of Lots wiki page, 
> contains the most complete explanation of the lots concept and the 
> *implementation*, which is currently in GnuCash. From that point it is very 
> valuable although it may be outdated. And I never saw any link to that page 
> elsewhere.
> It is a bit difficult (for me, at least) to distinguish between user and 
> developer documentation. Because, as a user, I had terrible problems working 
> with Lots - transactions would appear duplicate out of the blue, transactions 
> would be split automatically, etc. None of what's happening was obvious until 
> I read the mentioned description. So, once a few details were known, I had no 
> issues with the Lots any longer. Not able to reproduce the issues I was 
> experiencing before and report as bugs because now I don't remember the way I 
> tried to do it instinctively.
>  
> In addition, it would be handy to have useful links on the home page. For 
> example, Uservoice is missing and I think this is quite handy for end users 
> to have input into the desired features. While it does not guarantee the 
> implementation, at least it shows where the demand is.
>  
> Hope what I wrote here makes sense. These are mostly observations from my 
> short recent experience and not a direct reference to what you wrote earlier.
> Thank you for making the changes you just did. This just proves that adding 
> the links between related topics helps to clean up the things a bit. For 
> example, someone who only reads the FAQ would have a different understanding 
> of capital gains process than someone who happened to search for Lots and 
> read a different page. Now, at least, they should be a bit more aligned.
>  
> Cheers
>  
> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2018 at 6:35 PM
> From: "David T." 
> To: cicko 
> Cc: gnucash-devel@gnucash.org
> Subject: Capital Gains FAQ entry
> Cicko,
> 
> I see that you have gotten involved in working on the wiki; fabulous!
> 
> I recently 

Re: Capital Gains FAQ entry

[Alen Siljak]

   Thanks, David. I'm refraining from deleting any text unless it is
   glaringly obvious that it is wrong.
   What I'm trying to do is to link various related pieces of information
   together. As you say, sometimes it can be contradictory because one
   side is quite outdated. I believe that, with having links, this would
   become easier to navigate and eventually correct.
   Sometimes I run into a page describing some concept and I can not find
   it afterwards.
   Multiple entry points to documentation are also extremely confusing to
   me - faq, wiki, user docs, doxygen, txt files, descriptions in the
   repo, etc. So, I guess, the ability to clean up is equally important as
   adding new text. :)

   The Lots Concept guide page, which I linked to the Concept of Lots wiki
   page, contains the most complete explanation of the lots concept and
   the *implementation*, which is currently in GnuCash. From that point it
   is very valuable although it may be outdated. And I never saw any link
   to that page elsewhere.
   It is a bit difficult (for me, at least) to distinguish between user
   and developer documentation. Because, as a user, I had terrible
   problems working with Lots - transactions would appear duplicate out of
   the blue, transactions would be split automatically, etc. None of
   what's happening was obvious until I read the mentioned description.
   So, once a few details were known, I had no issues with the Lots any
   longer. Not able to reproduce the issues I was experiencing before and
   report as bugs because now I don't remember the way I tried to do it
   instinctively.

   In addition, it would be handy to have useful links on the home page.
   For example, Uservoice is missing and I think this is quite handy for
   end users to have input into the desired features. While it does not
   guarantee the implementation, at least it shows where the demand is.

   Hope what I wrote here makes sense. These are mostly observations from
   my short recent experience and not a direct reference to what you wrote
   earlier.
   Thank you for making the changes you just did. This just proves that
   adding the links between related topics helps to clean up the things a
   bit. For example, someone who only reads the FAQ would have a different
   understanding of capital gains process than someone who happened to
   search for Lots and read a different page. Now, at least, they should
   be a bit more aligned.

   Cheers

   Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2018 at 6:35 PM
   From: "David T." 
   To: cicko 
   Cc: gnucash-devel@gnucash.org
   Subject: Capital Gains FAQ entry
   Cicko,
   I see that you have gotten involved in working on the wiki; fabulous!
   I recently received a notice that you had edited the FAQ on handling
   capital gains, by adding a reference to the wiki page “Concept of
   Lots”.
   Naturally, having received the announcement of the page change, I took
   a look at both the FAQ section and the Concept of Lots page, and found
   a number of problems.
   First, the FAQ itself is quite dated, mentioning the status of gains as
   of version 1.8. Since the Tutorial & Concept Guide represents the most
   complete and up-to-date version of the documentation, I have added
   these references and removed the original paragraph.
   Next, it goes into quite a bit of detail on how to enter gains—topics
   that are now covered in quite some detail in the Tutorial & Concepts
   Guide. SInce "9.7. Selling Shares” is so thorough, the examples given
   in the FAQ are both incomplete and redundant. Consequently, I am
   removing the example in the FAQ, and pointing to the Tutorial a second
   time, since it has so many detailed examples.
   Finally, I wonder whether it is wise to link to the “Concept of Lots”
   page, as it appears to be a description of how the implementer of the
   Lots feature went about it. Some of this information does appear to be
   unique, however, so I didn’t touch your reference to it. Long term, I
   think the information on this page should be separated so that the
   technical, development, information was placed on a technical page, and
   the user-focused information placed in the documentation set.
   Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know why I went into this section and
   changed it just after you had.
   David
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