Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
Alan wrote:
I don't know anything about the OOoAuthors site, but it sounds like a
great idea.
I also really want to move things to the wiki.
Say I update graphics and Kirsten updates text. Someone then has to
put the two together or someone has to go first and then someone has
to go second
It's fairly easy for someone to merge the changes in two copies of an
ODT file. but yes it is an extra step.
Multiple authors working on the same document always requires
some synchronization. I think that wiki is somewhat easier than ODF.
and what if I update graphics and then that section is removed?
Using a wiki won't eliminate or even lessen that potential problem.
Old-fashioned linear editing between multiple individuals is
remarkably painful. Wiki's may have their problems, but boy do they
have their
strengths.......
Although a wiki has the advantage of giving people the ability to edit
smaller "chunks" of a chapter more easily, thus allowing more people to
do small changes, it also has the distinct *dis*advantage of increasing
the probability of less internal consistency. Note: I put consistency
lower on my priority list than up-to-date, so I'm willing to put up with
this disadvantage.
That's right. But it's a challenge wherever multiple authors are
working on a document. We'd need an editorial step to ensure consistency
in this case.
Now for a bigger question: do we really need the User Guide as well as
the guides produced by OOoAuthors? Given our limited resources, is it
worth the extra effort to bring the UG up to date, edit it, and
especially maintain it, along with the OOoAuthors guides? I have not
looked closely enough at the UG to have a good idea of how much
difference or similarity there is between it and the other books. (Of
course there is going to be considerable overlap in topics, but I don't
know about the organisation, approach, level of detail, etc.) I suspect
it needs quite a bit of updating in at least some areas, where OOo
itself has changed in the past few releases. (Some of the OOoAuthors
material is equally out of date.)
This is a valid question and I wondered about this pink elephant
for a while now. I agree that we should not duplicate efforts and
overly confuse users by offering two user guides but rather
distribute our efforts to the complete spectrum of documentation.
We have a FAQ section that requires maintenance, there is a
list of HOWTOs that needs update and extension, we will be moving
the API doc to the wiki soon (hopefully rather sooner than later),
I hope to add the help sources to the wiki for the next release
(2.3.1 or 2.4) - there's plenty of work.
Now if the OOoautors User Guide will be maintained on the
wiki (Jean: will it?), can we merge it with the docs.oo.o
Uers Guide there? How about the license?
Jean, will you or someone from OOoAuthors be at OOoCon?
Frank
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