On 1/24/2012 8:47 AM, Sven Wesley wrote: > 3. There are too many info channels! Close down the forum on the LinuxCNC > website ASAP! It doesn't work, Google can't make correct forward links and > some browsers fail to show it. There is an active forum at cnczone (I'll > fix the renaming), there's a working mailing list (also active). There is a > more or less dead website, the wiki is somewhat updated but still there are > obsolete chapters or dead links (I promise to update the wiki myself more > frequently in the future). I had a thesis adviser who was fond of quoting from Chairman Mao "Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land." (Frequently restated as "let a thousand flowers bloom.") The Internet seems to agree. People use the method of communication that best suits them. There are lots of people, resulting in lots of channels.
It seems to me that this plethora of information channels functions pretty well in normal times. The only thing that I would wish for is a synoptic function, similar to what happens with news.ycombinator.com, so in one place I could get a feel for what's happening without having to wade through all the channels myself. But who would do it and how would we ensure it is done any better? It is the current climate of rapid change that stresses multiple channels because it takes a finite amount of time for the changes to propagate, frequently leaving the channels out of synch. I personally favor the email lists and the Wiki. I've spent time reading and editing the Wiki. It suffers no more and no less than the other channels you mention. Many people touch the core topics, few---perhaps only the author---touch the pages on the peripheral topics. Many become irrelevant with the passage of time but they represent our thinking over time. Rather than either struggling to keep each and every page up-to-date, which in some cases is akin to putting lipstick on a pig, or simply deleting them, which is a denial of our history, I favor following the pattern used by some contributors and marking them as obsolete, deprecated, or whatever and point to the alternative. The website could be subsumed into the Wiki but I don't see the need. It is perfectly serviceable as the first point of contact. It could use more active administration, for example the rebranding certainly qualifies as "NEWS", but I think the changes that have transpired over the last year have left it in good shape. Just my 2 cents worth. Regards, Kent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
