Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
Marcus (Ono) wrote: Am 12/03/2012 11:11 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Marcus (OOo)marcus.m...@wtnet.de wrote: Am 12/03/2012 09:19 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescettipesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. I also would like to see FAQs in the Wiki, for both parts. FAQs have the attribute that they are never complete, need to be updated regularily and nearly anybody has something to add. A website in mdtext is also easy to update and anyone can update it. In some sense it is even easier than the wiki, since with the anonymous mode an account registration is not even needed, unlike the wiki, I don't want to talk bad about the anonymous feature of the CMS. However, it's not widely known how to use it but I think how to use and change a wikipage is known better. I'd also disagree with the belief that FAQs need to be frequently changed. They only need to be frequently *asked*. For example, the question about OpenOffice on iPad only needs to be answered once. it does not require frequent community enhancement. Right, the better word is extend, to add more content. So, it should be the best if indeed anybody can do the update. That's best done within the Wiki. Mistakes can be corrected fast and bad changes reverted easily. The same is true of the website. But let's be honest: the FAQ's on the wiki have been neglected for a long time. Technological concerns are not the reason for this, since they are already on the wiki. Our problems are elsewhere. It seems nobody wanted to do the work that is needed to keep it up-to-date. ;-) My preference for the mdtext is it is easier to style and looks better. Wikis are dog butt ugly, IMHO. Fine for collaborating on text, but for final publication they are ugly. IMHO. I doubt that we need pretty styling here. The users want information for their question(s). It's not the primary goal to present it most pretty and nice but competent and complete.
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:29 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. -Rob Regards Keith Rob; Though your simplifying assumption appears on the surface to be a good compromise the process engineer in me says I see a potential maintenance disaster looming. It creates essentially two different processes with different tools to accomplish the same basic task something that I prefer to avoid if possible. By using one or the other you cut down on the training necessary to bring new people up to speed and you centralize the maintenance and lessen the chance that something slips under the radar. We already have different tools and different processes: static HTML, static mdtext and wiki. I'm proposing reducing it from 3 to 2. Agreed, all I am saying is that the more ways there are to do the same thing the greater both the possibility and the probability of maintainability headaches. As far as process goes, I think the product-related questions will generally be updated by those interested in documentation and support. Agreed. One reason that I tend toward using the wiki for these is that it could attract volunteers to help update and even add new ones that may be hesitant about editing a web page. But the project-related questions -- the ones currently on openoffice.apache.org -- will probably be updated by the PMC. I think those questions, which deal with project membership, process definition, etc., are quasi-official in nature and it is not a bad thing if editing them is harder and more restricted than editing a public wiki. I agree here also. I do believe that there are ways to lock down sections of the wiki also. So either way is doable.
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. -Rob Regards Keith
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 3:04 PM, janI j...@apache.org wrote: When we change FAQ (and I really like the idea of using MDTEXT), we should make it easy to translate for all the local sites, and not only the first time, but more importantly to stay up to date with the translation. Do we currently have any tools to watch a mdtext file, so when the english version is changed the local translators are notified ? If not we should think of a mechanism, since especially FAQ are of interest in all languages. On Windows there is this CommitMonitor tool: http://tools.tortoisesvn.net/CommitMonitor.html Also, you can roll your own with email filters on messages sent to the commit list. -Rob Jan I. On 3 December 2012 20:54, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.netwrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.**htmlhttp://www.openoffice.org/faq.htmland quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/**wiki/Documentation/FAQhttp://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.**html http://www.openoffice.org/faq.htmland copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. Regards Keith
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
Am 12/03/2012 09:19 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescettipesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. I also would like to see FAQs in the Wiki, for both parts. FAQs have the attribute that they are never complete, need to be updated regularily and nearly anybody has something to add. So, it should be the best if indeed anybody can do the update. That's best done within the Wiki. Mistakes can be corrected fast and bad changes reverted easily. My 2 ct. Marcus
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. -Rob Regards Keith Rob; Though your simplifying assumption appears on the surface to be a good compromise the process engineer in me says I see a potential maintenance disaster looming. It creates essentially two different processes with different tools to accomplish the same basic task something that I prefer to avoid if possible. By using one or the other you cut down on the training necessary to bring new people up to speed and you centralize the maintenance and lessen the chance that something slips under the radar. I already know what kind of shape the documentation section of the wiki is in. Let me take a look at the FAQ's on the web site and see how far out of date they are. It may be that rewriting the user ones in dtet may make more sense. Regards Keith
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Marcus (OOo) marcus.m...@wtnet.de wrote: Am 12/03/2012 09:19 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescettipesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. I also would like to see FAQs in the Wiki, for both parts. FAQs have the attribute that they are never complete, need to be updated regularily and nearly anybody has something to add. A website in mdtext is also easy to update and anyone can update it. In some sense it is even easier than the wiki, since with the anonymous mode an account registration is not even needed, unlike the wiki, I'd also disagree with the belief that FAQs need to be frequently changed. They only need to be frequently *asked*. For example, the question about OpenOffice on iPad only needs to be answered once. it does not require frequent community enhancement. So, it should be the best if indeed anybody can do the update. That's best done within the Wiki. Mistakes can be corrected fast and bad changes reverted easily. The same is true of the website. But let's be honest: the FAQ's on the wiki have been neglected for a long time. Technological concerns are not the reason for this, since they are already on the wiki. Our problems are elsewhere. My preference for the mdtext is it is easier to style and looks better. Wikis are dog butt ugly, IMHO. Fine for collaborating on text, but for final publication they are ugly. IMHO. -Rob My 2 ct. Marcus
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. -Rob Regards Keith Rob; Though your simplifying assumption appears on the surface to be a good compromise the process engineer in me says I see a potential maintenance disaster looming. It creates essentially two different processes with different tools to accomplish the same basic task something that I prefer to avoid if possible. By using one or the other you cut down on the training necessary to bring new people up to speed and you centralize the maintenance and lessen the chance that something slips under the radar. We already have different tools and different processes: static HTML, static mdtext and wiki. I'm proposing reducing it from 3 to 2. As far as process goes, I think the product-related questions will generally be updated by those interested in documentation and support. But the project-related questions -- the ones currently on openoffice.apache.org -- will probably be updated by the PMC. I think those questions, which deal with project membership, process definition, etc., are quasi-official in nature and it is not a bad thing if editing them is harder and more restricted than editing a public wiki. And let's not forget the harsh transition that some has navigating from an openoffice.apache.org web page to the wiki. The look is different and there is no context or reverse navigation. The user has been teleported into another galaxy. I sometimes wonder whether we should move *all* of the openoffice.apache.org website contents onto the www.openoffice.org website, and work to unify the look and feel of the other pieces, a larger reworking of: 1) Move openoffice.apache.org onto www.openoffice.org 2) Move all CWiki pages into MWiki 3) Setup redirect of blog from blogs.apache.org/ooo to
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
Am 12/03/2012 11:35 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Rob Weirrobw...@apache.org wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Marcus (OOo)marcus.m...@wtnet.de wrote: Am 12/03/2012 09:19 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescettipesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. I also would like to see FAQs in the Wiki, for both parts. FAQs have the attribute that they are never complete, need to be updated regularily and nearly anybody has something to add. A website in mdtext is also easy to update and anyone can update it. In some sense it is even easier than the wiki, since with the anonymous mode an account registration is not even needed, unlike the wiki, I'd also disagree with the belief that FAQs need to be frequently changed. They only need to be frequently *asked*. For example, the question about OpenOffice on iPad only needs to be answered once. it does not require frequent community enhancement. So, it should be the best if indeed anybody can do the update. That's best done within the Wiki. Mistakes can be corrected fast and bad changes reverted easily. The same is true of the website. But let's be honest: the FAQ's on the wiki have been neglected for a long time. Technological concerns are not the reason for this, since they are already on the wiki. Our problems are elsewhere. My preference for the mdtext is it is easier to style and looks better. Wikis are dog butt ugly, IMHO. Fine for collaborating on text, but for final publication they are ugly. IMHO. For reference and comparison, look at the support page that Firefox uses: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/home Their hot topics is analogous to FAQs. This is a clean, attractive page, free of distractions, easy to use. I don't think we get there with a wiki. Indeed, it looks nice. But I don't think that we need that much of styling. Marcus
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
Am 12/03/2012 11:19 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescettipesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. -Rob Regards Keith Rob; Though your simplifying assumption appears on the surface to be a good compromise the process engineer in me says I see a potential maintenance disaster looming. It creates essentially two different processes with different tools to accomplish the same basic task something that I prefer to avoid if possible. By using one or the other you cut down on the training necessary to bring new people up to speed and you centralize the maintenance and lessen the chance that something slips under the radar. We already have different tools and different processes: static HTML, static mdtext and wiki. I'm proposing reducing it from 3 to 2. As far as process goes, I think the product-related questions will generally be updated by those interested in documentation and support. But the project-related questions -- the ones currently on openoffice.apache.org -- will probably be updated by the PMC. I think those questions, which deal with project membership, process definition, etc., are quasi-official in nature and it is not a bad thing if editing them is harder and more restricted than editing a public wiki. And let's not forget the harsh transition that some has navigating from an openoffice.apache.org web page to the wiki. The look is different and there is no context or reverse navigation. The user has been teleported into another galaxy. I sometimes wonder whether we should move *all* of the openoffice.apache.org website contents onto the www.openoffice.org website, and work to unify the look and feel of the other pieces, a larger reworking of: 1) Move openoffice.apache.org onto www.openoffice.org 2) Move all CWiki pages into MWiki 3) Setup redirect of blog from blogs.apache.org/ooo to blog.openoffice.org What
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 PM, Keith N. McKenna keith.mcke...@comcast.net wrote: Rob Weir wrote: On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea. Rob; I have been updating some of the FAQ's on the wiki site that were tagged as needing help. I am more than willing to start a comprehensive review and clean-up of the User FAQ's on the documentation wiki if that is the way we decide to go. The advantage is that the wiki is easier to maintain and it is already categorized with a toc on the main page. The other FAQ on the website is also categorized: http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html So whatever direction we start from we'll probably want to update and consolidate. In my personal opinion, mdtext on the website is a good solution here. But my opinion takes a back seat when someone else actually volunteers to do the work. So if you prefer the wiki for this, then you have a +1 from me. I'd just recommend that you fold in anything good from the existing website into the wiki, so we have can have a single FAQ for the project. Oh, actually we have a few other FAQs: http://openoffice.apache.org/community-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/developer-faqs.html http://openoffice.apache.org/pmc-faqs.html Maybe a simplifying assumption could be: 1) We make the MWiki FAQ's be the user-facing FAQs about the product and the project 2) We have the internal project-facing FAQ's on openoffice.apache.org website, in their current mdtext format. -Rob Regards Keith Rob; Though your simplifying assumption appears on the surface to be a good compromise the process engineer in me says I see a potential maintenance disaster looming. It creates essentially two different processes with different tools to accomplish the same basic task something that I prefer to avoid if possible. By using one or the other you cut down on the training necessary to bring new people up to speed and you centralize the maintenance and lessen the chance that something slips under the radar. We already have different tools and different processes: static HTML, static mdtext and wiki. I'm proposing reducing it from 3 to 2. Agreed, all I am saying is that the more ways there are to do the same thing the greater both the possibility and the probability of maintainability headaches. As far as process goes, I think the product-related questions will generally be updated by those interested in documentation and support. Agreed. One reason that I tend toward using the wiki for these is that it could attract volunteers to help update and even add new ones that may be hesitant about editing a web page. But the project-related questions -- the ones currently on openoffice.apache.org -- will probably be updated by the PMC. I think those questions, which deal with project membership, process definition, etc., are quasi-official in nature and it is not a bad thing if editing them is harder and more restricted than editing a public wiki. I agree here also. I do believe that there are ways to lock down sections of the wiki also. So either way is doable. And let's not forget the harsh transition that some has navigating from an openoffice.apache.org web page to the wiki. The look is different and there is no context or
Re: FAQ page (Re: IPAD)
On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: On 26/11/2012 Rob Weir wrote: [Can I install Openoffice on my IPAD?] I nominate this for an FAQ. I agree. But where is our FAQ page currently? Unfortunately, there's an OpenOffice FAQ easily reachable by search engines at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and quite outdated (I don't know whether it's reachable from the home page, but it doesn't seem so). Time to make a new FAQ available or update the old one and link to it from the current site? The current location of the FAQ is prominent in search results. That is valuable and worth preserving. But the current FAQ contents are out of date. They would need a lot of work to update/correct them. Although the FAQ's are presented in a way that is OK for the user, the static HTML source is structured in a way that will be painful to maintain. Getting a cleaner structure, for example using HTML definition lists (dl) would be easier and could be maintained via the CMS web interface. There is another set of FAQ's on the documentation wiki: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FAQ These also appear to be unmaintained. But I think the wiki version would be easier to maintain. So one possible resolution could be: 1) Take anything of use from the FAQ's at http://www.openoffice.org/faq.html and copy them into new FAQ items on the wiki 2) Update the other FAQ's on the wiki 3) Add new items to the wiki FAQ (like the iPAD question) 4) Delete the old FAQ directory and replace with a single page that directs the reader to the wiki FAQ's. -Rob -Rob Regards, Andrea.
