OpenSource documentation problems

[Steve Holden]

Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:
> On Thursday 01 September 2005 22:53, Steve Holden wrote:
>  > So, probably the best outcome of this current dialogue would be a change
>  > to the bottom-of-page comment so instead of saying
>  >
>  > """Release 2.4, documentation updated on 29 November 2004.
>  > See About this document... for information on suggesting changes. """
>  >
>  > it said
>  >
>  > """Release 2.4, documentation updated on 29 November 2004.
>  > See About this document... for information on suggesting changes, or
>  > mail your suggestions to docs at python.org"""
> 
> The reason I changed the text there and on the "About..." page was to avoid it 
> all coming to the doc team (of one) as email, where it too often was lost 
> whenever I was swamped by whatever work projects I was involved in at the 
> time.  That's a big reason to continue to emphasize using SourceForge instead 
> of my mailbox.
> 
> Ideally, emails to docs at python.org would result in issues being created 
> somewhere, simply so they don't get lost.  It probably doesn't make sense for 
> those to land in SourceForge automatically, since then everyone has to read 
> every plea for a printable version of the documents.
> 
> At one time, there was hope that we could get a Roundup tracker running for 
> the webmaster address, to help make sure that each request received an 
> appropriate response, and I secretly hoped to point the docs address at that 
> as well.  Unfortunately, not enough time was available from people with 
> sufficient Roundup know-how to finish that effort.  I still think that would 
> be really nice.
> 
> 
>   -Fred
> 
I suspected as as much, but I'm glad of your confirmation. Symptomatic 
that nobody else on this thread bothered to Cc docs at python dot org to 
see what "the team" (all one of you) had to say about it.

Given that my suggestion was nixed for good reason, my fallback position 
is that you need help on the documentation, and also on a subsystem to 
channel comments effectively into issues that can be followed up, by 
whatever means available, and by more than one person. Maybe we should 
work on that.

In the meantime thanks for your hard work on the docs, which is IMHO 
insufficiently appreciated.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden       +44 150 684 7255  +1 800 494 3119
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