How to change the docs - a case study

[Kent Johnson]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> Kent Johnson wrote:
> 
>> Here is an example. This morning I noticed a minor discrepancy in the
>> docs for the 'rot13' encoding. I posted a bug to SourceForge at 10:05
>> GMT. At 10:59 someone commented that maybe the code was broken rather
>> than the docs. At 11:18 another poster responded that the code should
>> stay the same. At 11:25, less than two hours after my original report, a
>> fixed was checked in.
> 
> how many manhours did this take, in total ?  did you clock your own efforts ?

It took a few minutes of my time. Maybe a minute to verify that there 
was no similar bug report, a few minutes to write up my findings and 
submit them. I don't know how much time the other posters spent but the 
total clock time from OP to fix was 1 hour 20 minutes so that gives you 
an upper bound.
> 
>> The complete exchange is here:
>> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=1465619&group_id=5470
> 
> the 2.4.3 doc is still broken:
> 
>     http://docs.python.org/lib/standard-encodings.html
> 
> (and if I hadn't kicked people around a couple of months ago, even the development
> documentation, which still hasn't been updated, btw, would remain broken for another
> 4-6 months.)

My understanding is that there is a build step required. So the change 
isn't public yet but I expect it will be.
> 
>> The point being that there is a system in place that in my experience works pretty
>> well.
> 
> so you're saying that we cannot do better, and that people who try should do some-
> thing else with their time ?

No, I didn't say that at all. You are welcome to spend your time as you 
like. I'm saying that IMO the current system works pretty well and 
suggesting that some people may find posting patches to SourceForge to 
be an easy and effective way to change the docs.

Kent