[mythtv-users] Re:MythTV Help Website

[David]

Dan Conti wrote:

>>-----Original Message-----
>>[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org]On Behalf Of Maarten van den
>>Berg
>>Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Re:MythTV Help Website
>>
>>O M G !!
>>This just further proves the need for a wiki.  Let's see what
>>happened here,
>>shall we ?  Some enlightened souls suggest using a wiki, saying
>>that looking
>>through ML archives and google just isn't very productive nor handy.
>>Someone also remarks that still way too often people are referred
>>to "search
>>the archives, use google" as answers to their questions.
>>
>>...And lo and behold, what is the answer to "let's install a
>>wiki" ? yep... :(
>>    
>>
>
>Well what do you expect? For everyone to just snap to attention and reanswer
>the same question again? Keep in mind that most of the questions that get
>answered here either get answered once, or like 300 times.
>
I didn't read that expectation into his question.
But the point of a wiki is that anyone can contribute - snippets or 
whole essays.

>>On a personal note, I vote for a wiki. I find that the current
>>docs are indeed
>>lacking, especially more so if:
>>* You're NOT using a PVRx50 card
>>* You're NOT located in the US
>>* You're NOT using one of the featured distributions.
>>
>>I've had enough experience with the above to contribute something;
>>documentation.  And there are better forms than searchable ML archives.
>>    
>>
>
>You are making some assumptions here, such as 1) someone will invest the
>time to keep extensive documentation current, 2) people will actually read
>the documentation, etc.
>
Exactly the problem - someONE
Wiki's are not someONE's private site - they are communal.
Often the answer isn't in the docs (yet) so "google the archives is the 
only answer"
Now you can say "try the docs, look at the wiki and google the archives 
- oh and if you find it - put it in the wiki"

>
>But the truth is that people dont read the documentation. 80% of the
>developer posts on this list end up being hyperlinks to places in the docs
>where obvious questions are answered. And there are limits to how extensive
>the documentation can be; just keeping it to a limited set of distributions
>is a task in and of itself, since there are a significant number of
>dependencies for this project. Trying to keep on top of all the
>distributions and all the variations between versions would be a nightmare.
>
>I urge you to consider your issue from the view of those who are on the
>providing end here. It's nice that you are offering to help, but you have to
>understand that these are empty words until you start providing patches.
>  
>
View the wiki as an open CVS for doc patches by non-programmers then.

David