[FM Discuss] public view deprecated

Tue Feb 1 00:56:31 PST 2011

sooo...

On Tue, 2011-02-01 at 08:56 +0100, joachim heintz wrote:
> adam -
> 
> i do completely understand what you say about do-ocracy. perhaps
> democracy was the wrong word for what i wanted to ask for. it's more a
> certain stability/reliability in some conditions. if i spread links to
> let people look - without being registered - into a manual which is in
> the write process, and these links are not working any more, from one
> day to the next, i don't feel good with this.

> i'd suggest to have a message at the "write" page about "this is just a
> preliminary view for showing the last state of writing", to make it
> clear that the function is just this, and not a nice view. but i think
> this "write" view for everyone, without logging in, is a good chance to
> get people in for writing.
> 

i understand your position and its a good point. 

this issue is not very easy. as you may have seen from the emails that
just went through the list with And from Engage (Plumi manual). They
thought the unstable view was the manual and they linked to it. I also
had someone write to me complaining that their CTO didnt like the css of
that view - they thought it was also the manual. In that case I took the
time to explain the issue to them many times and they still linked to
the unstable version and told their readers it was the manual and asked
how the versioning numbers could be matched to the version numbers of
their software so the *readers* would not be confused.

This is why I do not like this view being exposed. If we enable it this
means we run the risk of the growing readership relying on the unstable
material. this was *exactly* what i was trying to avoid when I started
FM. Te idea was to develop attractive, well written, stable manuals.

This view undoes that strategy. So I am very sorry for you and the rest
of the people that have had to deal with this switch. It was made in the
interests of stability. Infact I tried to keep this view by not linking
to it at all from the booki.fm interface but still people found it and
sent it on to readers *despite* there being a warning saying 'this is
not the manual' on the front page.

However we are trying to make fm work to meet your needs. I am not sure
what will satisfy your issue at the moment. I can think of either:
1. publish an unstable version of the manual on your site using
http://objavi.flossmanuals.net

2. link to the edit interface or

3. publish the manual to fm

If you have any other ideas then lets discuss it and see what we can
do...

adam

> 	joachim
> 
> 
> Am 31.01.2011 12:19, schrieb adam:
> > On Sun, 2011-01-30 at 19:15 +0100, joachim heintz wrote:
> >> hi -
> >>
> >> sorry if i missed some discussions here - i just saw that
> >> http://booki.flossmanuals.net/csound/ does not show any more the manual
> >> in the write stadium. as far as i see, everyone has to sign in who wants
> >> to see the csound floss manual.
> >>
> >> this is a problem for me/us, by two reasons:
> >> 1) the manual is not yet finished, so i wanted to wait until spring to
> >> publish it.
> > 
> > ok.
> > 
> >> 2) i inserted the link to http://booki.flossmanuals.net/csound/ into
> >> many documents, for instance the new version of the QuteCsound
> >> application (all the floss manual examples are there, in the examples
> >> menu). now all these links are senseless.
> > 
> > *as they should be*. this is why i dont like this interface being live.
> > it is *not* the manual people should read. the manual will be published
> > where it would have always been:
> > http://en.flossmanuals.net/csound
> > 
> > however its good timing for to bring this issue up because I am meeting
> > with Aspiration Tech and Aco this week to talk about workflow pathways
> > for FM and booki. so we will take all this into the conversation and see
> > if we can come up with a workable solution
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >>
> >> i am not happy with the decision. i'd appreciate if such decisions could
> >> be made in a more democratic, transparent way; at least informing the
> >> maintainers. 
> > 
> > well. big issue! If people want more say in how FM runs then they have
> > to do more. At the moment I don't get paid to work directly on FM. I
> > hack a living from Book Sprints and finding dev funds for FM/booki
> > through which i work with Aco and Douglas. 
> > 
> > Pretty much now it works that Aco and Douglas look after booki and I do
> > all the FM bits and pieces - implement booki to work in fm, try to not
> > piss Aco off to much with dirty hacks ;) etc
> > 
> > that makes up about 0% - 150% of my time depending on the day. 
> > 
> > I have tried many times to get more people doing more in FM (aside from
> > making books). I tried to get a PR group going. It didnt get very far. I
> > tried to ask for help fund raising. same result. I have asked people to
> > hack booki and help us push the code base forward. same result. 
> > 
> > I have had a good response from requests for help with CSS - that has
> > been one area that has worked.
> > 
> > However except with the help of John (who gets paid a little bit to help
> > with some admin stuff and does a really good job)  the team remains for
> > admin and maintenance and development and promotion and and hacks and
> > funding and negotiating partners and deploying languages and marketing
> > and outreach of FM - me.
> > 
> > Its a do-ocracy. The more you do, the more say you get. I am pretty much
> > doing everything so I get to make more decisions. I always make them in
> > a way I think is in the best interests of FM. Actually its not really a
> > situation of 'i get to make more decisions' but there is no one else
> > doing this stuff other than me, so there is no one to talk through the
> > nuances, there is no one to bring implementation issues to the table
> > etc. I do not like the idea of a whole lot of people acting in a
> > democracy many stages removed from implementation and other big issues
> > telling me what I should do, That does not make sense to me. Democracy
> > here is a misfit. I am happy with a do-ocracy however. If anyone wants
> > to prove themselves in that realm then they will necessarily get more
> > say.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > adam
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> in my opinion, it should be the decision of the maintainers
> >> if they spread links to "half finished manuals", or not. in the case of
> >> the csound manual, i found it useful to offer a possibility for anyone
> >> to look at the "half finished manual": teasing people in, providing some
> >> finished chapters. i got some good feedback because of this possibility.
> >>
> >> 	joachim
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> > 
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