[FM Discuss] Hi folks

[Gregory Pittman]

On 01/03/2018 03:52 AM, Mick Chesterman wrote:
> 

> 
> Going back to the original premise it was started by Adam Hyde who
> wanted supplementary docs for the workshops he was giving and I still
> think that is in the DNA of FM. Beginner docs focused on a particular
> area of practice. Thus docs don't have to be exhaustive / complete list
> of features.
> 
> I think one of Adam's other big pushes was to use FM as a tempate for to
> fill the gap of a web to print  collaborative workflow. He build a lot
> of momentum around that which was great to pull people in to the project
> and get funding.
> 
> Having a more narrow focus allows the manual to be shorter and thus
> easier to translate and print (and update in theory!).
> It also means that by having clustered manuals around topics like,
> Video, Audio, Graphics, Net Security, you build a network of
> contributors and as a workshop leader you have a repository you can pick
> and mix from when creating tailored courses (I used to do this when
> running a DIY media centre in Salford).
> 
> Having said that, there hasn't really been a new manual or even an
> updated one on FM for some time, althought there is good work going on
> with Inkscape, but I would say that is due to a lack of active
> facilitation and outreach rather than a fault in scope.
> 
> It would be great to hear other thoughts. FM has been coasting for a
> while now, 2018 is probably a good time to resolve and document some of
> these issues and then make a push to make FM sustaining.
> 

Hi Mick,

Perhaps one of the things between the lines of these initial contacts is
that FM seems to have a hard shell, and outsiders have a hard time
figuring out how to get in. The answer isn't necessarily to open the
gates all the way, yet there must be ways that new potential
contributors can be encouraged to wade or dive into FM.

Would it be possible to consider a method by which anyone might submit
an updated chapter for an existing book, for it to be considered for
replacement of the pre-existing part? This would be analogous to new
developers to a project first submitting bug fixes. Then, with some
experience that they do good work, they gradually are allowed more open
access to direct editing.

Something else might be a "book idea incubator", where those interested
in a particular topic might communicate to develop an idea for a book,
while making sure that they have the numbers of people and expertise to
carry the project through. This might help avoid books that begin with a
lot of effort then fizzle at some point.

As far as Matt's questioning of the need or value of text and images
kinds of resources, I can say that on a personal level I have begun to
create my own ebooks, typically small in scale, that I use as references
after I haven't used some tool for a while. For example, I recently went
back to Postgresql for a project I was working on. Years ago I was using
it on a daily basis, and of course had no trouble remembering all sorts
of commands for creating, editing, and using tables in Postgresql. It's
amazing how much I had forgotten. There is a comprehensive and massive
(3580 page) PDF one can download on Postgresql 9.6.6, and it's written
in the old style of manuals which are, yes, complete, but not very
approachable. Even the TOC is mind-boggling. There are also various
fragments of information one can get from googling something, but
typically they are very much fragments, and like so many things found
with googling, of varying age, some ancient, some quite wrong or poorly
explained.

So along the way, I've been adding to my ebook various techniques, and
focusing on the few administrative tasks I need to know, but mostly on
the user tasks. This is nothing on the scale of something for FM, but
fills a need for me. In particular, I need something I can go back to as
a reference later to find something in a minute instead of taking 30
minutes to an hour.

Greg