On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 01:48:24AM -0600, Brynn wrote:
Thanks Bryce.
"> Similarly, if you follow the user list or the #inkscape user channel and
see questions being asked a lot (and that sound likely to continue being asked long in the future), consider adding Q&A's for those."
I recently subscribed to the user list, but I didn't even know about #inkscape user channel. That's an IRC channel...or....that's not twitter, is it? (Sorry, I don't participate in the whole social media thing.) However, I'm quite familiar with messages posted in forums, and somewhat with messages posted in Launchpad Answers.
Yes, it's an IRC channel. For more info see the end of this page:
* http://inkscape.org/en/community/discussion/
Fwiw, the Jabber info on that page is all obsolete I think.
I'll make a list of the bad links (dead, empty, not found pages) (which I guess is what you mean by "bitrot"), and send them to you. Maybe you can find them somewhere.
Yes, that's what bitrot means.
FWI, I'm on travel this coming week so might not be very responsive in the near term, but will catch up once I'm back.
We also have an #inkscape-devel channel, which you're welcome to join as well. su_v is very active there and she might be able to help if I'm not around.
Speaking of a listing of tutorials -- would those be only "official" tutorials? Or should all kinds of outside tutorials (such as listed on my webpage) be found on the Tutorials page? Already, there are lots of tutorials from a deviantART feed that Martin set up (which are "outside" tutorials). But with such a listing of outside tutorials, again, you'll have the bitrot issue, and possible frequent requests to be listed.
The FAQ probably should only directly link to the official tutorials (the ones that appear in-program). Those are the ones we have direct control over and can prevent bitrotting.
I'd love to see more work go into the Tutorials section, but don't have specific advice. The Tutorials page doesn't need to be limited to official tutorials. I like how Martin set it up to pull from deviantArt because then we don't have to worry about bad links on our end.
"Our
software documentation is also a lot better than when this FAQ was initially written, too."
and regarding the Customizing Inkscape faq item "> There might be a few other FAQ items like this, that should just move to
proper docs."
and "Also I think it probably isn't that
'frequent' of a question so once it's in the program documentation it can be dropped from the FAQ."
Are you suggesting that if documentation for an faq item exists, that it should be deleted from the faq? Or that the answer should be deleted, and instead should link to the documentation?
Because I think a lot of people, maybe even most people, think of an FAQ for just exactly that "frequently asked questions". Perhaps the faq has been used in the past, as a place for developers to put answers, and for users to find answers, when no other documentation exists. But I'm not sure taking it completely out of the faq would be appropriate, if it truly is asked for frequently. For customizing Inkscape, I can say that it is asked surprisingly often! I've even heard people say they won't use Inkscape unless they can have a customized theme! (Of course, imo, that's their problem, but it is a fairly common topic.) (And btw, easily customizable themes, or "skins", is a much wished-for feature!)
Yes, I completely agree with all of this. It's true that in the far past we did put stuff in the FAQ that should have just gone into regular docs but we didn't have those at the time. Since then I think a lot of that has been scrubbed out. I just want to suggest that if you feel there is stuff in there that's a bit too much for the FAQ, then moving it into proper documentation is the right way to go.
These days our documentation is actually quite thorough, and the FAQ could probably leverage it better. For instance, it could give a brief answer and a couple hints for the most common things people want to do, and then "For more detailed information about customizing Inkscape, please see the <link>Customizing Inkscape</link> chapter of the Inkscape Manual" (or whatever).
Bryce