Taco Hoekwater wrote:
Michael Saunders wrote:
Taco's objection that no one helps with the community project to update the reference manual is reasonable, but also predictable: strangers cannot simply wander in and write the book. The knowledge is in Hans's head (and maybe a few others), and only they can communicate it. It's evident that they either can't or won't.
Some feedback on the quality other than 'it sucks' would have helped enormously.
I'll elaborate a bit (excuse me for replying to myself). Over the past four years, it has been next to impossible to get people interested in the reference manual project, not even for something as simple as reading the rewritten chapters and telling me what they think about it. Still, at the same time, complaints about the quality of the documentation have been a constant recurrence on the mailing list. I know the argument that beginners do not understand the source well enough to write a manual themselves is valid. But it is equally true that a person that *does* know the source enough to write the manual is not the correct person to proofread it. The near total lack of feedback had led me to believe that most complainers are in it just for the complaining. This is extremely demotivating, and so I have almost given up on doing documentation at all. I mean, what's the point if nobody really cares? There are many more interesting things to do in life than work for weeks on end on revising chapters nobody appears willing to read anyway. Best wishes, Taco