editors

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 12:54, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 13:56, Karsten Wade wrote:

> > * Should there be an editorial board?  Such a board would oversee the
> > Fedora docs, make sure we are adhering to our standards, filling in
> > holes, following or advancing our process, etc.
> 
> [...snip...]
> 
> I'd like to volunteer for the board; it's what I had in mind when I
> volunteered in the first place. Of course, I've found out since how much
> work there is to do, and I'm glad that there are so many ways to get
> involved.

Yes, 100% agreed, I volunteer for the board, as well; I'm certainly good
for the next twelve months (random term limit?), if we can stand me that
long.

> I for one would not choose to have a separate editors list. I would also
> say the board should have some guidelines to help make decisions on a
> less ad-hoc basis. Having said that, I don't want to create so much
> advance detail work that it's impossible to actually get to the real
> work. But at least a statement of principles would be enough to get
> started. That would also give authors/editors proper guidance for when
> things are ready to go to the board.

That sounds exactly right.  The statement of principles will guide in
making up necessary process as we go along.

> > * Also, much of the editing traffic can be in bugzilla, as each document
> > will have it's own bug throughout it's lifecycle.
> 
> Perhaps, then, XML patches for docs in Bugzilla should be uploaded to
> Bugzilla for review by the authors/editors. Does that put too much of a
> strain on Bugzilla's storage?

I doubt it, but IANABSA (bugzilla sysadmin).  Still, DocBook XML is
pretty lightweight compared to software source; it's density is in the
ideas within the words, and the tag:content ratio is skewed in that
direction[1].  Bit-for-bit, I'd say our documents would be a very
efficient usage of bugzilla space. :)

- Karsten

[1] Incidentally, as a writer this is one of the big attractions for me
in DocBook.  WYSIWYG editors typically burden a file with a lot of extra
junk, making the junk:content ratio poorly balanced, and requires
enormous amounts of content to even out or tip the balance toward the
content side.  DocBook junk:content starts out with a great balance, and
keeps that balance as it scales.

This is why I usually write in plain text first, it has the best
junk:content ratio of all. :)
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, Tech Writer
a lemon is just a melon in disguise
http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
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