On 24.06.21 22:58, Brian Thompson wrote:
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 08:42:24PM +0200, Marco Möller wrote:Even as a simple user, not about contributing to the project, I never know where to best search for the really up to date information, and common search engines usually link me to obsolete pages which are not clearly marked as obsolete pages.Tip: The major search engines like Google allow you to filter on a given website. e.g. "site:debian.org BTS" will limit searches of the string BTS to the debian.org site.
Thanks for the tip. There is also a tag by which this search engine can be restricted to results "not older than" - but this is unfortunately not always very effective.
The problems is more about the documentation offered on the Debian web-site than about how to use a search engine. For instance, there is this page:
https://www.debian.org/doc/user-manualsIt links i.e. to the "APT User's Guide" and following this link we find the information marked with "Copyright © 1998 Jason Gunthorpe". The trained users are unlikely to have a need to read this document and might not be aware about the status of it. Maybe this information is still up to date. Maybe it was forgotten to be moved to the obsolete documents. How should the new user know this? The common search engines, and also the hierarchy of the Debian web-site suggest you this document and the new user landing there has maybe a difficult start into Debian.
It is not about a specific document to exist SINCE a certain date and maybe still being valid and of high value, but it is about its validity and value UNTIL a certain date. For comparison, here is a site offering documentation which gets this problem nicely under control:
https://docs.julialang.org/I suggest to learn from such approach to the benefit of Debian. And I am aware that some dissonance could arise if joining an established community and asking for changes on the already achieved results from former hard efforts. But it might be worth it.
Well, Mechtilde in her post kindly offered to discuss ideas, and I will contact her in order to do so, and to learn from her how to friendly and respectfully join the community.
Marco.