In regards to the advrider comment, I don’t find those ridiculously long-running threads all that convenient even though they are very useful. In your example the WR250R thread could have multiple subtopics being discussed at once in the same thread which I find frustrating.
For example, one guy might ask about tires and while that’s being discussed another guy shows up asking about a big bore kit to make more power. Now there are two discussions happening at the same time and all I can do is view the thread chronologically. Then someone else shows up asking what oil everyone uses. Then someone new joins and says “Hey it’s not possible to go back and read through all 2300 pages in this thread, what GPS are you all using?”
Like sure it’s great that all the information is in that one thread but navigating through it only in chronological order can be super frustrating.
It actually drives me a little nuts that the 500 EXC-F thread is under Thumpers and not under Orange Crush. I get that it’s a Thumper, but it’s also a KTM. Why have a subcommunity based on engine type when all of the other engine types are in manufacturer-specific subcommunities?
I have been playing with the idea of a documentation.org. Something publicly funded (mostly through corporate and individual donations) that hosts technical manuals, white papers, guides, links to video tutorials (likely YouTube), FAQs, and even links to Discord and/or forums if they exist. Documents are public, free to index (no login to view), version controlled and held in perpetuity.
Obviously there is much more to it, but I think we have reached a point where something like it is required.
In the most technical terms, yes. The idea is not new or bizarre, but I see the same missteps repeated. For starters, the venture HAS to be a nonprofit with zero need for monetization. It will also need an inviting and easy to navigate user interface, accessible to the most nontechnical of users. You need to have a massive document library from multiple large players from day one, so you need to have a lot of contacts.
As I said it’s not fully cooked, but I have spoken to a few people that could help me make it happen and they seemed open to it.
Please consider a Patreon for doc review. I don’t mean reviewing the doc against the project for fitness, as that’s the job of each project to maintain and review their own docs; I mean by a technical writer who can de-localize (you only think I mean ‘internationalize’) the document and make it syntactically and logically correct against a generic, classic style guide.
The rising popularity of really bad errors is definitely turning me off from videos or documentation from a few sources with a lot of churn. It ruins the flow and it robs the assumption of authority which I’d argue is an important part of any documentation.
That is a good idea. I am fairly certain I could get funding and/or loaned resource time for English, Spanish, French and German, but crowd funding incentivized localization for other regions is brilliant.
There is FOSS alternatives out there like Revolt or just plain old IRC which is good enough imo. The Discord bullshit is so annoying.
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IRC at least you have text logs, but I agree.
we just need IRCv2 which should add chat history
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Where’s lemmy in regards to this?
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In regards to the advrider comment, I don’t find those ridiculously long-running threads all that convenient even though they are very useful. In your example the WR250R thread could have multiple subtopics being discussed at once in the same thread which I find frustrating.
For example, one guy might ask about tires and while that’s being discussed another guy shows up asking about a big bore kit to make more power. Now there are two discussions happening at the same time and all I can do is view the thread chronologically. Then someone else shows up asking what oil everyone uses. Then someone new joins and says “Hey it’s not possible to go back and read through all 2300 pages in this thread, what GPS are you all using?”
Like sure it’s great that all the information is in that one thread but navigating through it only in chronological order can be super frustrating.
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It actually drives me a little nuts that the 500 EXC-F thread is under Thumpers and not under Orange Crush. I get that it’s a Thumper, but it’s also a KTM. Why have a subcommunity based on engine type when all of the other engine types are in manufacturer-specific subcommunities?
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I have been playing with the idea of a documentation.org. Something publicly funded (mostly through corporate and individual donations) that hosts technical manuals, white papers, guides, links to video tutorials (likely YouTube), FAQs, and even links to Discord and/or forums if they exist. Documents are public, free to index (no login to view), version controlled and held in perpetuity.
Obviously there is much more to it, but I think we have reached a point where something like it is required.
Aren’t you basically describing readthedocs.io?
In the most technical terms, yes. The idea is not new or bizarre, but I see the same missteps repeated. For starters, the venture HAS to be a nonprofit with zero need for monetization. It will also need an inviting and easy to navigate user interface, accessible to the most nontechnical of users. You need to have a massive document library from multiple large players from day one, so you need to have a lot of contacts.
As I said it’s not fully cooked, but I have spoken to a few people that could help me make it happen and they seemed open to it.
First thing that comes to mind is https://devdocs.io/about
Please consider a Patreon for doc review. I don’t mean reviewing the doc against the project for fitness, as that’s the job of each project to maintain and review their own docs; I mean by a technical writer who can de-localize (you only think I mean ‘internationalize’) the document and make it syntactically and logically correct against a generic, classic style guide.
The rising popularity of really bad errors is definitely turning me off from videos or documentation from a few sources with a lot of churn. It ruins the flow and it robs the assumption of authority which I’d argue is an important part of any documentation.
That is a good idea. I am fairly certain I could get funding and/or loaned resource time for English, Spanish, French and German, but crowd funding incentivized localization for other regions is brilliant.
Also I’d rather just have these things in the repository.
That’s not the point. The point is that pointing to Discord means that there simply is no documentation.
I meant it more as a communication platform, not nescessarily for hosting documentation. Either way, using a forum is still pretty good alternative
I only want the documentation if you have to fax it to me
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