Subject: the sad state of our FAQs

From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:05:02 +0100

Our FAQs are in a really sad state and it#s about time to think about 
what we want to do about that because in the current state there are 
creating much more harm than good.

Just from a quick glance we have:

German FAQ - last updated at the end of 2007, talks about 8.2.5 as the 
current release, contains a ton of factual errors on outdated 
information and urls

French FAQ - last updated in 2004, has broken encoding (so it seems 
pretty clear it is not used much at all), thinks 7.4.5 is our current 
release and

Hungarian FAQ - last updated in 2005

Some of the others also look outdated and seem to contain outdated 
informations.

Even the main FAQ seems to be in need of an overhaul - random 
oberservations include:

* current release is 8.3.3
* a fairly large number of URLs are outdated, invalid or are not 
pointing directly to the current autoritative sources (TODO,Developer 
FAQ, varlena.com links, ...)
* some articles are either fairly pointless, duplicate the main docs or 
need to at least get fleshed out a bit:

  -> 3.1 seems rather short on actual content, duplicates (better) 
information in the main docs as well as in the wiki and does not talk 
about what likely is 95% of our installed based (ie packages)
  -> 3.5 is slightly wrong as in we are trying to determine the maximum 
at initdb time up to the stated limit of 100 (also some packages have 
different defaults)
  -> 4.2 not sure it is sensible to refer to a C-source file instead of 
the docs here for the average user
  -> 4.5 has a spelling error s/avergages/averages
  -> 4.7 not a very useful reference without an actual link
  -> 4.12 should talk about the deprecation status of OIDs at least
  -> 4.13 seems like a fairly unhelpful and maybe wrong general advise 
(a datasize limit of 256MB would be considered a joke for a lot of 
usecases and is likely much smaller that what the default in a modern OS 
is) without some more discussion
  -> 4.20 duplicates the main docs as well as some wiki stuff in a bad way

this is just from a 10min read of the FAQ so I guess there are more 
things that are worth discussing like with the platform specific FAQs 
which seem to be in a similiar bad shape).

To sum the current state up:

* have have a number of the localized FAQs in a very outdated and wrong 
state
* the main FAQ contains a lot of duplication of stuff documented and 
discussed better in other places as well as missing a lot of thinge to 
make them better usable (like instead of "look in the manual for 
EXPLAIN" or "See the create_sequence manual page" why not provide an 
actual URL/link to those)
* we have a number of invalid/wrong URLs in there
* appearently most FAQ maintainers lost interest in keep up with the 
translations which I guess is a result of the ridiculous way to keep 
them updated right now (provide a source level patch, send it to bruce 
and wait for it getting commited)
* a lot of things that ARE actually asked a lot are not mentioned in the 
FAQ at all

My proposal is to move all the FAQs to the wiki(just with what happened 
with the developer FAQ) with the hope that more people get interested in 
  keeping them up to date and only reference those on the main page that 
at least contains "somewhat" accurate information.I honestly believe 
that the current state is more damaging that not having any (translated 
FAQs) at all.

Stefan

---

From: Selena Deckelmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 06:07:48 -0800

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>  keeping them up to date and only reference those on the main page that at
> least contains "somewhat" accurate information.I honestly believe that the
> current state is more damaging that not having any (translated FAQs) at all.

+1

And please send people directly to the wiki FAQs from menu links, and
redirect from existing pages.

-selena

-- 
Selena Deckelmann
Open Source Bridge - http://www.opensourcebridge.org
PDXPUG - http://pugs.postgresql.org/pdx
Me - http://www.chesnok.com/daily

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:21:23 +0100

> * current release is 8.3.3

It has been mentioned several times before that this shouldn't be in the
FAQ - it should just refer to the website as the listing of the current
version.

(not going to comment on all the other points individually, just the
comment at the bottom)

>  -> 4.13 seems like a fairly unhelpful and maybe wrong general advise (a
> datasize limit of 256MB would be considered a joke for a lot of usecases
> and is likely much smaller that what the default in a modern OS is)
> without some more discussion

+1. Or rather, +8743 or something, if I get that many votes for some reason.

The developer faq shows a fairly healthy set of different authors, so I
think we can fairly say that moving that one really helped.

Then we can always ask the local groups like postgresqlfr if they
actualliy want to keep the FAQ on the main site at all or link to a FAQ
they have on their local site... My bet is that information on that site
is another reason why they haven't been bothering with the "main FAQ".

//Magnus

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 16:53:05 -0300

> creating much more harm than good.

[...]

> that the current state is more damaging that not having any (translated  

I completely agree that having a bad translation is worse than not
having a translation at all.  However, enthusiastic people will
translate anything you throw at them, and if the tools don't help, the
results will be less than ideal; bad formatting, slightly wrong answers,
outdated answers.

If we move the FAQ to the wiki, the outdated translations will not
disappear nor be automatically updated.  I claim that if we move them to
a translatable framework that helps people notice when the translation
is nonexistant or out of date, we will have better results.

I proposed this previously but got no support from Bruce who is supposed
to be the FAQ maintainer, and thus I ended up doing nothing.  Therefore
I now offer to do the job required to move them to XML Docbook and allow
translatability using xml2po or something similar.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

---

From: Tom Lane <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:04:17 -0500

> translatability using xml2po or something similar.

ISTM there are two separate issues here.  One is whether we want to get
the FAQs out of CVS and into some more widely-editable place.  The other
is whether to adopt some tools/framework to ease maintenance of
translated versions.  I'm in favor of both (though am not personally
prepared to expend any work for it :-().  I do not know whether xml2po
is the most suitable tool, though.

The one good thing that having the FAQs in CVS does for us is make it
fairly easy to have version-specific FAQs.  I don't think we've really
exploited that capability, except in the indirect sense that we simply
stopped updating back branches' FAQs (which hardly seems ideal).  So
losing it doesn't seem like a showstopper objection to me.  Still, it's
something that might be nice to preserve if we can.

			regards, tom lane

---

From: Brendan Jurd <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 09:18:46 +1100

> something that might be nice to preserve if we can.

There's nothing stopping us from maintaining per-version FAQs in a
wiki environment.  We just put up a page for "FAQ 7.4", "FAQ 8.0" and
so on, with "FAQ" always redirecting to the page for the latest stable
release.

Although to be frank I think the value of per-version FAQs is dubious.
 I would be totally okay with seeing the back-branch FAQs abandoned in
favour of the One FAQ (to rule them all, etc).

Perhaps, instead of back-branch FAQs which are bound to be mostly an
old copy of the One FAQ, we could have some kind of "Things to Note If
You're Running an Older Version" article.

Cheers,
BJ

---

From: Tom Lane <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:33:13 -0500

> You're Running an Older Version" article.

In the past, Bruce has not hesitated to rip out or replace FAQ entries
as soon as they became obsolete.  That approach would have to change if
we went to a one-true-FAQ approach.  In particular, it's often the case
that the best way to do something depends on which version you're
running.

I think it might well be true though that it'd be better to have one FAQ
with answers that say something like "Before version x.y, do this ...
in x.y and later, do that ...".  That approach makes sure that people
know that they are reading version-specific advice; whereas the separate
FAQs approach makes it pretty easy for people to fail to notice that
they are reading advice that's inappropriate for their version.

I guess the sticking point would be about how long to preserve FAQ
entries that are no longer relevant to the current release.

			regards, tom lane

---

From: Selena Deckelmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 14:52:19 -0800

> they are reading advice that's inappropriate for their version.

Another approach would be to tag each FAQ with what version it was  
created for and what version it is deprecated for. (pretty much what  
Brenden suggested, but slightly less overhead than listing all  
versions the FAQ applies to)

Then we could do cool things like generate the version specific FAQs  
programmatically and not ever worry about removing them.

-Selena

---

From: Guillaume Lelarge <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 23:59:55 +0100

> +1. Or rather, +8743 or something, if I get that many votes for some reason.

+1 too.

> is another reason why they haven't been bothering with the "main FAQ".

I did the translation with a few other guys a long time ago. I wanted to
maintain it, but it was a lot more work than I could spend on it. I
don't think this has changed. I think the best thing to do is to get rid
of it right now (it being the french translation).

-- 
Guillaume.
 http://www.postgresqlfr.org
 http://dalibo.com

---

From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:30:06 +0100

Selena Deckelmann wrote:
> Brenden suggested, but slightly less overhead than listing all versions 
> the FAQ applies to)
> 

Yeah so some simple tags/icons like "8.1+, 7.4 only, 8.0 and older" on a 
per entry base? We also could use something like an "outdated" template 
for flagging specific entries or complete FAQ/wiki pages.
I don't really think that the per version FAQ is really a reality - we 
only have one version on the main website (which is actually -HEAD I 
think which makes it even more weird) and I really doubt that a lot of 
people are reading them elsewhere.

Stefan

---

From: Tatsuo Ishii <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:51:01 +0900 (JST)

> that the current state is more damaging that not having any (translated 

If you are suggesting that you remove well-maintained localized FAQs
together, then I against it. We should remove unmaintained localized
FAQs first IMO.

The discussion about English FAQ's state is completely another story,
though.
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan

---

From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:36:23 +0100

> together, then I against it. We should remove unmaintained localized

I was just suggesting moving all of them them and only link to those 
that are reasonably well maintained.
So for a well maintained faq like the japanese one the only thing that 
would change is that you can translate it directly in the wiki instead 
of sending a patch to bruce.

> The discussion about English FAQ's state is completely another story,

well it's clearly related because there is a direct relation
  between the source (the english one) and the translations.

Stefan

---

From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:53:53 +0100

> entries that are no longer relevant to the current release.

Well a more extreme thing would to to ask "What is the purpose of our FAQ?".
In the current state it imho contains a few actual FAQ worth things 
(mostly stuff in the "General" section) the rest seems to be incomplete 
duplication of information that is already available in a better form 
elsewhere (be it the wiki, the main docs, the IRC docbot or external 
resources).
So maybe the current FAQ needs an overhaul in the sense of reducing it 
to a much smaller number of things in the main FAQ and replacing the 
rest of the things with something that provides much easier access to 
the available resources(which I frankly think the search and the wiki 
already does so people are not actually reading the FAQs any more).

Whatever that "something" could be it seems it would reduce our 
maintainance overhead as well as improve the accuracy if we keep 
information in one place and not try to duplicate in multiple sources.

Stefan

---

From: Tatsuo Ishii <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:08:56 +0900 (JST)

> of sending a patch to bruce.

I don't know if Japanese FAQ maintainer would gladly do the
reformatting work to upload to Wiki. Does anyone have a script to
translate from HTML to Wiki?
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan

---

From: Tatsuo Ishii <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:10:45 +0900 (JST)

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 10:45:50 -0300

> translate from HTML to Wiki?

What do you (and the Japanese FAQ maintainer) think of the idea of
managing the translation with PO tools instead?

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:39:28 +0100

> translate from HTML to Wiki?

IIRC I did a test-translation of the FAQ from the *text* format we have
in CVS today to the wiki, and it was trivial. He'll definitely want to
use that as base and not the HTML.

//Magnus

---

From: Brendan Jurd <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 09:18:47 +1100

> they are reading advice that's inappropriate for their version.

I agree, and note that at least one of the existing FAQs already
adopts this style of advice.  In 4.19:

    "In PostgreSQL versions < 8.3, ... This problem does not occur in
PostgreSQL 8.3 and later."

While I'm not a big fan of using comparison operators in English
prose, this approach seems to work well.

> entries that are no longer relevant to the current release.

Really something to be worked out on a per-case basis I suppose.  If
the goal of the FAQ is to help people who have Questions that are
Asked Frequently, then we could stop mentioning a release when people
stop asking questions about it?

Cheers,
BJ

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 15:06:04 -0400 (EDT)

> translatability using xml2po or something similar.

I am fine with whatever changes people suggestion;  the FAQ just isn't
updated that often for me to care where it resides.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <[email-masked]>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:21:42 +0100

> updated that often for me to care where it resides.

I think that statement alone is a good indicator of why it has to be moved.

Some figures for the interested, btw.

The FAQ had ~7700 reads from ~6300 unique visitors last month.

These people received information that was simply incorrect. I think
that's more than enough people to care about.

As a reference point, the Windows FAQ on the wiki had ~6900 reads from
~5800 unique visitors (the most popular page on the wiki other than the
frontpage). So I think it's pretty clear that putting it on the wiki
doesn't make less people look at it - at least not with the link that's
there from the main site.

//Magnus

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:21:18 -0700

> translatability using xml2po or something similar.

I would like to see us have a single documentation standard though. Our
core docs are still Docbook SGML which is a bit different :( Other than
that, I am all for it.

Joshua D. Drake

-- 
PostgreSQL - XMPP: [email-masked]
   Consulting, Development, Support, Training
   503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
   The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 17:54:10 -0300

> core docs are still Docbook SGML which is a bit different :( Other than

Magnus has extor^Wconvinced me over IM to drop this idea, which means
less work for me.  Yay!

---

From: Tatsuo Ishii <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:41:11 +0900 (JST)

> there from the main site.

I am suprised to see this number is so *small*. I guess the number of
PostgreSQL users on Windows are 10 times larger than any other
platforms at least. So if your theory is correct, I think Windows FAQ
accesses should be 10 times larger.
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS, Inc. Japan

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:04:53 +0200

> core docs are still Docbook SGML which is a bit different :( Other than

I think, although others might disagree, that the FAQ is by its nature 
more of a web resource than a software documentation resource.  So it 
ought to be managed by the standards of the web site, e.g., rapid 
releases, version independent, whatever translation system the web site 
uses.  (I consider the wiki to be an extension of the web site, for this 
argument.)

---

From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:54:13 +0100

> updated that often for me to care where it resides.

With some help from alvaro I just moved the current version of the FAQ 
to http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/FAQ. For now this is mostly just a 
reformatted version of what is on the main site with some minor 
adjustments done (like spelling fixes and some invalid URLs removed).

I will look into updating the website if people think this version is fine.

Stefan

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:11:55 -0300

> I will look into updating the website if people think this version is fine.

There are some very minor formatting glitches left, but the good thing
about this being on the wiki is that anybody can go and fix them.

The bad thing is that translations have to be maintained by hand (as
they always have).  The spanish one is already in place:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Preguntas_Frecuentes

Stefan tells me that Mediawiki has plugins to help with the translation,
but for now they continue to require hand inspection.  We'll welcome
more information on this regard.

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:39:08 -0400

> already does so people are not actually reading the FAQs any more).

Okay, so the FAQ is now on the Wiki.  Is anybody actually going to work
on overhauling it?

I'm also wondering why do we have two pages, FAQ and
Frequently_Asked_Questions.  Shouldn't they be merged?

---

From: Greg Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:13:33 -0400 (EDT)

> Frequently_Asked_Questions.  Shouldn't they be merged?

I started putting stuff on that other page while I waited for the official 
FAQ to get migrated over.  There are a fair number of wiki pages tagged in 
the FAQ category as well.  Some of those are too big to really merge 
usefully into the FAQ, others might get dumped into the main document.

Several of the pages listed on there were aimed to replace or supplement 
existing entries in the full FAQ from the start.  As an example, "4.2 How 
do I control connections from other hosts?" has considerably less 
information than any newbie needs to resolve those problems, as anybody 
hanging out on IRC is painfully aware.  I wrote an initial draft of 
something on the "Client Authentication" page on the Wiki to help pull 
together pointers to all the relevant places in the documentation, into 
something closer to a walkthrough, and the result is larger than FAQ-entry 
length.  That's going to stay a FAQ *page* instead, I think, one that gets 
pointed to as a supplemental reference for the terse description given for 
4.2 right now.

I can help sort through all this once I get past my next conference gig in 
another week, all my spare time has been spent tormenting systems with 
pgbench lately.

--
* Greg Smith [email-masked] http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:31:34 -0400

Greg Smith escribió:

> That's going to stay a FAQ *page* instead, I think, one that gets
> pointed to as a supplemental reference for the terse description given
> for 4.2 right now.

Sure, that makes a lot of sense.