Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:46:51 -0800
From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
To: Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org, Jim Nasby <jnasby@pervasive.com>,
	Oisin Glynn <me@oisinglynn.com>,
	pgsql general <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] COPY command documentation
Message-ID: <20060323224651.GD6106@fetter.org>
References: <4422B9F8.60100@oisinglynn.com>
	<483F344B-FF17-4DC5-8922-775213566788@pervasive.com>
	<20060323201250.GC6106@fetter.org>
	<200603231646.02465.xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
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On Thu, Mar 23, 2006 at 04:46:02PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:
> > ...and it's unlikely that they will, now or later, without
> > somebody whose whole job is to monitor those comments and make
> > patches.
> 
> Well, we do make some attempt at rolling comments into the docs
> where appropriate, but we could certainly use more dedicated
> contributors in that area.  

If we're going to get dedicated contributors, we could direct their
efforts to things a *lot* more productive than this.  Improving the
formal docs, for example.

> > I'd like to make a Modest Proposal™:  Let's take down the
> > interactive documents and, in their place, put up a request that
> > doc patches be sent to -docs.
> >
> > What say?
> 
> I'd say you're anti-interactive comments :-)

I'm not against them.  I'm just *for* improving the existing docs, and
those comments don't (and won't, very likely) have any pipeline into
those.  Are you personally volunteering for this task, Robert?

> More importantly, people just aren't going to to write patches for
> doc additions... the overhead is several orders of magnitudes
> greater than filling at a web form... so getting rid of the comments
> is sure to lose any gains that we receive.

What gains?  As I said, I'm not against it, but right now, those
things just go down the memory hole to the benefit of nobody.  The
detriment, I'd say, because somebody has wasted their time.

> What I have tried to garner support for in the past was to either
> direct those submission to this group for approval/rejection, which
> would make the folks generally interested in docs directly involved
> in the process. 

Somebody has to vet this.  Please feel free to step up :)

> The other option would be to mail approved doc comments to this
> group so that someone could work them up into doc patches if
> applicable. That really is a factor, most of the comments would need
> to be reworded to be added into the docs proper. 
> 
> In the past these ideas were rejected as either off-topic or that it
> would turn this list into a high traffic list... if peoples opinions
> have changed, it could be arranged. 

I'm voicing a rejection for 'em again on the same grounds.  Until we
have a person whose paid, full-time job is web-comment rassling, this
is a non-starter.

Cheers,
D
-- 
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778        AIM: dfetter666
                              Skype: davidfetter

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