[mythtv-users] CVS

[Ray Olszewski]

At 10:56 AM 9/11/2003 -0400, Isaac Richards wrote:
>On Thursday 11 September 2003 10:52 am, MythTV at C4L wrote:
> > I think this brings up a good point.  It seems like I'm seeing this
> > comment all the time, and I'm wondering if they're such Frequently Asked
> > Questions, why aren't they in a FAQ somewhere?
>
>You think people would read a FAQ?  Hah.

Well, that does answer the question, at least indirectly.

Unless things have changed recently, there no longer is a Myth FAQ. There 
used to be one, but its contents were folded into a late chapter of the 
MythTV HowTo, and they are not (again, as far as I know) regularly updated 
or otherwise maintained.

One quarrel: people should not have to *read* FAQs. They should be able to 
*search* them for answers, not read them end to end. If they *have* to be 
read from start to finish to be useful, then they are poorly written &/or 
organized.

Creating and maintaining a good FAQ is a lot of work. That's why good FAQs 
in general are so rare. Most often, they start out well but get poorly 
maintained (new information is not added, or is added in chaotic fashion, 
and obsolete Q&As are not pruned). I didn't see the erstwhile Myth FAQ when 
it was new, but by the time I did see it, it certainly fit this pattern.

The Myth HowTo, which Robert does try to maintain (and is actually 
receptive to receiving help with, from my experience), serves a different 
purpose from a FAQ -- it *is* meant more for end-to-end reading at install 
time -- which is why (at least in my opinion) the decision to incorporate 
the FAQ into it was unfortunate.

But (apparently) neither he nor Isaac is interested in taking on the 
additional work of distilling list discussion into a maintained FAQ 
(understandable, given their existing work levels), and it would seem that 
others who have indicated an interest (search the list for this too) in 
doing this haven't been able to cut through the insulation of Isaac's 
dismissive attitute toward the effort. Oh well. If Myth does manage to 
evolve into a stable, useful application for use by non-experts, this lack 
will sort itself out somehow.

Perhaps, for the moment, MythTV needs an easily maintained MythTV FAQ, one 
short enough that people would read it end to end. It goes roughly like this:

MythTV FAQ

Q. How do I find the answer to a Frequently Asked Question?

A. Search the archives of the mythtv-dev and mythtv-users mailing lists 
(and perhaps mythtv-commits, for CVS questions). If searching fails, ask it 
again on the appropriate mythtv-* list (and be prepared to be criticized 
for not searching hard enough).

To do searches of mythtv-users and mythtv-dev, start at this URL: 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/mailarc/gforum.cgi?do=search;guest=1161083&t=search_engine

mythtv-commits is not actually searchable, but you can read through a 
non-searchable archive starting at this URL: 
http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-commits/

Q. Why isn't there a better FAQ than this?

A. "You think people would read a FAQ?  Hah."

End of MythTV FAQ