[mythtv] Development of MythTV

[J. Donavan Stanley]

Henk Poley wrote:

>Op donderdag 20 mei 2004 01:57, schreef J. Donavan Stanley:
>  
>
>>Henk Poley wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>In response to some possible troll on the Wiki (don't flame, this mail is
>>>not in any way related to that) I have the following question.
>>>      
>>>
>>That "troll" was me.    Instead of asking someone who might actually
>>know what to put on that page you made  up your own list and  top it off
>>you were giving flat wrong information.  I removed your wish list a few
>>times, and tried get it into your head why I was removing it.
>>    
>>
>
>Ah, thank you for stepping forward, it's always good to know who you are 
>talking to.
>  
>
The anonymous thing was not my doing.  I registered an account for those 
modifications.  For some reason half the time the wiki doesn't recognize 
it's me and I wasn't aware it was happening.


>May I then ask you why I shouldn't think someone is a troll when he/she 
>changes a list to this: (?)
>---
>* Subscribe to mythtv-dev and review it's archive. 
>* Ask the core team how you might be of assistance. 
>* Squash bugs 
>* Squash bugs 
>* Squash bugs 
>* Find your itch and scratch it.
>  
>

This projects is about itches.  Things it done because a particular 
developer gets an itch and they scratch it.   So other than fixing bugs, 
new developers should find their particular itch and scratch it.   If 
firewire support (what ever that mean in a Myth context) is their 
particular itch then that's fine, but chances are they already knew that 
and didn't need a list created by users to tell them that.



>Wikis are about about collaboration, people violating that are most of the 
>time just kids who think it's fun to break websites. I had no other info than 
>that. You could have put up a little comment that you think the content was 
>out of place or something, and then when others agreed it would be moved or 
>deleted. Even just moving stuff right away is okay most of the time, as long 
>as it is still accessible in a reasonable way.
>  
>

This page pointed out my number one complaint about wikis.  Anybody and 
their brother can put up information, and it's often wrong.  Personaly, 
I think if folks are going to be writing documentation they should stick 
to topics they actually know about instead of shooting from the hip (and 
missing).


>>If you'd like to start a user wish list page on the wiki for folks to
>>look over for development ideas by all means do so.  Just label it as
>>such, instead of pretending your list of tasks reflects the goals of any
>>of the people who regularly contribute code to MythTV.
>>    
>>
>
>You could have just done that yourselfm, why didn't you create a page like 
>that and moved the stuff there? 
>
Because the wiki isn't my responsibility.  My primary goal was to try 
and eliminate the misleading and wrong information from that page.  But 
you were so concerned with "it's open source I can do what I want"  that 
you didn't think that maybe the information was removed for a reason.  
Kind of like how you all ran off to start a wiki instead of contributing 
to the real documentation. 

Had you actually worked towards making the existing docs better we 
wouldn't be having this conversation because when whoever wrote that 
crap submitted it for inclusion in the docs someone would have said 
"ummm that's not even close to being correct".  But it's so much more 
fun to be able to write whatever you want, without a care in the world 
for accuracy.



>PS: I will stop beating this dead horse. Sorry I didn't know the 'together' in 
>open source ended at the individual ego.
>  
>
It's not about ego.  It's about a bunch of people creating a guide on a 
subject they know nothing about.  Forgive me for caring enough about the 
project to not want potential developers being fed horse shit.