the sad state of our FAQs

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner
<stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc> wrote:

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.

+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

Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:

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current release, contains a ton of factual errors on outdated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Some of the others also look outdated and seem to contain outdated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

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)

* a fairly large number of URLs are outdated, invalid or are not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.

+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

Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:

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.

[...]

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.

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

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

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.

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

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:04 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

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.

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

Brendan Jurd <direvus@gmail.com> writes:

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.

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

On Mar 7, 2009, at 2:33 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Brendan Jurd <direvus@gmail.com> writes:

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).

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.

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

Magnus Hagander a �crit :

Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote:

[...]
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.

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

+1 too.

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".

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

Selena Deckelmann wrote:

On Mar 7, 2009, at 2:33 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Brendan Jurd <direvus@gmail.com> writes:

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Tatsuo Ishii wrote:

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.

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

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,
though.

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

Stefan

Tom Lane wrote:

Brendan Jurd <direvus@gmail.com> writes:

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Tatsuo Ishii wrote:

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.

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?

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.

Tatsuo Ishii wrote:

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

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.

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?

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

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

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 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.

I guess the sticking point would be about how long to preserve FAQ
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

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

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.

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 <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

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

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

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.

I am fine with whatever changes people suggestion; the FAQ just isn't
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