check the documents

This page is intended as a help for people having to check the documents status.

Why

It obvious that the first thing LDP have to do is to give accurate and up to date documents. But the things being what they are, this is an endless task.

HOWTOs up to date (even if old) and maintained can be let in the collection without problem. Action have only to be taken if a document have to be edited.

How

Right now (November, 2008) we didn't find the manpower to move all the HOWTOs to the wiki. We aren't sure it would be a good idea, either.

There where a very long but very interesting discussion on the discuss list about licences (see the default licence page and the corresponding comment pages).

Actions to be done are indexed by the licence in the document.

Basic action

In any case where a static (that is document existing only in the static LDP collection) document need change, the first step is to note this in the Page_Status with a log of the taken action.

Then write to the discuss list to quote the problem and the action you want to do. Always write to the discuss list at any step, it's very important than anybody stay tuned (don't necessarily wait too long for an answer, go on :-).

Then try to contact the author. If the author is aware of the problem and don't ask for help, write so in the Page Status an go to an other document. The initial author have always the priority. Of course you can propose help and most authors will say yes :-). It's specially important to know if the author accepts to have the HOWTO ported to the wiki (isn't that already noted on the page status?). Eventually help him porting the HOWTO to the wiki - if this is done with write enabled, the fixing problem is over (that's the wiki goal).

Modifiable by all document

With the author consent, or without if he's unreachable, port the HOWTO to the wiki. Let it write enabled and fix it there.

UNmodifiable document

With the author's consent, or without if he's unreachable, port the document to the wiki. Ask an admin to make it read-only and make all the corrections on the comment page.

It's always possible to comment on a document. Any LDP document can be published in any form, including the wiki. What you can't do is copying the document, edit it and publish it modified, with the old author name nor with yours.

So write on the comment page: "the third paragraph say do xxxx, on newer hardware, one must do yyyyy", for example.

You can also rewrite completely the document, but in a manner that it is obvious it's not a simple copy edited. But this is only worth if your are ready to take the authorship of the new document and become a LDP Author (we are glad to thank :-).