Rails core - Nov 2007 - manuals.rubyonrails.com, documentation and apathy

Recently someone posted about manuals.rubyonrails.com being down and
almost 2 days later, someone finally responded.  I find this response
truly mind boggling.  Here we have the main ruby site directly
referencing manuals.rubyonrails.com as a source of documentation and
it takes 2 days for someone to acknowledge that the site is down?  It
is now Nov 5th and I don''t know if the site has been down since the
22nd, but it definitely has been down for the last 5 days.

On top of that, why is one of the mentioned manuals on the
documentation page "Upgrading to Rails 1.0"?  We''ve already
gone to
1.2 and 2.0 isn''t that far away, updates that include some fairly
substantial changes.  There''s a link to "Rails Weenie" in the
"by the
users" section that doesn''t work, there are 2 open source
repositories
listed that don''t work, Hieraki and rforum, and about half the links
that do work are from 2005.

What''s amazing to me is that despite the fact that many people have
acknoledged documentation, or lack thereof, as a real problem with
Rails, no one seems to be willing to do anything about it.  After a 6
month hiatus, I''m coming back to rails to find many links to posts
about rails just don''t work anymore.

What''s going on here?  I love ruby on rails but this kind of apathy
for something so basic is just crazy.

Scott


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> On top of that, why is one of the mentioned manuals on the
> documentation page "Upgrading to Rails 1.0"?  We''ve
already gone to
> 1.2 and 2.0 isn''t that far away, updates that include some fairly
> substantial changes.  There''s a link to "Rails Weenie"
in the "by the
> users" section that doesn''t work, there are 2 open source
repositories
> listed that don''t work, Hieraki and rforum, and about half the
links
> that do work are from 2005.
Maybe manuals.rubyonrails.org should just be put out of its misery.

Jim

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> > On top of that, why is one of the mentioned manuals on the
> > documentation page "Upgrading to Rails 1.0"?  We''ve
already gone to
> > 1.2 and 2.0 isn''t that far away, updates that include some
fairly
> > substantial changes.  There''s a link to "Rails
Weenie" in the "by the
> > users" section that doesn''t work, there are 2 open
source repositories
> > listed that don''t work, Hieraki and rforum, and about half
the links
> > that do work are from 2005.
>
Rails doesn''t owe you anything -- it''s up to concerned people
to
provide constructive help, rather than demanding Someone Else Does It.

I''m sure someone can give you admin access to that site to fix it.

And yes, people do say that there''s a problem with documentation, but
very rarely can they point out what''s wrong, and how to fix it.  FWIW
there''s still about 50% of the documentation fund left for this exact
purpose.



Courtenay

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If whoever maintains the server wants to give me access, I can take a
look. I''ve needed an excuse to get up to speed on server monitoring
apps.

Sandofsky at gmail

On Nov 5, 6:08 pm, Courtenay <court3...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> > > On top of that, why is one of the mentioned manuals on the
> > > documentation page "Upgrading to Rails 1.0"? 
We''ve already gone to
> > > 1.2 and 2.0 isn''t that far away, updates that include
some fairly
> > > substantial changes.  There''s a link to "Rails
Weenie" in the "by the
> > > users" section that doesn''t work, there are 2 open
source repositories
> > > listed that don''t work, Hieraki and rforum, and about
half the links
> > > that do work are from 2005.
>
> Rails doesn''t owe you anything -- it''s up to concerned
people to
> provide constructive help, rather than demanding Someone Else Does It.
>
> I''m sure someone can give you admin access to that site to fix it.
>
> And yes, people do say that there''s a problem with documentation,
but
> very rarely can they point out what''s wrong, and how to fix it. 
FWIW
> there''s still about 50% of the documentation fund left for this
exact
> purpose.
>
> Courtenay

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>
>
> What''s amazing to me is that despite the fact that many people
have
> acknoledged documentation, or lack thereof, as a real problem with
> Rails, no one seems to be willing to do anything about it.  After a 6
> month hiatus, I''m coming back to rails to find many links to posts
> about rails just don''t work anymore.
Unfortunately the degree of dissatisfaction with rails'' documentation  
never seems to make it across to someone with the passion and  
creativity to actually spearhead an effort to *fix* it.  Money has  
been raised, and ire has often been raised with it.  But what we  
really need is someone to stand up and take charge of the effort,  
without subsequently getting distracted / giving up.

> What''s going on here?  I love ruby on rails but this kind of
apathy
> for something so basic is just crazy.
>
As someone who loves rails, and is passionate about documentation,  
you''re an ideal candidate to take care of the content.  Why not create
a page on the wiki,beat it into shape then we can make it replace the  
core documentation page.

As for the manuals site,  we don''t have a systems administrator and we
need one. If you or someone you know knows FreeBSD, postgres, solaris  
lets see what we can work out.

Michael Koziarski
michael@koziarski.com




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On Nov 5, 2007, at 8:04 PM, Michael Koziarski <michael@koziarski.com>  
wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> What''s amazing to me is that despite the fact that many people
have
>> acknoledged documentation, or lack thereof, as a real problem with
>> Rails, no one seems to be willing to do anything about it.  After a 6
>> month hiatus, I''m coming back to rails to find many links to
posts
>> about rails just don''t work anymore.
>
> Unfortunately the degree of dissatisfaction with rails''
documentation
> never seems to make it across to someone with the passion and
> creativity to actually spearhead an effort to *fix* it.  Money has
> been raised, and ire has often been raised with it.  But what we
> really need is someone to stand up and take charge of the effort,
> without subsequently getting distracted / giving up.
>
>
>> What''s going on here?  I love ruby on rails but this kind of
apathy
>> for something so basic is just crazy.
>>
>
> As someone who loves rails, and is passionate about documentation,
> you''re an ideal candidate to take care of the content.  Why not
create
> a page on the wiki,beat it into shape then we can make it replace the
> core documentation page.
>
> As for the manuals site,  we don''t have a systems administrator
and we
> need one. If you or someone you know knows FreeBSD, postgres, solaris
> lets see what we can work out.
>
> Michael Koziarski
> michael@koziarski.com
>
>
>
>
> >
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On Nov 5, 2007, at 8:04 PM, Michael Koziarski <michael@koziarski.com>  
wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> What''s amazing to me is that despite the fact that many people
have
>> acknoledged documentation, or lack thereof, as a real problem with
>> Rails, no one seems to be willing to do anything about it.  After a 6
>> month hiatus, I''m coming back to rails to find many links to
posts
>> about rails just don''t work anymore.
>
> Unfortunately the degree of dissatisfaction with rails''
documentation
> never seems to make it across to someone with the passion and
> creativity to actually spearhead an effort to *fix* it.  Money has
> been raised, and ire has often been raised with it.  But what we
> really need is someone to stand up and take charge of the effort,
> without subsequently getting distracted / giving up.
>
>
>> What''s going on here?  I love ruby on rails but this kind of
apathy
>> for something so basic is just crazy.
>>
>
> As someone who loves rails, and is passionate about documentation,
> you''re an ideal candidate to take care of the content.  Why not
create
> a page on the wiki,beat it into shape then we can make it replace the
> core documentation page.
>
> As for the manuals site,  we don''t have a systems administrator
and we
> need one. If you or someone you know knows FreeBSD, postgres, solaris
> lets see what we can work out.
>

There''s your problem right there ... ;)

>
>
>
>
> >
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systems administrators may view that as a challenge to be relished.... Maybe....

On 11/6/07, Courtenay <court3nay@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 5, 2007, at 8:04 PM, Michael Koziarski <michael@koziarski.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> What''s amazing to me is that despite the fact that many
people have
> >> acknoledged documentation, or lack thereof, as a real problem with
> >> Rails, no one seems to be willing to do anything about it.  After
a 6
> >> month hiatus, I''m coming back to rails to find many links
to posts
> >> about rails just don''t work anymore.
> >
> > Unfortunately the degree of dissatisfaction with rails''
documentation
> > never seems to make it across to someone with the passion and
> > creativity to actually spearhead an effort to *fix* it.  Money has
> > been raised, and ire has often been raised with it.  But what we
> > really need is someone to stand up and take charge of the effort,
> > without subsequently getting distracted / giving up.
> >
> >
> >> What''s going on here?  I love ruby on rails but this kind
of apathy
> >> for something so basic is just crazy.
> >>
> >
> > As someone who loves rails, and is passionate about documentation,
> > you''re an ideal candidate to take care of the content.  Why
not create
> > a page on the wiki,beat it into shape then we can make it replace the
> > core documentation page.
> >
> > As for the manuals site,  we don''t have a systems
administrator and we
> > need one. If you or someone you know knows FreeBSD, postgres, solaris
> > lets see what we can work out.
> >
>
>
> There''s your problem right there ... ;)
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
>
> >
>

-- 
Cheers

Koz

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On 11/5/07, Michael Koziarski <michael@koziarski.com>
wrote:
> But what we really need is someone to stand up and take charge of the
effort,
> without subsequently getting distracted / giving up.
Yeah!  I can''t stand those people who lack focus and dedicat - Oooh!
Something shiny!

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> > > On top of that, why is one of the mentioned manuals on the
> > > documentation page "Upgrading to Rails 1.0"? 
We''ve already gone to
> > > 1.2 and 2.0 isn''t that far away, updates that include
some fairly
> > > substantial changes.  There''s a link to "Rails
Weenie" in the "by the
> > > users" section that doesn''t work, there are 2 open
source repositories
> > > listed that don''t work, Hieraki and rforum, and about
half the links
> > > that do work are from 2005.
> >
>
> Rails doesn''t owe you anything -- it''s up to concerned
people to
> provide constructive help, rather than demanding Someone Else Does It.
So who should update the official webpage with working links then? Is
it world-editable by anyone? Is there any way Scott, or anyone, can
make manuals.rubyonrails.com work? Is it wrong to assume that the
maintainers of the webpage take responsibility for it working at all?

Tomas

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> So who should update the official webpage with working links then? Is
> it world-editable by anyone? Is there any way Scott, or anyone, can
> make manuals.rubyonrails.com work? Is it wrong to assume that the
> maintainers of the webpage take responsibility for it working at all?
The manuals site is back up again. The machine had run out of space
due to log rotation not being set up.

So yes, we need a volunteer systems administrator that can help setup
things how they''re supposed to be and monitor them. We had one a while
back, but he left and haven''t been able to replace him since.

Consider this a call for action. People are always asking how they can
help Rails in other ways than supplying patches. Here''s one.


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There was a Documentation Drive going on... I posted some ideas there
4 months ago:
http://caboose.stikipad.com/documentation/show/ThreeIdeas

As far as Gem Reference, RailsBrain.com achieves some of these things:
http://www.railsbrain.com/
For API docs, perhaps that could replace the current:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/
And some $ could be sent Brian''s way to keep things up-to-date, rather
than him having a "donate" button?

What other resources are out there?
For example Patrick Lenz'' free book:
http://rails.sitepoint.com/

Honestly, having one authoritative source for relevant resources could
go a long way. I''m subscribed to ~36 Rails related blogs to find out
about these sorts of things, but it took time to come across them.

- nathan.



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Given the chance, I''d work on the manuals site to at least update
what''s there.  I''ve contributed a lot to the API docs before,
but lost
interest/time capacity (due to a lot of issues that been discussed and
fixed).

Now, I have more time and have been looking at doing some API docs,
but it seems that maybe the manual updates would be more useful.  How
should I go about making edits?  If you''re skittish about giving me
access, can you at least give me the markdown/textile/wiki source or a
database dump so I can edit it in its native format?

--Jeremy

On 11/5/07, Michael Koziarski <michael@koziarski.com>
wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > What''s amazing to me is that despite the fact that many
people have
> > acknoledged documentation, or lack thereof, as a real problem with
> > Rails, no one seems to be willing to do anything about it.  After a 6
> > month hiatus, I''m coming back to rails to find many links to
posts
> > about rails just don''t work anymore.
>
> Unfortunately the degree of dissatisfaction with rails''
documentation
> never seems to make it across to someone with the passion and
> creativity to actually spearhead an effort to *fix* it.  Money has
> been raised, and ire has often been raised with it.  But what we
> really need is someone to stand up and take charge of the effort,
> without subsequently getting distracted / giving up.
>
>
> > What''s going on here?  I love ruby on rails but this kind of
apathy
> > for something so basic is just crazy.
> >
>
> As someone who loves rails, and is passionate about documentation,
> you''re an ideal candidate to take care of the content.  Why not
create
> a page on the wiki,beat it into shape then we can make it replace the
> core documentation page.
>
> As for the manuals site,  we don''t have a systems administrator
and we
> need one. If you or someone you know knows FreeBSD, postgres, solaris
> lets see what we can work out.
>
> Michael Koziarski
> michael@koziarski.com
>
>
>
>
> >
>

-- 
http://www.jeremymcanally.com/

My books:
Ruby in Practice
http://www.manning.com/mcanally/

My free Ruby e-book
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

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On Nov 7, 2007 10:16 AM, Jeremy McAnally <jeremymcanally@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Given the chance, I''d work on the manuals site to at least update
> what''s there.  I''ve contributed a lot to the API docs
before, but lost
> interest/time capacity (due to a lot of issues that been discussed and
> fixed).
>
> Now, I have more time and have been looking at doing some API docs,
> but it seems that maybe the manual updates would be more useful.  How
> should I go about making edits?  If you''re skittish about giving
me
> access, can you at least give me the markdown/textile/wiki source or a
> database dump so I can edit it in its native format?
If you have a login to the site I''m happy to give you access,
assuming I can figure out how to do that ;).

-- 
Cheers

Koz

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On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 08:14:20AM -0800, DHH wrote:
> > So who should update the official webpage with working links then? Is
> > it world-editable by anyone? Is there any way Scott, or anyone, can
> > make manuals.rubyonrails.com work? Is it wrong to assume that the
> > maintainers of the webpage take responsibility for it working at all?
> 
> The manuals site is back up again. The machine had run out of space
> due to log rotation not being set up.
> 
> So yes, we need a volunteer systems administrator that can help setup
> things how they''re supposed to be and monitor them. We had one a
while
> back, but he left and haven''t been able to replace him since.
> 
> Consider this a call for action. People are always asking how they can
> help Rails in other ways than supplying patches. Here''s one.
I''m up for it.  What''s one more machine to manage amongst
friends?  <grin>

- Matt

-- 
A polar bear is a rectangular bear after a coordinate transform.

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Jeremy

Well I have an interest in helping. 
I have several things that I could suggest to the Rails API
documentation. Even this week asked the IRC channel and could help
documentation. 
I thought in me apply for the voluntary manuals.rubyonrails.com.br but I
am new in the list and have not gave effective contribution yet, so
Jeremy, need help please contact me for this challenge.

Cheers,

João Lins



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I''d be more than happy to volunteer for this, at least it would be
something I''d be a lot more capable of doing since I currently work as
a sysadmin at a rails hosting company (http://www.brightbox.co.uk).

Scott

On Nov 6, 5:14 pm, DHH <david.heineme...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> > So who should update the official webpage with working links then? Is
> > it world-editable by anyone? Is there any way Scott, or anyone, can
> > make manuals.rubyonrails.com work? Is it wrong to assume that the
> > maintainers of the webpage take responsibility for it working at all?
>
> The manuals site is back up again. The machine had run out of space
> due to log rotation not being set up.
>
> So yes, we need a volunteer systems administrator that can help setup
> things how they''re supposed to be and monitor them. We had one a
while
> back, but he left and haven''t been able to replace him since.
>
> Consider this a call for action. People are always asking how they can
> help Rails in other ways than supplying patches. Here''s one.

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