Nutshells, books and FAQs

[Christoph Haas]

Hi, friends and foes...

Looks like we get ourselves organised well now. But there's one issue
left I wonder about. We are currently working on the FAQ where we put
topics from the Wiki in. Then other people (I just know of John) are
thinking about the "Ubuntu in a nutshell" which is sometimes referenced
as the "Ubuntu Book". What now?

I have just looked at what documentation Debian provides. And besides
the huge Debian Reference and the Debian Policy there is a number of
documents that all deal with non-development topics. I could imagine we
put all our effort together into a single document. Reading through our
current FAQ (besides that it needs some style review) it seems like all
the subjects could as well fit into "The Book". Look at the User's Guide
Debian has taken from Progeny.

Perhaps other people are already clear about the direction we are
heading. But I'm still confused. And putting together such a large
document is a lot of work. I would really like to avoid double-work and
make sure everybody knows what should get in there.

So my suggestion: can't we abandon the FAQ and change the
"question/answer" style to regular sections within the <book>?
That way we had a single document with everything in it. It could be
used as an FAQ or just be read sequentially as a book.

I know there is a bounty on the "nutshell" task. Honestly I'm not
interested in bounties. So this is not meant to take any money away.
I just fear that we will change our minds once the book gets started.

Just tell me I'm writing complete rubbish. Otherwise this is how we
could get started:

- Consensus on the structure
- Distribute chapters/sections across volunteers (least interference)
- Put the current Q/A into an "old" chapter
- Everybody gets the current Q/A out and moves them to their chapters

I admit that this would probably be even more work than just Q/A. And we
certainly do not need to explain the basic things time and again -
pointers/links should be sufficient. But I would feel more motivated to
write more complete and precise articles instead of just collecting bits
and pieces.

And I would really like to have Matt Kirchhoff involved in this because
we really need someone to watch the work from the above.

Thoughts?

Cheers
 Christoph
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