An LWN reader survey [LWN.net]

An LWN reader survey

Posted Feb 1, 2007 7:55 UTC (Thu) by pimlott (guest, #1535)
Parent article: An LWN reader survey

Assorted comments:

I can't find anything called "main articles" or "daily updates", but I assume this is what you get at http://lwn.net/, yes?

I'm very mixed about more guest authors. To date, their quality has varied widely, some splendid, some junk as far as I'm concerned, and I wish that they were held to a uniformly high standard. Further, some have a grating tendency to mimic Jon's writing style. While it works brilliantly for him, I don't enjoy reading poor imitations.

I'm a bit bothered by the positive response to the "howto" suggestions. Howtos are everywhere on the web, and while I'm sure LWN could do them better, it might just be adding to the clutter. It just doesn't seem to be a good way for LWN to distinguish itself and use its scarce resources. Further, this sort of material is best incorporated directly into the projects' documentation, I think. But maybe I have to see a few articles before judging.

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An LWN reader survey

Posted Feb 1, 2007 8:19 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

good how-to articles don't need to be written by the LWN staff, in fact they are a perfect way to get contributions from others.

the key problem is how to get ones that are in depth enough to be worthwhile without being overly complicated.

An LWN reader survey

Posted Feb 1, 2007 20:45 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

I agree. The problem with non-trivial howtos is that they are necessarily tied to a particular version of a particular distribution.

For instance, I'm in the middle of writing a KVM howto: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM . I'd love to submit something like this to LWN for publication. The problem is, it would take days for me to make it distribution-neutral. And, if it did cover most of the popular distributions, it would probably be incomprehensible. Ever try following code with tons of #ifdefs in it? Now picture that with English...

HOWTOs are great. I'm just skeptical that they could be turned into something worthy of publication on LWN.

(I suppose one solution would be a wiki-type-thing, where readers could translate HOWTOs to different distros themselves. That sounds a little far-fetched though...)

Howto Suggestions

Posted Feb 1, 2007 11:36 UTC (Thu) by siesel (subscriber, #5021) [Link]

I also bother about the "howto" sugestion. So I would like to know more about LWN's understanding of "howtos".

What I would like is a "howto" approach similar to the "Grumpy" Editor articles. Just taking a real world problem, e.g. remote desktop/ssh access to a colleagues desk and giving an overview about possible solutions and there advantages/disadvantages.

IMHO to try to replace or enhance The Linux Documentation Project by creating detailed step by step howtos doesn't make sense. Even in a portal to tldp.org I see little value.

Howto Suggestions

Posted Feb 1, 2007 20:23 UTC (Thu) by pimlott (guest, #1535) [Link]

What I would like is a "howto" approach similar to the "Grumpy" Editor articles. Just taking a real world problem, e.g. remote desktop/ssh access to a colleagues desk and giving an overview about possible solutions and there advantages/disadvantages.

As you put it that way, I can see potential. It might even (as sometimes the grumpy editor reviews do) point out problems for which we have no entirely satisfactory solution. So despite my reservations, I would like to see a trial. Most howtos only step you through one approach, but critical, comparative analysis is harder to find, and could play to LWN's strengths.

An LWN reader survey

Posted Feb 1, 2007 19:26 UTC (Thu) by kamil (subscriber, #3802) [Link]

I second the negative attitude toward howtos on LWN. LWN is about news. Howtos are not news. Good howtos, while always welcome, simply don't belong at LWN, IMO.