Shortage of Guides volunteers?

sebastianlewis · May 27, 2008

Do you people just let old pages die or is there a serious shortage of volunteers on the Guides? I've been hitting the random page button and even finding specific pages myself with seriously outdated information as if most of these pages are just abandoned, I don't see any guidelines about what would make a good addition and it's really a mess.

Examples: I found this morning that the /Applications directory was listed in the ~ directory and there was no mention of the ~/Downloads directory which was added in Leopard. The Downloads directory is minor, but I don't remember any version of Mac OS X with the /Applications directory being in the ~ directory. That was remedied though.

Another example, one that will be the first on a list of things to fix: what should be the "Property list" page is titled "Preference files" instead. I'm all for user friendly, but not at the sacrifice of correctness and that is just plain wrong.

Oh and the current version of Firefox was listed at 1.5 on the Firefox page, I haven't used that since I upgraded to Firefox 2.0 shortly before I upgraded to a Mac and switched to Safari, October 2006 or thereabouts is when FF2 was released meaning that error was there for a year and a half.

Granted if there's a shortage of volunteers, that can't really be helped, but I'm new here and I think the Guides could be useful to a community outside of Macrumors as well, just how many regulars are there so I know who to work with?

Sebastian

BlizzardBomb · May 27, 2008

There probably is a "shortage of volunteers", especially when you think about how many knowledgeable forum users there are on MacRumors.

The main effort tends to be on popular pages such as the Mac Games, Mac Hardware Pages, iPhone, etc. so pages with fewer hits don't get that much attention from volunteers. It could be that some people are nervous about editing or something? There are a couple of regulars (check out the recent changes in the last 30 days), but not many.

I agree the guides can be very useful to anyone, regardless of whether they're a member of MR or not. Maybe MR needs to make more people aware that the guides don't maintain themselves

sebastianlewis · May 27, 2008

Hmm, I'm afraid I don't know much at all about the Macrumors community as I'm not really a part of it myself, I just have an account and reply on some of the news items myself.

But yeah, I noticed maybe 2 regulars and other than that, pretty much no one. I kind of started this list thing too at a bad time, in my Biology class I was just assigned about a weeks worth of homework to finish in a few days so I'm going to have to delay almost all of my plans on here for cleanup until that storm blows over.

Sebastian

HexMonkey · May 27, 2008

There's definitely a shortage of volunteers. Taking this into account, I find it's sometimes best to avoid adding information to articles that will quickly become out of date and is unlikely to be quickly updated, such as version numbers for third party products.

Regarding the Applications folder in the home folder, I don't think the article was incorrect. Although it's no longer there by default, it is still optional, and Finder will give it the special "Applications folder" icon if it is there.

sebastianlewis · May 27, 2008

HexMonkey said:
There's definitely a shortage of volunteers. Taking this into account, I find it's sometimes best to avoid adding information to articles that will quickly become out of date and is unlikely to be quickly updated, such as version numbers for third party products.

Regarding the Applications folder in the home folder, I don't think the article was incorrect. Although it's no longer there by default, it is still optional, and Finder will give it the special "Applications folder" icon if it is there.

I see your point on time sensitive info. I'm going to see what I can do to get more volunteers when I return to the RDM forums as an admin in a little over a week, don't count on anything though.

Hmm, I wasn't aware of any time it was there, regardless it's not there by default anymore, when was the last time it was there by default so I can remedy the article?

Sebastian

HexMonkey · May 27, 2008

sebastianlewis said:
Hmm, I wasn't aware of any time it was there, regardless it's not there by default anymore, when was the last time it was there by default so I can remedy the article?

I'm not sure when the change was made, but I think it was there by default at least in 10.2, so it was at some point since then. There might be some installers that have an option of installing an application only for the current user, and these would create the Applications folder in the home folder themselves if it didn't exist already; though I don't know of any off the top of my head.

Eraserhead · May 28, 2008

Due to the lack of volunteers, it might be worth clearing out the totally out of date pages all together (and possibly sticking them in a separate category called "Out of Date") and try and keep the core of pages up to standard.

BlizzardBomb said:
It could be that some people are nervous about editing or something?

I think that's true.

BlizzardBomb said:
I agree the guides can be very useful to anyone, regardless of whether they're a member of MR or not. Maybe MR needs to make more people aware that the guides don't maintain themselves

I always try and point it out, but it could be worth a front page article.

HexMonkey · May 28, 2008

Eraserhead said:
Due to the lack of volunteers, it might be worth clearing out the totally out of date pages all together (and possibly sticking them in a separate category called "Out of Date") and try and keep the core of pages up to standard.

Are articles that use the {{Outofdate}} template are now in an Out of date articles category. Of course, not all out of date articles are marked as so, and the articles will still appear in their original categories, but it provides a central place to list articles that need updating.

Eraserhead · May 28, 2008

No, I didn't know that template existed.

sebastianlewis · May 28, 2008

HexMonkey said:
I'm not sure when the change was made, but I think it was there by default at least in 10.2, so it was at some point since then. There might be some installers that have an option of installing an application only for the current user, and these would create the Applications folder in the home folder themselves if it didn't exist already; though I don't know of any off the top of my head.

OK, I'll track it down when I get home later.

Eraserhead said:
Due to the lack of volunteers, it might be worth clearing out the totally out of date pages all together (and possibly sticking them in a separate category called "Out of Date") and try and keep the core of pages up to standard.

I think that's true.

I always try and point it out, but it could be worth a front page article.

I don't want to give up on the Out of date articles yet, they can be updated.

HexMonkey said:
Are articles that use the {{Outofdate}} template are now in an Out of date articles category. Of course, not all out of date articles are marked as so, and the articles will still appear in their original categories, but it provides a central place to list articles that need updating.

Thanks for the pointer to the Template.

Sebastian

Eraserhead · May 28, 2008

HexMonkey said:
I'm not sure when the change was made, but I think it was there by default at least in 10.2, so it was at some point since then. There might be some installers that have an option of installing an application only for the current user, and these would create the Applications folder in the home folder themselves if it didn't exist already; though I don't know of any off the top of my head.

It doesn't appear to be default in 10.4

Mechcozmo · Jun 18, 2008

HexMonkey said:
I'm not sure when the change was made, but I think it was there by default at least in 10.2, so it was at some point since then. There might be some installers that have an option of installing an application only for the current user, and these would create the Applications folder in the home folder themselves if it didn't exist already; though I don't know of any off the top of my head.

If you are a non-admin user and want to install software, I believe you have this option. I've seen it in 10.2, but since I live on the edge and run as an admin all the time I don't know if it still exists in 10.4/10.5

Eraserhead · Jun 18, 2008

Mechcozmo said:
If you are a non-admin user and want to install software, I believe you have this option. I've seen it in 10.2, but since I live on the edge and run as an admin all the time I don't know if it still exists in 10.4/10.5

My dads iMac G5 has it, and that came with 10.3, my iMac G5/MacBook (which came with 10.4) don't have it.

tsice19 · Jun 19, 2008

I'd make one... It's just that it's hard to know what needs to be made, if someone else is already making one, etc; etc;

I think we should do what Ubuntu did here and make screen casts of common problems people have.

Eraserhead · Jun 20, 2008

tsice19 said:
I'd make one... It's just that it's hard to know what needs to be made, if someone else is already making one, etc; etc;

When you have an idea just go ahead and have a go, if it isn't public noone else is doing it.

richard.mac · Jun 23, 2008

im going to update the images in the Installing and Uninstalling of Applications guides for Leopard and get around to writing a "How to customise the Guest Account" guide which i just worked out how to do. ill maybe even get around to updating the Mac and PCs networking guide for Leopard and XP/Vista but thats quite a task. anyone oblige?

xparaparafreakx · Jul 5, 2008

While checking the out of date page, I saw something that was not there, Logic Studio. Upon looking it up, there was no mention of Logic Studio, Mainstage or an update to Logic Pro 7.

I guess I do the Logic Studio page with unboxing pictures, specs and pictures.

Last time edited, December 2005. That is insane.

BlizzardBomb · Jul 6, 2008

As we've said, pages do get lost and we need every bit of help we can get. Even if the only thing you do is add an Outofdate or cleanup tag, it will at least bring it to the attention of the regulars.

EvanLugh · Jul 7, 2008

I'm going to update a few..

Eraserhead · Jul 7, 2008

I've just updated the MP3 and Senuti articles, especially the latter.

iMacmatician · Jul 22, 2008

EvanLugh said:
I'm going to update a few..

I'm going to update the mobile road map. It is in DIRE NEED of an update.

KítscheñÇinqµe · Sep 26, 2008

replies to topics above:
screencasts/vids: don't give them a separate section (or hostname). they can be searchable, though.
(current) version numbers for third party products. (or for anything): easier if link out to changelog (when that exists). that should be best maintained location of current version.

my observation is that there's not much that's historical (pre-osx). However there's not much demand for that info. old timers already know old stuff, and very few noubz bother with old hardware.

iMacmatician · Apr 2, 2009

Did major update of mobile road map (again) and created workstation road map.

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