CVS, www.xemacs.org, and not solving the problem ( was Re: Yeah! Using instructions missing from the README, xemacs installed! (was Re: How can xemacs have been made so hard to install? Do the developers have any clue it is needlessly hard/undocumented?))

[ most personal followups removed; xemacs-webmaint added. ] [ *META* could we please cc: xemacs-webmaint or webmaster(a)xemacs.org when we start jawing about the web site? ] [ META2 hey i'm the new guy blah blah blah ] Andy Piper <andy(a)xemacs.org&gt; writes: I've been thinking about this. I initially didn't like the idea, then didn't care, and now I'm back to not liking it again. Sure, on first blush it seems to solve the problem by distributing the update burden over a larger number of people. It really doesn't, however. You've still got to have a small number (ultimately one) of people who make critical decisions. That person or small group of people is going to be the 'core' group that keeps the site going, and CVS makes their lives *harder*. Not to stomp on toes, or anything, but in the long run, *CONTENT* *IS* *EASY*. And CVS only simplies content addition. Achieving an intelligent architecture for the site, a consistent look, and making it easy to use are actually _complicated_ by CVS, because you've got to have somebody checking to make sure that everybody's using the correct site template, and putting things where they belong, etc., etc. A large part of the problem with the web site boils down to the fact that code-writers (i.e., the developers) think about information structures in a fundamentally different way than non-code-writers (i.e., the users). [ see _The_Inmates_Are_Running_The_Asylum_ for more.] The problem with the web site is in the process of being dealt with. I'm on the case; there are others. Attention has been drawn to the problem; don't make it worse by continuing to focus on it after people have said they'll get it fixed. (I.e., don't joggle our elbows as we're working!) Give us a bit of time (like a couple weeks or so) to make some changes. SUMMARY MESSAGE FROM A WEB SITE VOLUNTEER: Implementing a whole bunch of cruft (like CVS, IMHO) is only going to make the whole thing messier in the long run. All IMHO, of course. john. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- John S Jacobs Anderson jacobs(a)azstarnet.com http://www.treefort.org/~jacobs/ <-- GeneHack:bioinfo*linux*opinion