[arch-general] What happened to the Beginner's Guide?

[Jason Ryan]

On 21/09/16 at 09:53pm, Kyle Terrien via arch-general wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:58:23 +1200
> Jason Ryan via arch-general <arch-general at archlinux.org> wrote:
> > On 21/09/16 at 08:36pm, Dave via arch-general wrote:
> > >see below
> > >
> > >On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Francis Gerund via arch-general <
> > >arch-general at archlinux.org> wrote:
> > >  
> > >> I believe this change will only serve to alienate potential new
> > >> users,  
> > >
> > >I strongly agree.  
> > 
> > This will only alienate new users that are unwilling to read man
> > pages and the community provided documentation, ie., people for whom
> > Arch is the wrong choice anyway…
> > 
> > /J
> > 
> 
> So, is making people hunt for information a ritualistic hazing?
> 
Hazing implies psychological, and often physical, harm. Please refrain
from this sort of hyperbole, it does your argument no favours and is
both unfounded and irrelevant; we are talking about installing an
operating system…

> As much as I love the Arch Wiki (and I really do because it is a great
> source of information), I don't understand why basic things like this
> change very often.  Removing the Beginner's Guide from the home page?
> This is just another Big Change made with the best of intentions.
> 
> Moving stuff around like this is like that supermarket that keeps
> reorganizing its shelves.  Everything is there, but it is in a
> different place, and you need to waste time looking for what you want.
> 
> Anecdote: when I installed Arch a few years ago, I followed both the
> Beginner's Guide and the Installation Guide simultaneously.  The duality
> was a little confusing, and I agree that if these guides can be merged
> in an elegant way, they should.
> 
> But I disagree with the "hazing" attitude.  The whole point of a wiki
> is to make information accessible.  Yes, while installing Arch for the
> first time you will definitely hunt for a lot of information.  It is a
> lot of hard work.  However, purposefully making that information harder
> to find is wrong; wikis are supposed make that job easier.
> 
See above about the “hazing attitude”. It is about simplifying the
information and making it easier to maintain. Having two guides, as I
said at the beginning of this thread, does neither prospective users nor
the wiki maintainers and good.

You seem to really be arguing for making the installation guide easier;
Arch is not intended to be easy, there are plenty of distributions that
have that goal and do it extremely well.

The current version of the wiki does make it easier, insofar as the
information is clear, organised efficiently, links to the authoritative 
source wherever possible (man pages) and contains no cruft.

What it no longer does is include lots of irrelevant information and
corner case examples, code to cut and paste and material that is
duplicated in multiple other pages on the wiki which makes it a
nightmare to maintain. That is a significant improvement.

No-one, me included, is pretending it is perfect. There is a Talk page
where people can discuss enhancements. Patches, as they say, are
welcome.

> I also think that expecting a new Arch user to know *exactly* what
> software configuration he wants is unreasonable.  I personally know
> many experienced Linux users (whom I consider far more experienced than
> myself) who can't tell you which desktop environment they prefer.
> However, they can blow your mind with their C and shell knowledge.
> 
> If/when these advanced users decide to learn more about distro innards
> and try Arch, we should welcome them, not haze them.
> 
Arch has from the start been clear about its goals and intentions. I'll
quote from a section of the wiki that people seem much less familiar
with:

”Whereas many GNU/Linux distributions attempt to be more user-friendly,
Arch Linux has always been, and shall always remain user-centric. The
distribution is intended to fill the needs of those contributing to it,
rather than trying to appeal to as many users as possible. It is
targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a
do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and
solve their own problems.”
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux#User_centrality

/J

-- 

http://jasonwryan.com/
GPG: 7817 E3FF 578E EEE1 9F64 D40C 445E 52EA B1BD 4E40

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