A recent SO blog-post pointed out a new thing I had missed. Apparently StackOverflow is getting into the documentation business.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow

A politely phrased RTFM is a common reply to questions around here, so I'm wondering if perhaps this is a feature the ServerFault community might be interested in as well. We have opinions, and this would allow us to document those best-practices.

#Canonical Questions with Canonical Answers We have a lot of questions with extremely well thought out answers, and are regularly maintained. The 'documentation' could be a very handy supplement to these questions.

#Show the right way, as an example to others In addition to posting the skulls of bad config on the castle ramparts, this would allow us to show examples of what right looks like. Such as a fully commented config-file that explains the why of each line.

The down-side of this is one SO gets as well. Demands to produce step-by-step, click-by-click, keystroke-by-keystroke procedures for doing a thing. And getting ongoing questions when that thing doesn't work exactly right. The concept of 'Documentation' isn't yet evolved enough to have a clear answer for dealing with challenges to the doc, so we still need to see what they come up with.

So yes, it is not a clear win. Thus, the question here.

Disclaimer: I have no earthly clue if this is something we could possibly get in on, but I think it is worth the discussion.

A recent SO blog-post pointed out a new thing I had missed. Apparently StackOverflow is getting into the documentation business.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow

A politely phrased RTFM is a common reply to questions around here, so I'm wondering if perhaps this is a feature the ServerFault community might be interested in as well. We have opinions, and this would allow us to document those best-practices.

Canonical Questions with Canonical Answers

We have a lot of questions with extremely well thought out answers, and are regularly maintained. The 'documentation' could be a very handy supplement to these questions.

Show the right way, as an example to others

In addition to posting the skulls of bad config on the castle ramparts, this would allow us to show examples of what right looks like. Such as a fully commented config-file that explains the why of each line.

The down-side of this is one SO gets as well. Demands to produce step-by-step, click-by-click, keystroke-by-keystroke procedures for doing a thing. And getting ongoing questions when that thing doesn't work exactly right. The concept of 'Documentation' isn't yet evolved enough to have a clear answer for dealing with challenges to the doc, so we still need to see what they come up with.

So yes, it is not a clear win. Thus, the question here.

Disclaimer: I have no earthly clue if this is something we could possibly get in on, but I think it is worth the discussion.

A recent SO blog-post pointed out a new thing I had missed. Apparently StackOverflow is getting into the documentation business.

http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow

A politely phrased RTFM is a common reply to questions around here, so I'm wondering if perhaps this is a feature the ServerFault community might be interested in as well. We have opinions, and this would allow us to document those best-practices.

#Canonical Questions with Canonical Answers We have a lot of questions with extremely well thought out answers, and are regularly maintained. The 'documentation' could be a very handy supplement to these questions.

#Show the right way, as an example to others In addition to posting the skulls of bad config on the castle ramparts, this would allow us to show examples of what right looks like. Such as a fully commented config-file that explains the why of each line.

The down-side of this is one SO gets as well. Demands to produce step-by-step, click-by-click, keystroke-by-keystroke procedures for doing a thing. And getting ongoing questions when that thing doesn't work exactly right. The concept of 'Documentation' isn't yet evolved enough to have a clear answer for dealing with challenges to the doc, so we still need to see what they come up with.

So yes, it is not a clear win. Thus, the question here.

Disclaimer: I have no earthly clue if this is something we could possibly get in on, but I think it is worth the discussion.

A recent SO blog-post pointed out a new thing I had missed. Apparently StackOverflow is getting into the documentation business.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow

A politely phrased RTFM is a common reply to questions around here, so I'm wondering if perhaps this is a feature the ServerFault community might be interested in as well. We have opinions, and this would allow us to document those best-practices.

#Canonical Questions with Canonical Answers We have a lot of questions with extremely well thought out answers, and are regularly maintained. The 'documentation' could be a very handy supplement to these questions.

#Show the right way, as an example to others In addition to posting the skulls of bad config on the castle ramparts, this would allow us to show examples of what right looks like. Such as a fully commented config-file that explains the why of each line.

The down-side of this is one SO gets as well. Demands to produce step-by-step, click-by-click, keystroke-by-keystroke procedures for doing a thing. And getting ongoing questions when that thing doesn't work exactly right. The concept of 'Documentation' isn't yet evolved enough to have a clear answer for dealing with challenges to the doc, so we still need to see what they come up with.

So yes, it is not a clear win. Thus, the question here.

Disclaimer: I have no earthly clue if this is something we could possibly get in on, but I think it is worth the discussion.