Closed Bug 66387 (FAQ) Opened 24 years ago Closed 16 years ago

Update Mozilla FAQ

Categories

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Product:
www.mozilla.org
Component:
General
Platform:
x86
Windows 95
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: gerv, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

(Whiteboard: 80% Done)

Attachments

(2 files, 3 obsolete files)

work-in-progress
45.44 KB, application/x-zip-compressed
Details
final version?
44.64 KB, application/x-zip-compressed
Details 
As part of the short-term website improvements, gerbil <kflee@ucdavis.edu> has 
kindly agreed to host a version of the excellent NewZilla FAQ on mozilla.org, to 
replace our aging and outdated general FAQ.

This bug is opened to track the issues surrounding this change.

Things that need doing:

* gerbil will need CVS checkin to gila. I've asked him to fill in a CVS 
contributor form, but what else is required? Leaf, can you advise? I take it 
requirements for CVS access to the doc tree are not as strict as those for the 
code tree? Anyway, if you want to review his "patches", see the above URL :-)

In the mean time, I can check in stuff for him.

* There is the political issue that Mozilla != Netscape. Therefore the version 
on mozilla.org shouldn't really have any Netscape-6-specific references. I 
suggest that we can link back to NewZilla, in a general fashion, for NS6 
specific info.

* We also need to make sure the style fits in with that of www.mozilla.org. I 
anticipate that the new pages will be wrapped as normal.

* Where to put it? http://www.mozilla.org/docs/faq/ ?

Gerv
The current newzilla faq is aimed at end-users, right?

If so, does he plan to take over all developer faqs too
or continue with only end-users. Either would be fine, but
the answer would affect where to put it.

What will happen to the current Newzilla? Is it going away?
If not, will it be different than the one on w.m.o other than
a few instances  of the word 'netscape' and some netscape 
specific questions?
Well, it has a "Web design" section as well, which is reasonably detailed... 
However, I don't think that taking over the Mozilla developer FAQs is on the 
radar at the moment (but when Alex gets a Bugzilla account, he might correct 
me.)

My current plan is to persuade gerbil to first check it in, then we can expand 
around it to cover all the user FAQs not yet covered that crop up in the 
newsgroups and IRC.

The plan is that the current NewZilla will stay where it is. I would anticipate 
that the differences between gerbilbox.com and w.m.o will be the removal of the 
Netscape 6 section and a few references.

Gerv
I'm probably going to leave myself out of the developers section, since my 
developer's skills are next to nill except for doing HTML and CSS.

I plan on keeping NewZilla, just that Gervase is bring me onboard to do and 
maintain some variation of it at mozilla.org for people unfamiliar with the 
lizard. After all, some of the stuff at my site is probably pretty relevent to 
many people that may be visiting mozilla.org.

Just to avoid minor confusion, klee@ucdavis.edu works exactly the same as 
gerbil@ucdavis.edu, which is where I have my BugZilla account, although I still 
sometimes use an older email address, gerbilpower@yahoo.com, to access BugZilla.
What do you mean by "some variation"? Will the faq you make on mozilla.org
be a completely different document that happens to borrow a bunch of stuff
from newzilla or will it be the same as newzilla but with 'mozilla' substituted
for 'netscape' and a question here and there added or omitted?

I'd really like to see you do the faq but i want to make sure this doesn't
turn into a version control nightmare for you. Things should work fine as
long as the version checked into the web site is considered the master copy
otherwise it could cause problems for newzilla when other people check in
changes to the faq on mozilla.org. Does that work for you, Alex?

I guess i vote for mozilla.org/docs/end-user/faq/ if this is going to be
an end-user faq. it would be nice to keep all the end-user stuff in one
place to make it easier for others to repackage it. If you're re-doing
the main faq but mostly only filling in the end-user type questions then
I wouldn't mind putting the faqs at the top level. http://mozilla.org/faq/
Sorry about the long delay.

What I meant by variation, and sorry again for not being more specific earlier,
is omitting the stuff that does not directly apply to mozilla.org from the FAQ
(namely the Netscape 6 section).So what's left from NewZilla is:
the General section, which explains covers mozilla.org's purpose and its
relationship with Netscape.
the Mozilla section, which is more a end user like section, and information on
how to participate in bug reporting and other contributions
and the Web Design section, which is just an overview of moving things over
being standards compliant (common mistakes and such) with links to more specific
sources.

The Mozilla section would fit really well into the end-user category, but I
think the stuff from General isn't so much an end user topic, but for anyone who
wants specific info about mozilla.org as a whole and what it does. Web Design
doesn't occur to me as fully being end user, since end user sounds more like for
people who want to use Mozilla for browsing and being able to test it that way,
while web design is for people who want to design for the standards that Mozilla
supports.

For simplicity, everything I mentioned earlier could be placed in a
"non-developer" category, everything that does not involve developing of the
Mozilla source code.

As for maintaining the differences between the FAQ at mozilla.org and the one at
NewZilla, it doesn't appear that it will be a big problem since it's mainly the
Netscape 6 section that will be omitted (and one or two questions in General
that talks specifically about NewZilla). There are probably still some more
changes I could make but I've made NewZilla in mind to make the distinction
between products from mozilla.org and those from Netscape clear and separate, so
there should not be any significant confusion over NewZilla in its current form
if portions of it were mirrored over to mozilla.org.
um, wait a minute. the newzilla faq is covered by the open doc licence.
i wonder if that means there's a problem checking it in to the web site.
its been determined that mozilla.org doesn't want to use this licence.
I don't know if this means that we don't want any such files checked
in to the tree or not. Perhaps not but Mitchell should comment first.

by the way, i just added a link to the top of http://mozilla.org/faq.html
which is linked to from the site sidebar menu.
I don't want to lose good info because we (I mostly) haven't good the
documentation license figured out.  So I propose we add the doc, note
conspiciously at the top that its goverened by the Open doc license.

I don't think mozilla.org wants to use this as its standard license, it's got
some problems.   But for now let's not reject docs using it.  Maybe eventually
gerbil will let us use it under a different license if we come up with a good
one. Even if not, I'd say let's go ahead.

Gerv, looking at doc licenses may cause some extra work when the website
redesign is implemented, do you  think it's worth it to get suce useful info?

Mitchell 
Mitchell: are you asking me to investigate doc licenses? I thought you'd done 
most of that already... We could certainly have a particular license as part of 
the "gateway" for content on the new site, if you thought that was worthwhile.

Let me know, probably by email, what you want me to do, if anything :-)

Gerv
Gerv

egads, no!  Though if I thought such a casual mention would be enough to pass
off massive quantities of work, I might try it more often :-)

I just wanted to make sure you don't think my suggestion (of incorporating the
FAQ with its Open Doc License and worrying about it later) was stupid or would
cause a ton of trouble later.

Mitchell
Well, I wouldn't want to speak for Alex, but I'd hope that (being the copyright 
owner on the content) he'd be flexible if it was decided that all content on 
mozilla.org should be made available to Mozilla contributors and users under the 
same license. In the mean time, I doubt that _documented_ (if you'll excuse the 
pun) exceptions to the "we currently have no license" rule won't be a problem 
:-)

Mitchell - do you have any approximate date for the end of your Doc license 
deliberations?

Gerv
My purpose for putting my FAQ under the OPL was so that people would inform me
if they wanted mirror or translate a verion of my FAQ in anyway, not to forbid
anything. If there's a better license, or better not to use one at all, then I
don't mind doing it since I never considered it a big issue other than what I
said with it earlier.
OK, cool. We'll accept it under the OPL for now, with a request that Alex makes 
sure he retains copyrights to all changes, so that if a change is thought a good 
idea, it'll be easy.

Alex - when you have something ready to check in, let me know. In the mean time, 
I hope the wheels of CVS checkin access are grinding slowly :-) Did you fax and 
post the form?

Gerv
Alex: How's it going? Do you have anything ready for us to check in? :-) How's 
the paperwork coming along?

Gerv
Sorry but my computer has been broken for over a month, and getting the money to get it fixed hasn't been 
easy, which is partly why you haven't heard from me (sorry about not mentioning this sooner but I kept 
expecting my computer to be fixed sooner). So I can't do anything anything soon, since I'm accessing my 
school's computer labs right now which is limited and I don't get a chance to get online everyday. Sorry
No problem :-) Just let us know when you are back up to speed. Good luck in 
scrounging parts ;-)

Gerv
Alex: we are getting a lot of FAQs in the newsgroups; is there any chance of
lifting this off the ground? Is there any help you need?

Gerv
gerbil: ping? :-) We are still interested in doing this, if you are...

Gerv
Whoo, just discovered this bug :-)

As you all know, we compiled a new FAQ afresh for 1.0, which will be a
maintained document. Stuff that doesn't go into said FAQ will be ending up
on Jayesh's MozTips site (which is pointed to in said FAQ).

The FAQ team for 1.0 was Jayesh Sheth, Brian Heinrich and myself, and we'll
probably continue. Since the 1.0 FAQ is in CVS on mozilla.org, it'll be much
easier for someone else to maintain should we all get hit by buses or get proper
jobs or something equally disastrous.

(Hmm. We need a suggested licence for mozilla.org and third-party FAQs that
allows us to maintain and use no-longer-maintained material ... triple license,
GNU FDL, something else? Shall I file a new bug?)

At the moment FAQ discussion is going on in private email and #faqs, which is
obviously less than ideal. For transparency, consensus and extra eyeballs, I'd
like the work to go on in n.p.m.documentation, Bugzilla and #faqs.

(#faqs possibly has a less-than-ideal name, but only attracts a few people with
actual questions. It's also been the main discussion place for the 1.0 start
page, but now that's done we mostly discuss FAQ stuff in there. The name should
do for the foreseeable future.)

At present, I am doing FAQ maintenance (and scouring n.p.m.* and n.m.user.* for
material), Jayesh is gathering new stuff (and doing MozTips) and Brian is doing
the above and has CVS access; everyone in #faqs and email makes suggestions and
offers critiques.

The 1.0 user FAQ: http://mozilla.org/start/1.0/
MozTips:          http://www.vorstrasse91.com/moztips/
My faqpile:       http://velvet.net/~fun/mozilla/faqpile.txt

I'd cc: Jayesh and Brian here if I remembered their Bugzilla addresses, but I've
emailed them letting them know about this bug :-)

Newzilla seems moribund - no updates since June 2001. What's up with that?

I should probably set up some bugs (tracking and whatever) for 1.0 FAQ-related
issues ... Should this bug be changed to a more general FAQ-maintenance bug,
presumably with an updated summary?

When we have doc updates, who's the right person to cc: for r=? (Docs need only
r=, is that right?) I understand there's not currently a docs module owner, but
imajes@php.net has accepted QA for Mozilla docs (cc'ed).


Adding Michael Hendy (#faqs habitue) since I do know his Bugzilla address :-)
Just received an e-mail from David Gerard in re. this bug.  Just a few comments:

* I'll leave licensing issues up to someone else (at the moment I don't have the
time to look in to this).

* Since n.p.m.documentation is the appropriate NG, perhaps #documentation would
be the appropriate channel (not much seems to go on there, and mpt indicated not
much /has/ been going on there in some time)?  (David:  Any thoughts on that?)

* Up-dating this to a more general FAQ-maintenance bug might not be a bad idea.

* There are currently two sets of FAQs, one at http://mozilla.org/start/1.0/faq/
and one at http://mozilla.org/faq.html, and related docs at
http://mozilla.org/start/1.0/guide/.  Redoing the start page was a great idea,
but that material (the FAQs, the guide pages, and the (non-)support page) should
also be more readily accessible elsewhere.

* Furthermore, with 1.0 now out the door, I wonder if the docs in /faq/ and
/guide/ shouldn't be conflated.  FAQs could be indexed so as to target users,
media, and OEMs appropriately.

That's it for now.

Brian
>* Since n.p.m.documentation is the appropriate NG, perhaps #documentation would
>be the appropriate channel (not much seems to go on there, and mpt indicated not
>much /has/ been going on there in some time)?  (David:  Any thoughts on that?)


Yep. I'm in there now and will treat that as our home from now on. Just
updated the /topic to "Gone to #documentation - go there, not here. This channel
is declared obsolete." Will alert people as they show up.


>* Up-dating this to a more general FAQ-maintenance bug might not be a bad idea.


Someone want to update the Summary: field to 'Mozilla FAQ work issues' from
'Update Mozilla FAQ using NewZilla'? I should also track down relevant
dependencies ...

Gerv, if you feel generalising this bug is a good idea, feel free to assign it
to me.

Possibly the URL field should also be http://mozilla.org/faq.html , if we can
get changes made to that page readily enough.


>* There are currently two sets of FAQs, one at http://mozilla.org/start/1.0/faq/
>and one at http://mozilla.org/faq.html, and related docs at
>http://mozilla.org/start/1.0/guide/.  Redoing the start page was a great idea,
>but that material (the FAQs, the guide pages, and the (non-)support page) should
>also be more readily accessible elsewhere.


http://mozilla.org/faq.html is more of a list of FAQs - the 1.0 FAQ, the guide
and possibly http://mozilla.org/start/1.0/support.html should just be linked
from there. I suggest you file the bug, assign it to yourself and add the
relevant patches. Then ask on #mozilla who the relevant reviewer is/are ...


>* Furthermore, with 1.0 now out the door, I wonder if the docs in /faq/ and
>/guide/ shouldn't be conflated.  FAQs could be indexed so as to target users,
>media, and OEMs appropriately.


Sounds a bit like work, unless you or someone have/has a deep itch to scratch
on this one. Unless it's determined to be important. They seem to be working
quite well as is, though, so I'd say leave them for now.
Reassigning to David to do with it what he wishes.

Gerv
Assignee: gerv → fun
taking, I can merge the various Mozilla FAQs

I'm not sure about where it should be though, mozilla.org/docs/user/ or
mozilla.org/start/? (I don't like mozilla/start/version_no/)

Gerbil & David Gerard, do I have permission to use your works? (btw, Gerbil, I
can still access your site through Google cache)
Assignee: fun → stolenclover
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
> Gerbil & David Gerard, do I have permission to use your works? (btw, Gerbil, I
> can still access your site through Google cache)

It's available at http://www.gerbilbox.org/newzilla/ as well. As NewZilla is
licensed under the Open Publication License, you've technically got all the
permission you need to use it already.
http://www.gerbilbox.org/newzilla/ is down too... what do I do?
Daniel: use the email form on gerbilbox.org?

Gerv
Attached file work-in-progress (obsolete) — 
work-in-progress. a lot going on. includes my own faqpile

www.gerbilbox.com/newzilla/ is scrapped, though I can read
http://www.mozilla.gr.jp/newzilla/ just about fine (I think)

Need a lot of help with this:

What is Mozilla?
1. *Mozilla the name* - Mozilla was originally the
  moscot <http://home.snafu.de/tilman/mozilla/> of Netscape in its
  very early days. Rumor has it that Mozilla was a contraction of
  Mosaic-killer Godzilla because the orginal creators were fans of Godzilla   
  (see Netscape at its early days in the
  Origin of a Browser
<http://www.hnehosting.com/mirrors/Origin_of_a_Browser/>).
2. Mozilla the organization - The Mozilla Organization is an independent,
  open-source organization. It is composed of hundreds of volunteers as well
  as employees of its many supporters.

  mozilla.org was created in 1998 when Netscape
  released<http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease577.html> the Netscape
  Communicator source code to the public. The source code, however, was soon
  scrapped and a new browser and layout engine, Gecko <../../../newlayout>,
  were created. The organization continued to operate under Netscape until
  the task was handed over to the Mozilla Foundation <../../../foundation>,
  an independent non-profit organization, on July 2003.
3. Mozilla the software - Mozilla is an advanced, standard-compliant Internet
  application suite built from ground up.
Daniel: there should be some text around for DAQs like that already. It might be
best to reuse it rather than writing your own.

It's best not to mention the alleged Godzilla connection in official documents -
we might upset Toho. And mascot is spelt "mascot" :-)

Gerv
URL: http://www.gerbilbox.com/newzilla/
Summary: Update Mozilla FAQ using NewZilla → Update Mozilla FAQ
Attached file index (unfinished) (obsolete) — 
Index. I add keywords in front of entries to make browsing easier. Any comment
on the structure so far?
Attached file general.html (done) (obsolete) — 
General section. Entries that should be reviewed:
  What is Mozilla?
  Is Mozilla free?
  What are the differences between Mozilla and Firefox?
  Will Firefox and Thunderbird replace Mozilla Application Suite?
Maybe there is something you can use in my general FAQ:

http://mozilla.gunnars.net/mozfaq_general.html

I also have other FAQs, but I guess you are loking for 'general' Mozilla related
questions/ answers.
update: browser section is done
Component: Miscellaneous → webmaster@mozilla.org
m.o/docs/end-user/faq/general.html is online.
sorry for the delay. I accidently wiped out my near-complete work and was too
lazy to redo the work. Luckily I uploaded the incomplete work here :-)
(In reply to comment #33)
> beta preview
> http://wangrepublic.org/mozilla_faq_beta/official/faq/

In the General section, the answer to the question "Is Mozilla free?" includes
the statement "Mozilla is public-domain software". This isn't quite true as the
usage of Mozilla is covered by the MPL and other licenses. If it was public
domain, there would be no restrictions.
Indeed. Mozilla is definitely _not_ public domain software.

Gerv
Attached file work-in-progress — 
Just accidently delete a file and have to reclaim it from here. Archive the
current version here just in case...
Attachment #141380 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #142275 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #142277 - Attachment is obsolete: true
update: the FAQ is 80% done now :-) beside more updates, one challenging goals,
getting the three FAQs (official, ufaq, & gunnar' unofficial faq) to play nice
together. Here's the plan (if Jay and Gunnar can agree to this):

* The table of contents should @link to each other, like this:

  3. How do I restore my profile data from backup?
  4. @Help, my bookmarks are all gone!
  5. @My system crashed when I exited Mozilla. Now all
     my mail are gone. What do I do?

* Use labels and catagories to make TOC easier to navigate, like this:

  Profile & Backup
       :
       8. Data Migration: How do I move my Netscape 4.x profile to Mozilla?
       9. Backup & Restore: How do I back up my profile data?
      10. Backup & Restore: How do I restore my profile data from backup?

* Less redundency. Play on each FAQ's strengths.

** http://www.ufaq.org/modules.php?name=Sections&op=listarticles&secid=5
   UFAQ's strength would be advanced tweaks (about:config) and Mozilla-Netscape
   compatibilities. So, remove all duplicate entries on UFAQ and move
   advanced stuff (e.g. 'How do I re-arrange newsgroup subscription?') to
   UFAQ

** Gunnar's FAQ's strengths would be topics related to 3rd-party app (Firewall,
   IE, OE). So, in the official FAQ, create a proxy section
   'Third-Party Applications' listing selected questions from Gunnar's FAQ.
   The official troubleshooting guide should link to Gunnar's FAQ too.
   Move general entries from Gunnar's FAQ to official FAQ.

** The official FAQ's strengths would be profile & troubleshooting. So, I'll
   take all general troubleshooting stuff :-p
   Some outgoing hanges:
   'How do I use RoboForm on Mozilla?' -> gunnar's
   'Can I use macros/browser scripts in Mozilla?' -> gunnar's
   'How do I change the location of my bookmarks file?' -> UFAQ
   'Can I have more than one keyword search engines?' @-> UFAQ
   'Can I access my Netscape WebMail ...' -> gunnar's
Whiteboard: 80% Done
It's definitely fine with me. I am not sure if my FAQ's main strength is really
related to third party apps, though. I think we should take a look at all the
FAQs and see how we can 'synch' our FAQs. Less redundanc would definitely be
good since that makes each FAQ easier to manage / keep up to date. 

Changes I have planned for the near term are e.g. turning the troubleshooting
guide into a separate document / page since the 'Using Mozilla' FAQ is simply
getting too large. I think cross-linking to the other FAQs is definitely
something that would make sense for the troubleshooting guide. 

If I understand you correctly, you plan on moving some items to a global FAQ,
but our sites will stay separate (but aware of each other). Is that correct?

One of the advantages of separate sites would be the ability for each of our
sites to earn money for the Mozilla foundation (the referral program I run on
mine is doing very well lately - all the money earned is donated to the Mozilla
Foundation) if we chose to do so. If it's all on Mozilla.org, that possibility
is gone.
(In reply to comment #37)

> ** http://www.ufaq.org/modules.php?name=Sections&op=listarticles&secid=5
>    UFAQ's strength would be advanced tweaks (about:config) and Mozilla-Netscape

I'm ready and willing to do whatever necessary ...

Cheers, Jay
Depends on: 284746
Attached file final version? — 
This should be close to the final version.

The next step would be uploading this to support/mozilla1.x/ so that we can
start rearranging and linking the 3 FAQs. So... anyone want to do this (or help
me get my CVS account back?)
Daniel,

the FAQs look pretty good. Thanks for the good work. And here I was wondering
why it was impossible to get in touch with you ;-)

Just a quick question: Will the FAQ link to the sites where the information was
collected from? That may not be a bad idea.
Reassigning Daniel's www.mozilla.org bugs to default assignee.
Assignee: danielwang → nobody
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
QA Contact: www-mozilla-org
It's a shame this fell on the floor, but never mind. We have good docs now, and a team looking after them.

Gerv
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Product: mozilla.org → Websites
Component: www.mozilla.org → General
Product: Websites → www.mozilla.org
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