Re: What's a killed article ?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:21:06 +0100 Francis Moreau <francis.moro@gmail.com> 
wrote: 

FM> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>> On Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:46:32 +0100 Francis Moreau <francis.moro@gmail.com> 
>> wrote: 
>> 
FM> It's sad to see that such notion [killed articles] are left
FM> undefined until a late section (SCORING).
>> 
>> To me it was obvious, but I had been using tin for many years when I
>> tried Gnus, and in tin the names are similar IIRC.  Things like score
>> files, threads, and article marks are often assumed to be basic
>> knowledge in newsreader manuals.

FM> So are you meaning that Gnus is for user that already had an
FM> experience with another newsreader ?

No, only that the manual assumes some basic knowledge.

>> I don't know if the Gnus manuals should remedy that or point to an
>> external reference for these terms.

FM> Yes definitely.

I don't know if the reference should be external or internally
contained, though.  Any opinions?

FM> That said, it's not the only point where I find the documenation
FM> obscure or not enough detailed: what's a very wide mail reply for
FM> example. I can find ton of such example where you need to dig very
FM> deeply the documentation to find such basic things, if the
FM> documentation exists at all.

OK, we can certainly put together a glossary and use the Texinfo
facilities to link terms to their definitions (I don't remember if
that's specifically supported but I'm sure something can be arranged).

Can you provide a list of terms you personally found challenging?
Remember, most readers of the Gnus mailing list and newsgroups are not
good test subjects for manual readability :)

Thanks
Ted