Re: Please help get ready for proofreading of Emacs manual

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  >   But: should I check factual
  > correctness (for instance, whether the keys given really do correspond
  > to the command names in emacs -Q, or whether there are no mistakes in
  > command names)?  (I assume yes.)  Is there anything else?

To do this efficiently, I suggest starting by reviewing the NEWS files
for the past few Emacs major releases to recall what has been changed.

You don't need to read the WHOLE NEWS file.  Most of it, you can
ignore.  For instance, ignore the parts that don't affect the editing
interface.  Ignore the modes not covered in the Emacs manual, which is
most of them.

Don't try to remember all the details of what you see in NEWS -- just
which areas have changed.

Then, as you read and check the manual, if any of those areas comes
up, you will notice it.  At that point, refer to NEWS to double-check
that the text is correct.  You won't need to do that very often.

  > 3. In what format I should submit my corrections?  (A simple diff/patch
  > might not be enough, since I might have a suggestion which may be
  > controversial and hence should be discussed.  How would I mark such
  > places?)

When it is a simple change, a diff is fine.  You could send it as a
bug report.  I recommend sending only 5 such simple changes in one bug
report -- then start another.  It's only a matter of the maintainers'
convenience.

If you see a more complex issue, please write about it on emacs-devel.
For complex issues, how you format your mail is not crucial, since
the hard part will be thinking about the issue itself.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.