“guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

“guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Guix,

annoyed by the fact that people turn to Reddit for help with Guix — a
venue only very few of us frequent — I wondered if our help channels are
visible enough.

“guix --help” prints this:

  Report bugs to: bug-guix@gnu.org.
  GNU Guix home page: <https://guix.gnu.org>
  General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

I think it should explicitly point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/, maybe
right before “General help using GNU software”.

What do you think?

-- 
Ricardo

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[zimoun]

Hi Ricardo,

On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:

> annoyed by the fact that people turn to Reddit for help with Guix — a
> venue only very few of us frequent — I wondered if our help channels are
> visible enough.

Maybe it is "cultural" or/and "generational" thing and we cannot do
really better. Maybe some people prefer channels as Reddit because
they are a bit "afraid" by email and/or IRC, especially maybe on
official channels.  Maybe because when someone has a problem, the
first thing they does is a query to popular search engines and then
browse some Reddit-kind of channels, so maybe they feels like it is a
good entry point.  Maybe some people appreciate the voting system
(upvote, Discourse, etc.) to be "rewarded". Etc..

Well, I am not convinced it is an issue about visibility. :-(


> “guix --help” prints this:
>
>   Report bugs to: bug-guix@gnu.org.
>   GNU Guix home page: <https://guix.gnu.org>
>   General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
>
> I think it should explicitly point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/, maybe
> right before “General help using GNU software”.

Yes, it cost nothing and could improve.


All the best,
simon

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Diego Nicola Barbato]

Hey,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Ricardo,
>
> On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:
>
>> annoyed by the fact that people turn to Reddit for help with Guix — a
>> venue only very few of us frequent — I wondered if our help channels are
>> visible enough.
>
> Maybe it is "cultural" or/and "generational" thing and we cannot do
> really better. Maybe some people prefer channels as Reddit because
> they are a bit "afraid" by email and/or IRC, especially maybe on
> official channels.  Maybe because when someone has a problem, the
> first thing they does is a query to popular search engines and then
> browse some Reddit-kind of channels, so maybe they feels like it is a
> good entry point.  Maybe some people appreciate the voting system
> (upvote, Discourse, etc.) to be "rewarded". Etc..
>
> Well, I am not convinced it is an issue about visibility. :-(

If the main issue is people turning to the subreddit for help, we could
also kindly ask the moderators to advertise the official help channels
in a sticky post.  After all some people might turn to Reddit before
even thinking of running `guix --help'.

[...]

Regards,

Diego

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Bengt Richter]

Hi zimoun, et al,

On +2020-05-15 13:00:58 +0200, zimoun wrote:
> Hi Ricardo,
> 
> On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:
> 
> > annoyed by the fact that people turn to Reddit for help with Guix — a
> > venue only very few of us frequent — I wondered if our help channels are
> > visible enough.
> 
> Maybe it is "cultural" or/and "generational" thing and we cannot do
> really better. Maybe some people prefer channels as Reddit because
> they are a bit "afraid" by email and/or IRC, especially maybe on
> official channels.  Maybe because when someone has a problem, the
> first thing they does is a query to popular search engines and then

Habits are habits, but I don't think people specifically needing guix info
would go to popular search engines if they had an obvious better alternative.

I suspect people e.g. go to https://duckduckgo.com/ and type
"site:gnu.org some clues 2020" in the slot because it can be faster
that way to get a good selection of URLS to choose from.

I.e., faster than navigating from the top of http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/
(BTW wondering why the link is not
   https://www.gnu.org/software/gethelp.html
which works fine).

So, shame at having been outperformed in a search? Or an opportunity to extend the
cooperative FLOSS ethos, and maybe contact duckduckgo.com so as to help them
suceed well in helping us, and creating a mesh benefiting all?

Likewise with Arch and Debian and other wikis or forums that can have
useful search capability that it would be helpful for guix.gnu.org to point to.

You may say that users usually know about their own distros' help sites,
but sometimes it can help to know e.g. that a sibling debian descendant does
not have the problem you are experiencing.

> browse some Reddit-kind of channels, so maybe they feels like it is a
> good entry point.  Maybe some people appreciate the voting system
> (upvote, Discourse, etc.) to be "rewarded". Etc..
>

Good point, I definitely think some kind of rating system would help.
Especially if tied into the search data base so that you can easily
sift out information authored by people who typically post the
final authoritative and correct "fixes" with nice succinct rationale :)

> Well, I am not convinced it is an issue about visibility. :-(
>
Well, I am :)
At least visible things are easier to find when you need them.
Of course, in the dark, audible things may be easier to find,
which may be very important to some.

Of course, in a familiar room, touch may be sufficient to
keep your mental model of the room in sync with reality,
and to navigate through it. Touch is easy to overlook, but
really important, whether typing, reading braille,
playing an instrument, or just playing around :)

So an accessible site map, to build that mental model that
makes it a familiar room, is probably a good thing.

> 
> > “guix --help” prints this:
> >
> >   Report bugs to: bug-guix@gnu.org.
> >   GNU Guix home page: <https://guix.gnu.org>
> >   General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

Some people might not like to click on http[^s] and wonder why gnu
is not practicing what it preaches, or suspect that their isp is playing
surveillance middle man^H^H^Hperson^H^H^H^H^H^Hagent for some reason?

I'll repeat from above:
(BTW wondering why the link is not
   https://www.gnu.org/software/gethelp.html
which works fine).

> >
> > I think it should explicitly point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/, maybe
> > right before “General help using GNU software”.
>
+1 :)

Also, I think it would be nice if there were a link from https://guix.gnu.org/help/
to a search page with some category checkboxes and radio buttons, so that
you could get rapidly to the _kind_ of search you need or want. E.g.,

"[x] Troubleshooting" ought to be one check-box IMO, for me the most important :)
I think with that checked searches should lead to info re recent regressions
and "popular" troubleshooting topics, and notices of security issues and realease news.
NOT 2017 bikeshed threads or fixes for problems of long-gone generations :)
(unless of course they sadly are still dead-on relevant ;-/ )

Also, ISTM guix.gnu.org should not try to be the only source of information, but rather
help people to get to other GNU-friendly sources of info that may have extra relevant
info for their particular distribution and use case. Links for pursuing that would help.

Sometimes going to duckduckgo.com and typing "site:gnu.org what you want" in the slot
can get you useful urls faster than navigating down from https://guix.gnu.org/help/

I don't think there's any shame in suggesting that :)

 > Yes, it cost nothing and could improve.

I think that's way too unassertive :)

> 
> 
> All the best,
> simon
> 

-- 
Regards,
Bengt Richter

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Diego,

Diego Nicola Barbato <dnbarbato@posteo.de> skribis:

> zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi Ricardo,
>>
>> On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:
>>
>>> annoyed by the fact that people turn to Reddit for help with Guix — a
>>> venue only very few of us frequent — I wondered if our help channels are
>>> visible enough.
>>
>> Maybe it is "cultural" or/and "generational" thing and we cannot do
>> really better. Maybe some people prefer channels as Reddit because
>> they are a bit "afraid" by email and/or IRC, especially maybe on
>> official channels.  Maybe because when someone has a problem, the
>> first thing they does is a query to popular search engines and then
>> browse some Reddit-kind of channels, so maybe they feels like it is a
>> good entry point.  Maybe some people appreciate the voting system
>> (upvote, Discourse, etc.) to be "rewarded". Etc..
>>
>> Well, I am not convinced it is an issue about visibility. :-(
>
> If the main issue is people turning to the subreddit for help, we could
> also kindly ask the moderators to advertise the official help channels
> in a sticky post.

That’d be nice.  Do you know how to contact them?

> After all some people might turn to Reddit before even thinking of
> running `guix --help'.

Uh, I’m an old fart.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:

> “guix --help” prints this:
>
>   Report bugs to: bug-guix@gnu.org.
>   GNU Guix home page: <https://guix.gnu.org>
>   General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
>
> I think it should explicitly point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/, maybe
> right before “General help using GNU software”.
>
> What do you think?

Why not, it can’t hurt!

Perhaps diagnostics and messages could also emit terminal hyperlinks
when appropriate to the on-line copy of the manual (even though I think
people should really browse local documentation…), like GCC 10 is doing
for its warning options.

Ludo’.

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> That’d be nice.  Do you know how to contact them?

I've sent them a message.

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[zimoun]

Dear Ricardo,

On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:

>   General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

I have never read this.  It is not welcoming for newcomers, IMHO.

First sentence: "The Free Software Foundation does not provide
technical support." I give up.
Second paragraph: RTFM! Well, click, click again, I give up.
Third: Lengthy explanations... about bug report. I give up.
Fourth: After scrolling, click, click again, I give up.
Or click to IRC, #guix is not mentioned, I give up.

If someone reaches the help they needs by this mean, they is my hero! :-)


Cheers,
simon

ps: troll inside. ;-)

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> skribis:

> On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:
>
>>   General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
>
> I have never read this.  It is not welcoming for newcomers, IMHO.
>
> First sentence: "The Free Software Foundation does not provide
> technical support." I give up.
> Second paragraph: RTFM! Well, click, click again, I give up.
> Third: Lengthy explanations... about bug report. I give up.
> Fourth: After scrolling, click, click again, I give up.
> Or click to IRC, #guix is not mentioned, I give up.
>
> If someone reaches the help they needs by this mean, they is my hero! :-)

This is harsh, maybe unnecessarily so, but still a very valid criticism
of that page.  I guess that page was created with good intentions, but
it’s pretty much useless indeed.  :-/

Probably we should work on the GNU side to make that page more useful,
but we should also definitely print the relevant Guix URL.

Ludo’.

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Efraim Flashner]

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On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 11:10:36PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> skribis:
> 
> > On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 12:20, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:
> >
> >>   General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
> >
> > I have never read this.  It is not welcoming for newcomers, IMHO.
> >
> > First sentence: "The Free Software Foundation does not provide
> > technical support." I give up.
> > Second paragraph: RTFM! Well, click, click again, I give up.
> > Third: Lengthy explanations... about bug report. I give up.
> > Fourth: After scrolling, click, click again, I give up.
> > Or click to IRC, #guix is not mentioned, I give up.
> >
> > If someone reaches the help they needs by this mean, they is my hero! :-)
> 
> This is harsh, maybe unnecessarily so, but still a very valid criticism
> of that page.  I guess that page was created with good intentions, but
> it’s pretty much useless indeed.  :-/
> 
> Probably we should work on the GNU side to make that page more useful,
> but we should also definitely print the relevant Guix URL.
> 
> Ludo’.
> 

(ins)efraim@E5400 ~$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Guix System"
PRETTY_NAME="Guix System"
VERSION="1.1.0-4.bdc801e"
VERSION_ID="1.1"
ID=guix
HOME_URL="https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/help/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="mailto:bug-guix@gnu.org"

-- 
Efraim Flashner   <efraim@flashner.co.il>   אפרים פלשנר
GPG key = A28B F40C 3E55 1372 662D  14F7 41AA E7DC CA3D 8351
Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed on emails sent or received unencrypted

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Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[zimoun]

Hi Ludo,

On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 23:10, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> This is harsh, maybe unnecessarily so, but still a very valid criticism
> of that page.  I guess that page was created with good intentions, but
> it’s pretty much useless indeed.  :-/

I am sorry if I have been harsh and if I have hurt someone.  I was
*not* my intention.  Otherwise, I would not spend 5 minutes to follow
all the links and check how to reach help for the GNU Guix project
from this webpage. :-)


> Probably we should work on the GNU side to make that page more useful,
> but we should also definitely print the relevant Guix URL.

Yes, we should.  However, to be honest, reading GNU related mailing
lists over the last past months and especially the recent emacs-devel
threads, I do not personally have enough energy to potentially argue
the obvious on bikeshed.


Cheers,
simon

Re: “guix --help” should point to https://guix.gnu.org/help/

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> skribis:

> On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 23:10, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> This is harsh, maybe unnecessarily so, but still a very valid criticism
>> of that page.  I guess that page was created with good intentions, but
>> it’s pretty much useless indeed.  :-/
>
> I am sorry if I have been harsh and if I have hurt someone.  I was
> *not* my intention.  Otherwise, I would not spend 5 minutes to follow
> all the links and check how to reach help for the GNU Guix project
> from this webpage. :-)

Yup, no problem; like I wrote, your time led to useful criticism.

Ludo’.