Inside TLDP

But all these efforts were not enough. Ever more authors and other volunteers needed guidance, and ever more documents had to be organized. The project hosted a lot of outdated documents by now, which became a bit shameful. Another problem was the random publication of documents. There was so much work and not enough people to do it, so anybody could publish almost anything. Scandal broke loose when a couple of opinionated documents were found, containing tainted and sometimes plainly wrong information that was possibly harmful to the readers.

Thus, 2003 became the year of revamping. A thorough search through the entire collection revealed more old or doubtful documents that were taken off-line for a revision. Documents too old to be useful were moved to the attic. Tabatha Marshall was appointed review coordinator and put together a team of reviewers. Together, they edit new submissions: they check for technical correctness, readability and grammar and spelling errors. Furthermore, they apply the TLDP style so as to give the collection consistency. The Weekly News was revived and offered over RSS feed. Input from the feedback mailing list was followed up once more. The Author Guide was revised to list the new procedures for publishing documents in accordance with the quality control guidelines. A HOWTO generator was created to facilitate submissions by new authors. Beyond these visible accomplishments, hundreds of people are working together now, everyone of them contributing a small part to this huge project.

People responsible for managing projects often ask us how we do it. This is how. There is no book that tells you how to do it. We are on a road with many bumps and ups and downs, and TLDP seemingly hangs together with hooks and eyes--but it's there and it doesn't go away.