Jean-Marc Lasgouttes via lyx-users said on Thu, 7 Apr 2022 12:23:13 +0200
>> And what's the supposed upside? So non-subscribers can post. Look at >> any netiquette guide and they'll roundly catcall the clowns who begin >> or end their message with "please CC me because I'm not on the >> list." > >The upside is to try to be more welcoming to new users. It is not like >we have too many users, do we? As in my answer above, I agree that we >shall reconsider if things become unpleasant. I'm on tons and tons of FOSS mailing lists. From my perspective, the LyX list is one of the most welcoming to users new and old, and has one of the most constructive attitudes of all mailing lists. In my opinion, this list is so welcoming that there's little remaining low hanging fruit remaining to make the list even more welcoming, so I still think enabling non-subscribers to post is unnecessary and has downsides. <subject_change class="slight"> If we want to grow LyX usage and membership, and I'm not necessarily saying we should, I think the way to do it is to grow the world's impression of LyX beyond its perceived niche of scholarly thesis production. As long as we speak only of PDF output, LyX is spectacularly suitable for any consistent document beyond five a4 or letter pages. When used with its defaults, *IT'S JUST EASY*. With creative custom layouts, it can do almost anything. One of my fiction books, which jumps all around in time, has the current date of the plot printed in the header. Don't try this with Libreoffice. Somebody could make a list of all types of possible long documents. Legal documents. Books, articles. Specifications. Make a flowchart of which document class to start out with. Like every other free software project, LyX is underdocumented. The lowest hanging fruit you have is to make a single index for all the documents available under LyX' help menu. Every time I go there to look something up, I spend 25 minutes going from document to document looking for the subject. I'm sure I'm not alone. Armed with this index, the project could credibly claim to have some of the FOSS world's best documentation. Make the documentation good enough, and newbies will quickly become evangelists. But wait: There's more... I never learned to use LyX modules, and have always simply made complex and detailed local layout files. Others should not follow in my footsteps, because, from what I've heard, modules are a much easier way to add specific document capabilities than layout files. There should be a help=>modules, split into descriptions of how to use every project-curated module, and how to make your own. I can see value in a publicity campaign, beamed to the general populace rather than current LyX users, explaining what fingerpainting is, why it's bad, why styles-based authoring is good, what styles-based authoring looks like in general, and how easy it is to do in LyX. In this section I've merely scratched the surface of ways LyX could become an everyday tool for millions of people. Just doing a few of these things would go beyond making LyX welcoming --- they'd make LyX extremely attractive for the general population. </subject_change> SteveT Steve Litt March 2022 featured book: Making Mental Models: Advanced Edition http://www.troubleshooters.com/mmm -- lyx-users mailing list lyx-users@lists.lyx.org http://lists.lyx.org/mailman/listinfo/lyx-users
