[299] in Kakapo Windows Team
Before I write some more documentation...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph Calzaretta)
Tue Feb 3 15:00:11 2004
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20040203135632.02e75a10@hesiod>
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 15:00:06 -0500
To: pismere-dev@mit.edu
From: Joseph Calzaretta <saltine@MIT.EDU>
Cc: knyzio@mit.edu, pismere-team@mit.edu, kakapo@mit.edu, isweb@mit.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Win.Mit.Edu Documentation Folks:
(That means: skip this unless you care about win.mit.edu docs)
I'm looking to write some documentation on the use of gpfind.pl and
ansify-profile.pl. And this makes me think that the entire contents of
%ProgramFiles%\MIT\mirror\distrib should be documented. Some of it already
is. Some is not. Fine, I can document each program.
But not all the programs in this directory are usable by or useful to
everyone. I would like to classify each item based on the intended
audience. I propose the following four levels: "Domain Admins",
"Container Admins & Up", "Local Admins & Up", and "Domain Users &
Up". They are described at the end of this email, but you can probably
figure them out without the descriptions.
This attribute strikes me as very general and probably applicable to the
entire doc tree.
Now, I'm not suggesting that the documentation actually be organized so
that it branches based on these Intended Audience Levels. Especially
because this would involve a lot of information duplication and probably
drift. I'm just suggesting that the documentation be organized in a
reasonable way and that each document (or appropriate sub-document) have
the audience level as some sort of attribute. A visibily displayed
attribute would be nice.
For example, the %ProgramFiles%\MIT\mirror\distrib contents document would
look something like:
[ Domain Users and Up ]
Contents of the Mirror-Distrib Directory
The Win.Mit.Edu domain provides some extra functionality in the form of
custom programs, accessible from a command prompt. (To bring up a command
prompt, choose "Run..." in the Start Menu and type "cmd".) ...etc
etc... Some of these programs are described below.
[ Local Admins and Up ]
Program: addadmin
Description: blah blah blah
blah blah blah ...
Usage:
[ Domain Users and Up ]
Program: ansify-profile
Description: blah etc etc...
Usage:
[ Container Admins and Up ]
Program: gpfind
Description: what ever...
Usage:
(The attribute would presumably be displayed in a less ugly way)
Once that was done, you could conceivably implement an automated Intended
Audience Level Filter... so that someone could choose to see just the
"Domain Users & Up" documentation. This might be difficult to set up
properly.
But even without filters, a visible attribute would let people browsing the
site know whether they're looking at documents that are intended for and
useful to them (or if they're entering spooky "Domain Admins" territory.)
Any thoughts about the right way to proceed here? Thanks!
--Joe
P.S. As I promised/threatened: Descriptions of Intended Audience Levels
Domain Admins:
The documentation is primarily of use to domain administrators. Domain
administrators are those who run the Win.Mit.Edu domain "behind the scenes"
and have privileges to affect the entire domain. (The information
documented is not private, and might be of interest to others as background
knowledge, but it does not present anything these others would necessarily
have access to use or a need to know.)
Container Admins and Up:
The documentation is intended for container administrators and domain
administrators. Container administrators are those who maintain at least
one container of machines in the Win.Mit.Edu domain. (The information
documented is not private, and might be of interest to others as background
knowledge, but it does not present anything these others would necessarily
have access to use or a need to know.)
Local Admins and Up:
The documentation is intended for local machine administrators,
container administrators, and domain administrators. Local machine
administrators are those who are a member of the local Administrators group
on at least one machine in the Win.Mit.Edu domain. (The information
documented is not private, and might be of interest to others as background
knowledge, but it does not present anything these others would necessarily
have access to use or a need to know.)
Domain Users and Up:
The documentation is intended for domain users, local machine
administrators, container administrators, and domain
administrators. Domain users are those who are able to log on to a machine
in the Win.Mit.Edu domain; that is, they are anyone with an MIT Athena
username. (The information documented is not private, and might be of
interest to others as background knowledge, but it does not present
anything these others would necessarily have access to use or a need to know.)
