Comment 4 for bug 306378

Thanks to all for reading and triaging.

I happened to catch Eddy Boxerman of Hemisphere Games restating the problem succinctly @
http://www.hemispheregames.com/2010/05/18/porting-osmos-to-linux-a-post-mortem-part-23/

Fair-use quote:
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"Didn’t Love: Lack of Documentation and Consensus

"In the Linux world there is so much choice and non-standardization, and it’s really hard to find out about things. Documentation is sorely lacking, and it’s hard to find solutions because when a question is asked, people don’t agree on the answer. Forum threads aren’t a good substitute for proper documentation, because forum threads can quickly become historical and fall out of date, meaning folks looking for answers spend a lot of time chasing down false-leads and asking themselves “Is this forum thread relevant to me? Is it really what I’m looking for?” In the Linux world, it seems to take a great deal of detective work and reverse engineering to get things done; the plethora of choice means that the newcomer is never certain about their choices — and there will always be someone who disagrees with you (often vocally)."
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I'm still keen on the 'rolling replace' approach [browsing and searching defaults to the 'authoritative'/edited entries with the option to browse ahead and collaborate on the 'pending' changes] to address some of the authority/questionable-advice issues... together with 'demanding' formal tagging of what version(s) of a project the article was trying to be authoritative about in the first place!

[I'm quite aware that there's often one authority in the 'bazaar,' but people tend to wish the distributor can offer a 'canonical' answer for a given issue. My point - which I've surely driven into the ground by now - is that selection, maintenance, and revision of the 'official' documentation could be automated to the same extent as a VCS/Bugzilla/Launchpad-dot-net.]

This would also help deal with the 'printed documentation is always doomed to be 2 releases behind' side-effect of the 6-month release cycle, which can be toxic to new users.