[Mageia-discuss] Mageia-discuss Digest, Vol 2, Issue 137

[Marc Paré]

Le 2010-10-31 10:51, Dale Huckeby a écrit :

>
> While we agree that "Young Family" doesn't work, it seems to me some of the
> other categories are similarly broad. A useful rule of thumb would be to
> focus not on types of persons or groups but on activities. Since "young
> family" is not an activity, whereas "web development" is, that gives us an
> objective reason for preferring the latter over the former as a useful
> category. Likewise for "academia". Not all academics have the same needs,
> for instance adminstrators versus research professors versus adjuncts who
> teach and don't do research, yet all would fall under the term "academic".
> In addition, a given college professor is not going to use his or her
> computer only AS a professor, and his or her other activities, playing
> poker online, playing games offline, buying and selling stocks and bonds,
> etc. would vary widely from person to person.
>
> That's why I would focus more narrowly on what a person wants to DO with
> his computer, in terms of *specific* tasks or activities. Early in the
> process I would ask him what sorts of things he wants to use his computer
> for and then list all the things he CAN do with it, each of which can be
> selected or ignored. It MIGHT be useful to note, without it necessarily
> being a selectable category, some of the things (and the apps that would
> go with them) a typical high school teacher or rabid sports fan or
> writer or stock market player might want to do or, alternatively, we
> could indicate, along with the description of the uses of a particular
> app or closely linked set of apps, what kinds of people might find
> such app(s) useful, and why. All of this is a way of saying, which I
> think we're in general agreement on, that we should be careful not
> to cast too broad a net with our categories, that each should embody
> a *particular* activity or *closely* linked set of activities.
>
> Dale Huckeby

Here we agree again. There would be nothing to stop that section, for 
example, "Academia" to open up to subsets of "Academia-Reasearch"; 
"Academia-Administrator (office)"; "Academia-Teaching" etc.

And yes, if they play poker online, they would then have checked the 
"Gaming" category.

The choosing of these categories are what the person wants to DO with 
her/his computer. What you are suggesting is to ask her/him what they 
would want to do and they would answer by categories. So why add such a 
layer when we could already dispense with this layer and go straight to 
the categories?

There are only a certain amount of programmes available and therefore 
the same for categories. We can offer the categories. If some of the 
categories are broad, then, when picked, we could have for example, a 
drop down extended menu from that categories with a sub-set of more 
descriptive categories. And, remember, that software packages will 
bridge the categories where they fit in more than one.

We are saying the same thing but with different approaches.

Marc