problem in Contributing to Ruby on Rails Guide

rubyonrails-docs
1

First I noticed a problem with it's instructions on lighthouse.

"Ruby on Rails uses a Lighthouse project to track issues (primarily bugs and contributions of new code). If you’ve found a bug in Ruby on Rails, this is the place to start. You’ll need to create a (free) Lighthouse account in order to comment on issues or to upload patches"

"Lighthouse" is linked to: http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/

which redirects to:

https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/login

However, I'm then presented with a login screen that says I need to be a member of the project, and does NOT give me a way to create a free account that will give me access.

So then I figured I'd report this bug in documentation. So I scroll to the bottom of the Guide, and it says:

"Issues may also be reported in Github.", where "Github" is linked to:

https://github.com/lifo/docrails/issues

However that results in a 404. So this could be considered another doc bug.

So then it tells me "And last but not least, any kind of discussion regarding Ruby on Rails documentation is very welcome in the rubyonrails-docs mailing list."

So that's what I'm resorting to now. Hope this helps.

Jonathan

2

Hi Jonathan,

Apologies for the outdated instructions and waste of your time.

They are up to date in the edge guide:

    Contributing to Ruby on Rails — Ruby on Rails Guides

Which will be out with Rails 3.1, hopefully soon.

3

Okay, thanks. At least the Guide had this listserv as a last resort, so it eventually got me the answer!

I gather patches to the Guides are tightly coupled to Rails releases? I see the logic of that, and in general it probably works out okay -- but for something full of links to external sites like the Contributing guide, it's definitely problematic.

Of course, it could also be suggested that the problem was that those links were dead, and Guide writers, knowing that the Guide is going to stay around at least until the next Rails release, should only use links to Rails resources (like issue tracker etc) that the Rails community has committed to persisting indefinitely (with working redirects), and has the power to do so (ie, not pointing to a domain that's not under their control, but to a domain that is, with a redirection).

Or alternately again, perhaps the Contributing to Ruby on Rails Guide specifically should _only_ exist in Edge, since it's topicality is _not_ tied to a particular codebase, but really only makes sense if it's up to date. Or at least the Contributing to Ruby on Rails Guide, when on guides.rubyonrails.com, should include at the very top of it ("See the latest version of this guide on edgeruides.rubyonrails.org, in case things have changed since publication").

But there are, I'd expect more important things to deal with then this issue... or actually, since it's confusing people on how to view and file tickets on Rails code, maybe it actually IS pretty important.

Thanks for the quick response!