Re: Determining whether gnunet is connected

[Bob Ham]

On 01/03/2022 12:41, Schanzenbach, Martin wrote:
> FWIW my latest attempt on making GNUnet more accessible started with this 
> page:
> https://www.gnunet.org/en/architecture.html

Unfortunately, this makes things worse.  You're spreading documentation
out over the website and texinfo.  And you're adding more mess to the
existing jumble of disparate, patchy, confusing information.  Stop writing!

> Now, the links on that page should point to better documentation.

But they don't.  The documentation they point to is a general
description of the very basic concept of software layering and says
nothing at all about GNUnet.  This helps nobody who's trying to
understand GNUnet and has no business being in GNUnet documentation in
the first place.

If I might offer some unsolicited advice, if you want to be sure your
reader understands software layering then just provide a link to
Wikipedia, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_layer
.  I don't know why the original author chose to write that section of
the handbook.  I think it says a lot about what the GNUnet community values.

> It is also why we started this: https://www.gnunet.org/en/applications.html

Why?!  Stop "documenting" things by adding pages to the website!  Stop
telling users about applications that don't work!

Be clear to potential users: the system doesn't work.  For a system in
such an early state as GNUnet, I would expect the website to be minimal
and tell people where to get the source code, how to communicate with
the developers and perhaps a little information about the system and its
history.

I find it astonishing that you talk about "Applications provided by
GNUnet" as if someone can download GNUnet right now and run these
things.  They can't.  Please don't write web pages as though they can.

But then I forget, you want present GNUnet to grant providers, right?
You want to make it seem as though it *is* something users can download
right now and run.  Right?