Duplicate update instructions for Drupal 7

I would have no issues with those pages being combined. Like you said, they all cover pretty much the same set of steps. And I bet it's confusing for someone who lands here https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/update and isn't sure which one to pick.

If you're feeling like you need to ask someone you could check in the maintainer for the guide and see if they have thoughts about combining things. https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/update, but otherwise, I think as long as there are redirects, there's no harm. It also seems like some of the additional pages those ones link to could be rolled in as well. There's a lot of duplication for this how to do Drupal 7 update content it appears.

Hi hansfn and ojthebrave :) And thanks for your contributions. Yes I'm a volunteer maintainer for those docs.

@hansfn :)

As a minimum I don't think we should repeat the audience on each option - https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/update/core-option-1 We should rather link back to https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/update/introduction There are two reasons for this: 1) Maintenance 2) Amount of introductory text

Thanks for your proposal. I'm assuming you're referring to those "Audience" section. I agree this is duplicate content. Which is more appropriate on this single Introduction page. Also the links are already present between the Introduction page and the 4 pages. For example under this "Before you begin" section. I'll try to removed those 4 duplicate "Audience" sections by tomorrow my midnight.

@hansfn and ojthebrave :)

we have 3 pages describing Drupal 7 (core) update

At first it does look like those pages are duplicate. But actually they are both different, and all needed. Because each page is for a different audience. Thus the need for multiple pages. In other words, one page per audience. This table shows those options at https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/update/introduction#update-drupal-7-core
In this table, notice the "Recommendation" column, which shows the unique & different need of each audience.

hansfn created this ticket in May 2017. Back then those 4 pages were a mix of different content for different audiences and duplicate content. As you know later in October 2017 I also noticed those risks, I did a major update of those pages to clarify that those are different options. And merged most of the duplicated content to this Introduction page. By the way I was informed about this ticket #2876917 this week of Feb 2018. Thanks hansfn for the notification :)

Proposal

For all 4 audiences to have a pleasant experience , content of interest to each, and be able to easily scale big the documentation with numerous future additional options, I propose to keep the present 4 pages, one per audience, and add pages as needed as we go. Below is a summary of the benefits and challenge of keeping, merging or deleting the present pages.

Keeping 4 pages. One per audience.

• Benefits
  • Needs of all 4 audiences are fully met
  • All 4 audience have a pleasant experience
  • Content of interest to all 4 audiences
  • Clean
  • Shorter
• Challenges
  • None I could think of. Conditional to each 4 pages link to the introduction page and the table of content.

Merging pages

• Benefits
  • None
• Challenges
  • All 4 audiences do not have pleasant experience
  • Needs of all 4 audiences are not fully met
  • Content is not of interest to all 4 audiences
  • Cluttered
  • Long

Deleting pages

• Benefits
  • 1 out of 4 audience have pleasant experience
  • Clean
  • Shorter
• Challenges
  • 3 out of 4 audiences do not have pleasant experience
  • Needs of all 4 audiences are not met. The need of only one audience is met. In other words, it does not feel inclusive to all 4 audiences.
  • Content is not of interest to all 4 audience. Only one audience.

Legend

• By "cluttered" I mean for example if pages are merged or deleted, the newcomers to Drupal would feel that the advanced documentation is confusing, not of interest, and intimidating. While advanced Drupal users would not be interested in content for beginners. While at the same time both audiences need their respective content. Thus the need for multiple pages.
• By "content of interest" I means each audience have unique needs and present skill level

Done. I removed the 4 duplicate "Audience" sections for those 4 pages:

1. Update core (option 1)
2. Update core (option 2)
3. Update core (option 3)
4. Update core (option 4)

The above 4 pages are the 4 pages I was referring to in my comment above. As you know, for all 4 audiences to have a pleasant experience, my proposal is one page per audience. Presently 4 pages needed.

I'm setting this ticket to fix. But feel free to re-open it if you disagree with this proposal or have another proposal to discuss :)

IMO, they are fine written as different pages. In a single page, there would be too much information for a category of users (as described in the introduction).

We have more templates in the documentation WYSIWYG now, which can help organize notes which might not be relevant to all readers. This might help combine pages; or make large pages more skim-able regardless. Templates are the document icon to the right of the flag.