[HacktionLab] Fwd: FLOSS Manuals is 20 Years old today! Let's celebrate.

[a.praetorius at serapath.de]

Hmm, my approach is intentionally opinionated and stack-specific and I
generally don't spend much time exploring solutions outside of that.
Markdown is part of that stack. Hugo and Pandoc are not.

If i tried this, I'd use e.g. remark/rehype or markdown-it and then plugins
to add citation features and css to convert it into a html that looks like
a scientific paper and optionally export it to pdf ...the whole thing would
run in a browser frontend or in a backend ...your choice i guess.

It's probably not too tough of a project to pull off, but I am super busy
and super underfunded, so can't really focus on any additional "side
projects".




On Mon, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:55, m3shrom <m3shrom at riseup.net> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> That would be great if you could share.
>
> I wonder if you would be interested in this project? I imagine you could
> be able to contribute something.
>
> https://about.flossmanuals.org.uk/post/_hugo-manual-proposal/
>
> thanks
> Mick
> On 05/06/2026 22:16, a.praetorius at serapath.de wrote:
>
> I followed the link and on
> https://gitlab.com/flossmanuals/fm_en_splash/-/work_items/25 it seemed
> this doesnt exist and is a goal?
> If that's so, I recently made a little repository (it's still on github
> though), where a scientific paper style pdf is generated from markdown and
> a website could be generated as well.
> If that's of interest, I can share it.
>
> On Mon, 1 Jun 2026 at 15:25, m3shrom <m3shrom at riseup.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi there,
>> This rather long post below by me is worth sharing if only for the link
>> to the original of this ole house (not Shakin' Stevens!)
>>
>> But if you want to join for 1 month of discussion future of community
>> documentation (or at least flossmanuals) you can join here.
>>
>> http://lists.flossmanuals.org.uk/listinfo.cgi/community-flossmanuals.org.uk
>>
>> I would actually like to collaborative an mimimal update to
>> https://archive.flossmanuals.org.uk/tech-tools-for-activism/  - perhaps
>> we can table that for Nottingham?
>>
>> And can I just say how fooking right we were about being farmed! Can we
>> get a T shirt?
>>
>>
>> nice one
>> Mick
>> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>> Subject: FLOSS Manuals is 20 Years old today! Let's celebrate.
>> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2026 15:12:43 +0100
>> From: Mick Fuzz <mickfuzz23 at gmail.com> <mickfuzz23 at gmail.com>
>> To: community at lists.flossmanuals.org.uk
>>
>> Hello friends, it's Mick here from Floss Manuals.
>>
>> Floss Manuals is 20 years old today. We've chosen the 1st of June as our
>> celebration date because it's the first time the project was captured by
>> the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Although I got in touch with Adam
>> Hyde our founder and he said it was actually Feb :)
>>
>> Over the last few months, me, Martin Kean and Helen Varley Jamieson have
>> been working on improvements and updates to the Floss Manuals community
>> infrastructure. We'd like to use this anniversary as the starting point for
>> a month of community activity to help reboot the network.
>>
>> The process of writing my PhD using open documentation tools, I think,
>> could align with a new direction for Floss Manuals, which is, to me, to
>> take the plunge and move towards writing with static websites and Git
>> instead of a centrally managed, specialised content management system as we
>> have used before.
>>
>> This move is also practical. For several years the French Floss Manuals
>> community generously took on the task of running Booktype on behalf of the
>> wider project, including the English-language community, and I'd like to
>> thank them for that work. They took the decision to stop maintaining the
>> platform in April 2024, which was entirely understandable. Since then, the
>> project has effectively been on hold.
>>
>> The overhead of running and maintaining systems such as Booki and
>> Booktype has become increasingly difficult to sustain after Floss Manuals
>> became a volunteer-run project. Moving towards static websites and Git may
>> offer a more sustainable path forward.
>>
>> As part of this post I'm also including a link to a song called *This
>> Old House*. Some people in the UK will know it as a Shakin' Stevens
>> song, but I prefer the original version.
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhLhF12TBE - check the lyrics, it's a
>> bit darker than Shakie's take.
>>
>> Being involved with Floss Manuals has sometimes felt a bit like looking
>> after an old house. There have been things falling off it, services
>> shutting down, and periods where I haven't been able to repair or add to
>> things as quickly as they've broken. I've been a bit of a caretaker. But
>> it's a good old house, and it's a house that's worth patching up.
>>
>> Of course, there's another thing that's about to fall off the roof of the
>> house.
>>
>> I recently received an email from our hosting provider to say that they
>> will no longer be supporting the Mailman mailing lists that we've used
>> throughout much of Floss Manuals' history. So, beyond making sure that we
>> preserve and archive what's there, one of the jobs that needs doing is
>> working out what comes next for community communications.
>>
>> This may actually be a good opportunity to start again and let people
>> choose what they want to subscribe to, whether that's a low-traffic
>> announcements list, a more active community discussion list, or something
>> else entirely.
>>
>> I do already have an offer from someone who can provide a Mailman list if
>> we want to keep things old school, but I'm also open to updating the
>> technology if there's a better approach. Email me directly if you have a
>> suggestion or offer.
>>
>> We've got another couple of months before this mailing list reaches its
>> end of life, and in some ways that's helpful. I feel slightly hesitant
>> about generating a lot of traffic in people's inboxes if this reboot
>> discussion becomes active, and that's something we can look at together. At
>> least we know that there is an end date for activity on this list, and that
>> gives us a reason to decide what comes next.
>>
>> Of course, if you'd rather not be part of those discussions, the link to
>> unsubscribe is at the bottom of every email.
>>
>> In the coming weeks I'll write more about the huge number of people who
>> have contributed to Floss Manuals and the equally huge body of work that
>> has been created over the last twenty years. I won't try to start listing
>> people or projects now.
>>
>> I'd also love it if other people could chip in with their own memories,
>> thanks, stories about what they learned, or tributes to particular people
>> who made a difference to them along the way.
>>
>> I'd like to invite people to write blog posts for us, or simply start
>> thinking about what they might want to remember and share. As part of this
>> reboot process I've migrated our previous blogs to a new Hugo-based
>> website, which is now available at: http://about.flossmanuals.net
>>
>> It would be great to see that site become a place where we can collect a
>> bit more of the history, memories and lessons from twenty years of Floss
>> Manuals.
>>
>> It would also be great to hear where people are now. Floss Manuals has
>> connected an rich diversity and quantity of people over the years. I think
>> many people would be interested to hear what you've been doing since,
>> whether there are things you learned through the project that stayed with
>> you, and whether you see any parallels between the work you're doing now
>> and the work we did together through Floss Manuals.
>>
>> On that note, I also want to share some personal good news.
>>
>> Last Wednesday I successfully defended my PhD thesis in a viva
>> examination, which feels like a pretty important milestone for me.
>>
>> Looking back, I can see a lot of connections between that work and my
>> involvement with Floss Manuals. Many of the ideas that shaped the research,
>> particularly around collaborative working, open documentation,
>> participation and sharing knowledge, were influenced by things I've learned
>> through being involved with this community over the years.
>>
>> The thesis is available online at pump.jammlabs.org.uk. I still need to
>> make a few final corrections, but it's now in a form that people can read.
>> There's also a particular blog post related to the research that I think
>> may be of interest to people here, which I'll share alongside it.
>>
>> *A Future for non-linear FLOSS Manuals*
>>
>>
>> *While most manuals in FLOSS Manuals have been linear, there have also
>> been ones which were more complex in structure. For example, some have been
>> about process, exploration, and a kind of pick-and-mix approach. A good
>> example of this is Digital Foundations, which moves between guided
>> instruction and open-ended experimentation rather than forcing a single
>> path through the material From *
>> https://pump.jammlabs.org.uk/blogs/meeting-middle/
>>
>> I'd genuinely be interested to hear where other people have ended up,
>> what projects you're involved in these days, and whether Floss Manuals
>> played any part in shaping the path that got you there.
>>
>> I'll also share some of the technical changes that have been made, along
>> with some of the new approaches to publishing that we're experimenting
>> with. I'll do that in a way that invites discussion, because I don't think
>> there's only one way forward and I'd be interested to hear different views
>> on how we should approach these things.
>>
>> So, given those teasers of different directions for discussion, that's
>> probably enough for this celebratory post.
>>
>> Feel free to chip in with your thoughts and responses in any way you want
>> by hitting "reply all".
>>
>> nice one
>> cya
>> Mick
>>
>>
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