# Maintenance

## Maintaining Your Document

Just because your document has now been published does not mean your job is done. Linux documentation needs regular maintenance to make sure it is up to date, and to improve it in response to readers' ideas and suggestions. TLDP is a living, growing body of knowledge, not just a publish-and-forget-it static entity.

Add relevant mailing lists to your document where people can get support. If you have the time, follow these mailing lists yourself to stay up-to-date on the latest information.

Put your email address in the document, and politely request feedback from your readers. Once you are officially published, you will begin to receive notes with suggestions. Some of these emails will be very valuable. Create a folder in your mail program for incoming suggestions--when the time is right review the folder and make updates to your document. If you are following a related mailing list you may also choose to save a copy of important emails from the list to this folder.

### We are not a free support service, but...

Some people who email you will request personal assistance. You should feel free to decline personal assistance if you cannot spare the time. Writing a contribution to the LDP does not commit you to a lifetime of free support for anyone on the net; however, do try to reply to all requests and suggest a mailing list that will (hopefully) be able to provide support to your reader.

## Fixing Errors

### Fixing Your Own Documents

If you find an error in your own document, please fix it and re-submit the document. If you do not have GitHub access, you can send an e-mail to discuss@en.tldp.org with notification that you have changes and a volunteer will work with you to handle the change.

If you are using GitHub, you can commit your changes to your local repository and then generate a pull request to have it added to the central repository.

Remember to update the revision history at the top of the document.

### Fixing Other Documents in the Collection

If you find an error in someone else's document please contact the author of the document with the correction. If you do not hear back from the author within a reasonable amount of time, please email the LDP coordinator at discuss@en.tldp.org (subscription required) and describe the problem and how you think it needs to be fixed. If the license permits, you may be asked to make the change directly to the document. If the problems are serious, the document may be removed from the collection, or moved to the Unmaintained section.

#### Taking over unmaintained documentation

For more information on how to deal with unmaintained documents, please read: Unmaintained (includes a list of steps to take to take over ownership of unmaintained documents, and a list of unmaintained documents).