man(1) or man(6)?

[erkin]

man(1) pages are for general commands (and cowsay uses that) but man(6) pages are for games/screensavers/entertainment et cætera (and applications such as fortune and figlet use it (and strangely, toilet (advanced figlet) uses man(1).).). Is it more suitable for ponysay to have manpages under 6?

[maandree]

fortune uses man(1), not man(6), at least fortune-mod installed from the Arch Linux extra repository.

man man(1) states that section 6 [man(6)] is used for games (nothing else listed), and 1 is used for "Executable programs or shell commands". (7 is for "Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), e.g. man(7), groff(7)").

If therefore see section 6 unfit, section 7 does not contain any package similar to ponysay, cowsay or fortune; and only section 1 remains.

[erkin]

Very strange. fortune-mod on my Arch Linux (installed from repositories) uses man(6).

[maandree]

Humm, I never opened fortune(1), it appears it is another program, a library, not fortune-mod.

[maandree]

I my /usr/share/man/man6 directory I only have games, except for random, number, primes, figlet and fortune.

random, number and primes are not any sort of amusement and should section 1 and maybe 7, leaving only figlet (which I think should be in section 7) and fortune.

[erkin]

man(1) is for general commands and man(6) is for games. But the problem is; what defines a game?

[maandree]

I believe that a game at least needs to be interactive.

[erkin]

Well, fortune and figlet are in man(6). They aren't very interactive. In fact, robotfindskitten is the only interactive game I have to have a man page in man(6).

[maandree]

Would we consider section 6 a section for amusement, and not only games then and put ponysay in it?

It is less pollution that putting thing like random, number, primes and morse (missed that one) in it.

[erkin]

random, number, primes and morse

I have never seen it used for such things. Only for amusement and screensavers. Also this is how intro(6) describes man(6):

Section 6 of the manual describes all the games and funny little programs available on the system.

[JotaRandom]

At point that I know man1 is for programs, and ponysay is a program not? the man man page say it but how you say man6 is for funy thinks, and ponysay is a funy think XD for other part fortune and cowsay are both man1

but maybe history can solve it... man6 exist at the point of the creation of the manpages of cowsay/fortune??

other is watch what type of programs apart of fortune and cows use man1 or what use man6

[maandree]

Didn't know of intro, well, than ponysay fits section 6.

[erkin]

Well then, I guess it's settled. ponysay can stay in man(6).