Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Dienstag, den 16.08.2005, 14:09 -0700 schrieb Karsten Wade:
> New $SUBJECT reflects the fact that my semi-punny Subject from before
> was too spammy.

in the context of this list it's perhaps provoking (in it's best sense),
but I think this type of mail is needed ;-)


> On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 19:41 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> > Maybe you introduced yourself, or are still lurking.
> > 
> > Perhaps you have a document in progress, or an idea in process.
> > 
> > The Documentation Project needs you to help keep the momentum going.

I'm one of those guys who are lurking around and I have several
(smaller) pieces of documentation text in my desks drawer.
> > 
> > * What is stopping you from submitting your document?

Well, I for myself are suffering from some lack of orientation. I'm not
able to see in detail how several of my ideas and my texts may fit into
the scene.

- I'm missing a list, something like a "Table Of Content", about the
  topics, which should make up "Fedora Core Documentation" when it is
  ready. If such a list were available I could check weather one of my
  texts may fit

- I'm missing a list, who is currently working on *what*. There is the
  bugzilla entry (102668), but it seams to be out of date.
  (On the web there is a list of who is contributing, but not what)

As an example:

I just wrote a text (about 8 pages) to assist some of my staff members
to set up a samba server on FC 4. I consired to contribute it to the
fedora doku project. I found in Bugzilla 102668 that Aaron M. Epps is
working on that topic, but I couldn't find information about the details
of his work nor about the progress. I found nothing about it in CVS yet.
So I don't know how to proceed, and the text is going to vanish in the
desk drawer. 

> > * Do you need more directions?  
> > * Do you want fewer restrictions?

Maybe both of it. Perhaps you should establish some sort of "early stage
approval process". Something like:

-  address to whom send the titel and a draft toc for a documentation
   text
-  recieve a decision to accept it for the documentation (if it meets
   the quality criteria when it is finished) or not (because the
   topic is out of range, not needed or whatever)
-  assigning a sponsor to assist in all further steps
-  establish some sort of feedback procedure. Perhaps the list 
   about maintained and orphaned packages on fedora extra may
   serve as a template
-  I read some contributors set up there one web page to present
   their work in an early stage in order to receive feedback.
   You may find the addresses in the mail archive but you have 
   to spend some efforts to find it.  A link list of such early
   stage contributions would be helpful.




> > The steering committee for this project is here to help you be
> > successful working on Fedora documentation.

Well, just some ideas from my perspective. I would appreciate if I could
contribute some of my texts in a way which is managable for me instead
of letting them vanish in the desk drawer :-)



Peter