Self-Introduction: Malcolm Jacobson

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 22:15 +1000, Malcolm Jacobson wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> 
> Thanks for your reply.
> > Here's the rub, Malcolm:  Documentation from contributors, which we
> > welcome, has to be licensed in a way that we are free to distribute it,
> > and that anyone else is free to copy and redistribute.  We therefore
> > must have controls in place that allow you to affirmatively license your
> > work in that fashion.  Unfortunately, right now there are a couple too
> > many steps involved in doing this, but we are working hard to make this
> > easier for people like yourself, who just want to help with wiki-based
> > documentation.
> >   
> OK. I’ve written a fair bit of free (mainly Creative Commons licensed)
> content over the years, but I’ve never encountered the key/fingerprint
> process before. I look forward to the arrival of one-click licensing!

As do we all! :-)

> > In the meantime, you can visit
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Join for instructions on
> > geting a Fedora account and wiki access.
> Thanks. I had a read through the Fedora Documentation Style Guide
> today and I found the section on "Screenshots and Images" quite
> interesting. I understand the reasons why images are not preferred,
> but I would like to use at least one screenshot per page in my
> documentation. If I use more than one image per page will my
> documentation be rejected?

Not rejected, but likely we'd remove the screenshots unless, as the
guidelines say, they're required to make sense of the text.  Screenshots
can't be translated easily, nor are they usually required if your text
is clear.  Try writing without the screenshot; you will find it makes
you write more clearly since you can't fall back on the crutch of "aw,
just look at the picture." :-)

Screenshots make sense when the text is really all about getting the
user familiar with graphical elements.  In the DUG, for example, having
a screenshot of the default GUI desktop with callouts for the main menu,
panels, desktop, and icons would be appropriate.  In most other cases,
you can simply reference GUI elements by name ("Select the 'Apply'
button").  Don't use directional guides ("Find the program name in the
list on the left") unless it's absolutely necessary, especially since
layout can change for various reasons.

Hope that helps!

> I also found a couple of typo's in the Style Guide. I'm not sure if
> they should be the subject of another email, so I'll just include them
> here:
> 
> 1. On the "Content and Rendering" page
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/StyleGuide/ContentAndRendering
> 
> The second sentence is missing the word "of" between "types" and
> "information" (Many writers use formatting to distinguish between
> different types information ...).
> 
> 2. On the "Dates and Times" page
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/StyleGuide/DatesAndTimes
> 
> The third sentence of the third paragraph of the "Absolute Times"
> section is missing the "s" in the word "use" (For example, to ue
> precision ...).

With a wiki account you could fix these yourself! :-)  Thanks for the
catches -- if I don't get to it fast enough, I'm sure some kind soul on
the list will beat me to it.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
           Fedora Project: http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/attachments/20071126/3081a6fb/attachment.sig>