GNOME Documentation Style Guide

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

Folks -

I'm happy to submit for your consideration the first draft of the
GNOME Documentation Style Guide:

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gdp/styleguide.html

Our hope is that this will serve as a guide to improving the quality
of our documentation.

It includes sections on:

* Documentation fundamentals
* Usability
* Writing for translation
* Improving your writing

It also has detailed sections on DocBook markup and a word list, that
we might settle on consistent terminology.

A delicate balance is required here. On the one hand, the nature of a
free software project is such that we are uncomfortable imposing
rules. On the other hand, GNOME users will benefit if we are able to
settle on a set of styles and conventions that create consistency and
quality in our documentation. To that end, we need your input, so we
can come up with a final product that reflects the needs of the GNOME
community, something we all can live with and use.

I must thank the people who contributed: Alexander Kirillov for the
DocBook section, Eugene O'Connor of Sun who spent a lot of time and
energy assembling the word list, and especially Pat Costello of Sun,
who wrote extensive sections of this document. While I have been
shepherding its creation, Pat, who has a great deal of expertise in
the subject matter, has done the largest share of writing and deserves
a great thanks.

Cheers,
-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h), http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/