RE: GDP Editors

[Gregory Leblanc <GLeblanc cu-portland edu>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Mueth [mailto:d-mueth@uchicago.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 11:45 AM
> To: gnome-doc-list@gnome.org
> Subject: Re: GDP Editors 
> 
> 
> 
> > I'm all for having a gnome editorial team.  However, I'd 
> like to see it
> > in a form similar to the UI hitlist, as I think that that is a good
> > format for this.  
> 
> I'm not sure if I completely understand what you mean by the 
> similarity to
> the UI hitlist.  Are you suggesting that we need a "Documentation Hit
> List" which goes through existing documentation and finds 
> places where the
> document layout or presentation can be overhauled?
> 
> I see this as an additional task to the basic process of: 
> author writes
> documentation, gives it to the editor for 
> corrections/feedback, then the
> document is fixed and sent to the packager/developer for inclusion.
> 
> So, I would suggest that the documentation hit list be 
> divided from the
> editors, since their objectives and tasks are really quite different.

Assuming that documentation is always under development the same way that
software is, then eventually all of the documentation will get reviewed by
the editors, assuming that it gets submitted.  Pending other opinions, I'd
have to agree with Dan and say that these are two separate tasks.

[snip] 
> > In addition, it'd be extremely cool if they didn't
> > limit their scope to the docbook code, but looked at the text in the
> > actual applications.  Most developers aren't grammar 
> experts, and can get
> > very creative when writing error messages/dialogs/labels 
> etc, and many
> > apps could use a once over.
> 
> Yes. I agree. Is this the job of the editors or the general 
> documentation
> authors?

Both.  It's the job of the general documentation authors to have taken the
time to self-edit their docs, so that at they have good readable docs, and
to follow the guidelines that don't exist yet in the GDP handbook.  It's the
job of the editors/reviewers to help the authors when/if they get stuck on
making something fit, and to read over the docs that the authors submit and
double check their work.  I hope that's clear, if not, yell and I'll try to
speak english instead of geek-ese.
	Greg