Re: GDP Handbook -- Getting Started

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Sat, 2006-09-23 at 17:38 +0100, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> There's a big section of the Hadbook called "Getting
> Started". 
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gdp/handbook/gdp-handbook/ar01s03.html
> 
> I've been around for two release cycles now, and even
> now, it's enough to scare me off.
> It talks about tons of command line stuff I've never
> used, and packages that I probably haven't installed.
> It's all far, far too technical for lowly
> documentation writers.
> (And it suggests Emacs and vi as editors. I'm not even
> going to say what I think of that.)
> 
> Secondly, it talks about writing documentation as if
> there's some sort of *workflow*, rather than the
> chaotic last-minute scramble to document applications.
> 
> 
> The main thing is that we have no GNOME Documentation
> Status Table, and therefore not much of a clue about
> which manuals are our responsibility, and who is
> working on what. The later sections 'Teamwork' and
> 'Finishing a Document' make for an amusing read too.
> 
> A lot of this document duplicates what we've tried to
> create on the wiki -- a quick step-by-step guide to
> start working on documentation.
> Do we want this to be on the wiki, or in the Handbook?
> Do we want a split between the two, so the wiki
> quickly guides people to filing bugs and editing wiki
> pages, while the Handbook is for those who are ready
> to delve into DocBook?
> Do we even have people who are potential contributors?

We get potential contributors every single release cycle,
and we lose nearly all of them because we have no process
for integrating them into the team.  Without automated
status reports and definitive lists of documents and who
maintains them, people have to rely on Bottleneck Shaun
to keep track of the world and respond to everything in
a timely manner.

This approach does not scale.  We add so much shit every
six months, I can't even keep track of it all.

I have an automated status tool called Pulse that could
alleviate a lot of these problems.  But I need a couple
of hackers to help me finish it, and some web/admin folks
to get it running on a big fat server.

--
Shaun