Documentation team

I'm going to be working on a push for help with the D7 docs in the next little bit and thought it might be helpful to register a proper Docs Twitter account https://twitter.com/drupaldocs to announce sprints, ask for help with specific tasks, point out major discussions that happen, etc.

If anyone else wants the password so they can use the account, just send me a message or ping me on IRC and (as long as I know who you are) I'm happy to have multiple people use it.

Hi all,

Most of us is very enthusiastic about the user experience improvements for Drupal 7. The restructure and renaming is very welcomed and I am sure it will make it much easier for newbies to get started.

There is though one area that I still see as untouched, namely the Modules list page. After installing a number of modules it is quickly becoming a bit of a chaos list, especially since a lot of modules aren't using the "package" field in the [module].info file and thus their module end up in the Other category.

Deadlines for submissions to DC Copenhagen are approaching...

In addition to BoFs, I wondered if other people might have ideas for submitting sessions at DrupalCon Copenhagen to get people interested in Documentation, or make contributions to documentation, in addition to the sprint model?

I proposed a session which will first talk about how to communicate ideas visually, then we'll look at some tough Drupal concepts new users struggle with, and we'll actually make stuff. That 'stuff' can be contributed as documentation or used by others to help teach/evangelize Drupal.

Just had a bit of a lightbulb moment (and maybe this idea has come up before?) about how to eventually kill comments on handbook pages. Someone asked how we could make sure conversations about a particular page were still visible if they were happening in the issue queue instead of as comments.

I thought, and this is what seemed like a good idea:

• add a field on the issue node-add form for a referenced d.o NID (to reference the handbook page the issue is about)
• build a view block for the handbook pages that displays any issues related to the page

Ta-da?

In San Francisco we're going to sprint on improving the Examples for Developers project. You're welcome to join us wherever you are in the world. We'll be meeting 9-5, see meeting information. See you there!

Here's a list of fun things we can work on:

With Drupalcon coming up soon, (and thanks to the prompting of rfay on IRC) I wanted to start a thread to share some thoughts about what might be happening from a docs perspective.

The Drupalcon site is a little confusing because they talk about doc sprints on both Sunday and Thursday, (http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/drupal-sprints) but then on the same page it just shows one sprint on Thursday. So my first question, is there actually a docs sprint on Sunday? I'll be around on Sunday myself, so I'd be happy to participate if there's something happening.

I organized some Drupal 7 documentation sprints the last few Tuesdays (http://groups.drupal.org/node/50403)... They were successful, in that we got a couple of new people going in documentation, and a few patches filed (I'll shout out to trevjs especially, for coming to all of the sprints and patiently working on some patches).

However, the sprints were not very well attended, and we still have a lot to do to get the documentation of Drupal 7 ready for its release (http://drupal.org/node/515870), so I'm wondering how we can get it done.

My questions:

I've been toying with some questions surrounding our perpetual difficulty with docs, and our tendency to burn through docs contributors (perceived... maybe not actual).

This weekend in Seattle I met up with a few folks to talk about some larger documentation team issues which have come to light as a result of a tumultuous year for me personally, which caused me to withdraw from the community and my role as doc team lead. I realize that as the Drupal community has grown and changed, we have outgrown a model where one person alone can coordinate such a huge area as documentation. I asked several people, who had stepped in to fill leadership gaps and contacted me about general leadership concerns, to help me come up with a better plan for a sustainable doc team organization.

Based on various discussions over the last year, it seems that part of the solution involves improving the channels for communication and another part involves sharing leadership with as many people as possible. I feel that these changes will not only help us get docs back on track, but will make the documentation team stronger and more flexible as we head on down the road.