Chris BONDE wrote: [...]
This would also lead to someone doing something about the mentorship program for those of us who would like to be on one. Or are we just going to drift?
Hi Chris, I agree that you have done a tremendous amount of work... I've only ever reviewed a couple of the chapters, so I'm not a well practiced reviewer of these things either, but I have played with the system and its files enough to be able to help with those types of hurdles, if that is where you need aid. I think it may be easier for the maintainers, if you were to download the chapters and add your suggested changes and notes directly within the OpenOffice.org documents themselves. To do this, download the document to your machine and proceed as follows (copied from an older, existing document): "Open the document in OpenOffice.org Writer. In the drop-down menus at the top, select the Edit menu, then select Changes. You want to place a tick mark next to Record and Show in the changes menu. To do this, click on them if there is no check mark next to them. The selection toggles: one click places the check mark next to the item, the next click removes it, and it repeats. Now, you can fix typos, or retype a phrase, or whatever you see fit in the document you chose to review. All your changes will show. The authors will be able to Accept or Reject each one of your changes, as they see fit, so no harm can be done by editing something in a way that makes sense to you. There is a good help page in the OOo drop down menus: Help > Contents > Index, type recording; changes (guide) in the search bar, then double-click that item in the index. The page that comes up is pretty cool and tells you how the review features in OOo work. When you are done, save your document by going to File > Save As and add your initials as a suffix to the file name; for example, filename.sxw becomes filename_abc.sxw. Now you are ready to upload the edited document for the author's review. We'll save that lesson for another day." OpenOffice.org also has a Notes feature that you can use to add comments to specific sections. This is a useful feature for reviewers too. Place your cursor in the document where you wish to add a note, choose Insert > Note from the menus, then type your comments into the dialog box. It is possible that this approach will bring you more feedback, or at the very least, will make it easier for a maintainer to accept or reject your changes into the document. It will also bring you more practice and experience with work in OpenOffice.org files, which in turn will build your confidence. Try not to let the lack of feedback stifle your personal growth or contributions. All things open source are open to all; sometimes if you wish to contribute, you must force your way into the process. Often if you wait for others to nurture your growth, they will not. I'm not sure why this is, especially when encouraging more contributors is one of the said missions behind most open source projects, but it happens over and over again. People are more likely to speak up to criticize than to help you grow as an open source contributor for some reason. It is likely some form of human nature: a "no news is good news" type of behaviour. You must trust your own work, and assume it is helpful. If you step where you shouldn't, it's very likely you'll be told about it. In reality, that type of thing does not happen too often, and you can be satisfied that you tried and likely learned because of it. Have faith in yourself, and keep up the good work! Best Wishes, Diane Mackay
