Hello all!
Several times over the past year, members of this group have
asked for mentoring with regard to writing, reviewing, editing,
or just understanding the process -- how to contribute to OOo
user documentation.
I think we've all agreed that a mentoring program (for those who
want it) would be a very good thing for us to have, but the
problem has always been a lack of people with the time and skills
to act as mentors.
We now have a lot of new members in the group (both experienced
and inexperienced writers), so this is a good time to bring the
subject up again and get an idea of how many people want to be
mentored and who is available to do the mentoring.
Gary Schnabl, a techwriter/editor who has recently taken over as
editor of the Writer Guide, mentioned to me that he is available
to answer questions or mentor in editing and related topics.
That's a good start! Thank you, Gary.
We might also talk about the practical aspects of making a
mentoring program work, in addition to having enough people involved.
Gary suggested that providing practical examples on the mailing
list or on a dedicated forum might be a good way to do some group
mentoring. Janet and I were doing a bit of this a year or more
ago, before we both got too busy to continue. If Gary and others
could take this up again, I think it would be great... and I like
the idea of using a forum in addition to this list.
This mailing list and a forum could coexist, serving different
purposes. The list is a means to send everyone every message
(good for announcements and keeping people informed of who is
doing what). A forum could be used for specialized purposes and
its automatic threading is especially useful for instructional
purposes and not losing connections between posts when something
is added to an older thread.
We would like to hear your ideas. Would mentoring help you feel
more confident or comfortable about contributing? What do you
need? What could you contribute? How can we all improve the way
we do things and help each other to produce the best possible
user documentation for OOo and keep it up to date?
--Jean
