Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
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
I would certainly appreciate a mentor to turn to for advice when i am
not sure how to do something.
Jim Nichterlein
