Frank Peters wrote:
Michele Zarri wrote:
I somehow doubt that people will be more encouraged to participate to the
drafting of the user guide if it was made available as wiki, and on the
other hand there is the danger of losing the consistency and uniformity of
style that the user guide enjoys (to a large degree) today.
The crucial point is to have a good editorial process in place that
takes care of that. I wouldn't just open the wiki to everyone and
let go. We'd need to set up style guides and monitor the changes.
We'd need "owners" for guides/chapters/sections that feel responsible
keeping them clean and tidy.
That is the big problem: lack of people with the time, interest,
skills, and long-term committment to "own" the chapters and keep
them up to date. In my long experience as a professional editor,
I have found that a "good editorial process" is important, but
without the right people doing thw work consistently, a good
process is not much improvement over no process at all.
This is a particular problem when dealing with volunteers, most
of whom will, quite reasonably, put other things in life first if
they run out of time.
A wiki would be a perfect place for reviewing though. You wouldn't
even need to touch the sources but use the discussion page for
comments.
In my experience, this is another approach that can work really
well, but *only* if someone takes those comments and put them
into action. Too often nothing happens.
I know I keep sounding very negative, but it's not that I think
you are on the wrong track. What concerns me is the emphasis on
processes and conversion software, as if this will solve the
problem. Those things will help solve the problem, but ONLY if
you get the people too.
In a later note, Frank wrote:
Lets see what the outcome of putting
the Admin Guide and API Guide on the wiki will be.
Yes, that will be a good test.
Would the authors that currently contribute to the ODF directly
feel comfortable in contributing to a wiki, provided we had
the required framework (guidelines, editorial, production, etc)?
I can speak only for myself: no. Perhaps when I learn more about
the tools available for editing, I'll feel more comfortable, but
so far I have found wikis and other online tools (like blogs)
very inconvenient to work on. I have found them to be great for
small, quick corrections and some collaborative writing (again of
the small, quick changes variety), but not for more general
writing and editing.
--Jean
