Nino Novak wrote:
Clayton wrote:
One of the big reasons we moved/pushed towards using the Wiki for
docs is.. to try and get more community involvement...
The example I have is the DevGuide. ... With this doc in the
Wiki, it is subject to a steady stream of edits by developers and
community members who keep the doc much more current, and who are
adding example code and other helpful bits.
But with the User Guides - did you experience a higher contribution
activity up to now? As far as I've seen the English Guides have been in
the wiki for quite a year now?
No, having the user guides on the wiki has not resulted in more community
contributions to them. My theory is that the more technically-oriented docs do
well on a wiki, as the people with relevant knowledge and interest in their
contents are likely to be accustomed to, and comfortable with, both using and
contributing to wikis.
The user guides mostly attract a different set of contributors, who seem to be
more book-oriented and more comfortable working in OOo on .odt files. Perhaps
this may change as we are now more in maintenance mode for several books, mostly
updating small sections to keep up with changes in the software, and that is
easier to do on the wiki. Unfortunately, very few people are working on the .odt
files (in English) through OOoAuthors, either.
Another present concern is that the wiki in it's actual structure is not
very attractive to end users. It is not very usable.
The reason I put the user guides on the wiki was to provide users with another
choice in how they get information. But I very much agree with your summary of
the usability issues and their consequences. (I don't think anyone disagrees
about the problems or the need for improvement.) Clayton has talked about the
technical issues with making it better.
It's very good that we are having this discussion. Thank you for starting it.
I'm sorry I won't be at OOoCon to talk in person with any of the interested
people who will be there.
--Jean
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