On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Keith N. McKenna <keith.mcke...@comcast.net> wrote: > After 3 months of frustration it is time to end the effort to get The > Getting Started Guide that had been started for AOO 3.4 completed. Despite > repeated requests for help on the ODFAuthors list it is apparent that either > the Authors that had been working on Open Office docs are either no longer > interested or are working strictly on the LO books. > > Alexandro Colorado made an attempt at getting the Base Guide done but was > not able to get any responses to his requests for comments on his markups > and changes and decided to put it on hold until he did. As far as I know he > is still waiting. > > One other volunteer stepped up from an inquiry on this list and gave > valuable help. Prabha again thank you very much for your work and I hope > that you will get involved with the defining of a new documentation project. > > With only 2 people actively working it is not possible to give the work the > quality review and editing that it deserves to have the Open Office name > attached to it. > > Reluctantly unless someone with the requisite skills in technical writing > and publishing that I do not have can lend a hand I feel it is best to end > the effort and not waste anymore of anyone's time. > > I will continue to contribute where I can, but that is difficult or someone > who is not a developer. >
Let me describe a possible future, and maybe you (and others) can help influence it. I'm not a documentation expert but I can help some. But mostly I can help on the recruitment side. Imagine we do the following: 1) Create a new d...@openoffice.apache.org list 2) We write an "Introduction to Documentation" page for our orientation modules: http://incubator.apache.org/openofficeorg/orientation/index.html. It would be a single page, a high level overview of how documentation fits into the overall project, what tools and methods we use (or have available to us), etc. 3) We write a blog post for the project blog, where we issue a "call for documentation volunteers" 4) We promote that blog post via social networks, and via a prominent banner on the www.openoffice.org webpage. 5) If we do the above, I think that within 2 weeks we will have 20 people posting to to our new Doc mailing list, offering to help with the documentation. We've seen similar results with Marketing and QA. They will have different skill levels, degrees of enthusiasm and time to contribute. This will be the critical time for the doc project. We would need several experienced members of the project, on the doc list, able to answer questions and help the new volunteers. If we look too chaotic at this point we will lose many of the 20. I can help drive steps 1-4, but I cannot do 5 by myself. I'd need the commitment of 3-4 other project members to help mentor the new volunteers, to volunteer as list moderators, and to help encourage the relaunched documentation project to develop a documentation plan for AOO 4.0. Does anyone want to help with this? -Rob > Regards > Keith N. McKenna > > >
