Daniel J. Wilcomb wrote: > Hi, folks. > I have been following the Mozilla project for quite a while now, and would > like to offer my services as a tech writer/documentation manager in whatever > capacity I can best be of assistance. > > A little about my background: > I have extensive experience in a wide variety of documentation, including > business documentation and proposals, user manuals, technical > specifications, requirements analysis, usability studies, deployment guides, > API documentation, etc. My most recent work focuses around the business > side, but I am just as willing to revisit my technical roots as I am to > continue in that vein...wherever you need me most. > > In addition to acting as a technical writer on the production level, I have > also spent time managing documentation projects with teams of writers > working collaboratively. If, as I have noticed from the newsgroup postings, > there is a need to organize the many documentation efforts of Mozilla into a > more focused and managed brand of chaos (as opposed to the current state of > bedlam,) then perhaps my time is best spent in organizing the efforts of > other writers rather than in writing itself. > > Regardless of my level of involvement, I look forward to contributing. > > Daniel J. Wilcomb > Technical Writer/Project Manager > > >
Hi Daniel, I am the official maintainer of the DOM documentation for mozilla.org (with Ian Oeschger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) who is the main Netscape tech writer). Currently there is little to no structure for documentation. We have sometimes a few people who would like to contribute but the lack of structure and the poor state of the website often make them go away rather quickly. Keyser Sosez ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is currently working on a reorganisation of the existing documentation. It will probably be useful in the short term, but in the long term the new documentation will just be randomly added and it doesn't help the human structure of the documentation project. Myself I can act as a "manager" (I don't like that word, who am I to give work to other people?) for the DOM part of the site, because I kinda know what needs doing, but the DOM is so small compared to everything there is to do. A manager with a broader knowledge of Mozilla and who could distribute the tasks and who actually knows what is *important* to get a structure up and running would be infinitely useful in the context of mozilla.org. If I understand your background correctly, you are very well suited to do that, and if you so wish, I could introduce you with the different tools and entities that compose mozilla.org. It's not very complicated, but without some explanation one quickly gets lost in the maze that is Mozilla. I have always had in mind to make a list of the documents to write but I never got around to do it given that my priorities currently are my studies (obviously) and coding for the DOM. And even writing such a list would be nowhere near as useful as a real "live" manager. Gervase Markham ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) who has also answered your post in the newsgroups is the lead of the Mozilla documentation project, but he does so many (very important) things that he cannot act as real manager for us writers. A small group including all the people mentionned in this mail and some others are building a new mozilla.org site. The current mockup can be seen at moz.zope.org. It uses the zope engine/server. Personally I like it a lot but it still has some bugs/missing features. Once it is done it will lower the entry barrier to documentation tremendously, since CVS will no longer be required. Thank you for proposing your help, and I look forward to hearing from you. Fabian Guisset.
