Now that the migration to Apache is well advanced and builds are becoming available, my mind turns again to the area in which I could potentially contribute something: end-user documentation. We discussed this some months ago, with various suggestions for the type of docs needed and the relationship of docs to other forms of support, some of which is summarised here: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=27826116
Meanwhile, the old [email protected] list has been getting a steady stream of potential contributors to documentation. Apparently the suggestion to wannabe techwriters that contributing to an open source project such as OOo is a good way to develop skills has been passed around thoroughly. (I promoted this a few years ago, along with others.) Most of these people won't turn out to be much help, but I'd certainly like to encourage them to get involved here. But newcomers and inexperienced people in particular need some sort of framework to fit into. I don't have time to do much except nudge now and then and point people in the right direction -- and at this point I'm not sure what the right direction is. I may have missed something, but a browse through the past several months' archives didn't turn up any more info about end-user docs, so... Will the Symphony online user docs be made available and if so, any idea when? Will IBM or some other sponsor be providing experienced technical writers to form a core of end-user documentation people? If so, any idea when? Such a core of people could develop the necessary framework for volunteers' contributions. ODFAuthors may continue updating its user guides, and that's certainly an area in which I can encourage people to participate (because it won't happen unless enough people work on them). However, many people express interest in working on shorter items. Does anyone think we should (or should not) pursue the production of FAQs, How-tos, tutorials, and other "traditional" forms of online user assistance? Much of the legacy OOo materials are out of date (e.g., describing OOo 2.x features that have changed enough to make the instructions useless or totally confusing) and IMO should be scrapped or flagged in some way as out of date until some volunteer can rewrite them. --Jean
