Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[Tom Davies]

Hi :)
That sounds like a perfect combination :)  I think you already do give back
to the community by helping solve problems raised in this mailing list.  So
don't worry about that angle!  However i'm sure the Documentation Team
would be glad to benefit from you too :)

The first step is to send an email to their mailing list;
documentat...@global.libreoffice.org
to say a little about yourself or/and your reason for joining in with work
on documentation.  Your 2nd paragraph is perfect for that :)  Some people
send in a full CV but really just a brief introduction is plenty.

It is a good idea to state that you would like a login for the ODFauthors
website;
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/
because the Documentation Team is so tiny and busy that it sometimes takes
them a while to realise they need to do a few things to set-up for you.

After sending a first email to them it's probably a good plan to start
reading some of their "First steps with the Documentation team";
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development

It usually takes them a fair while to respond so it's good to have
something constructive to do to avoid getting too frustrated with them.
You may find the guide to help you write, edit, proof-read or review the
guides raises some questions which might be a good way of "bumping" your
first post to them.



Btw with your back-ground in programming you might enjoy joining the QA
Team too, or instead.  QA is not much to do with actually programming but
your experience with programming might be really useful in triaging and
de-geekifying some of the responses/requests from the devs.

Each different team has it's own personality(/ies) which is often quite a
bit different from what anyone might expect.  It's sometimes good to try a
few different teams out before settling down with one.

Many thanks, good luck and regards from
Tom :)




On 28 March 2016 at 02:16, James E. Lang  wrote:

> I often cringe when I read things with omitted or doubled words or with
> incorrectly spelled words or with incorrectly selected words. However in
> the. Interest of harmony and multicultural understanding I generally bite
> my tongue and say nothing.
>
> That said, I can freely dish out constructive criticism. My native
> language is English (US) though I also spent 3 1/2 years in New Zealand
> where English (UK) is the norm. I am a 77 year old retired computer
> programmer without database experience. I use LibreOffice Calc heavily and
> LibreOffice Writer sporadically.
>
> It would be my honor to be able to give back to the project in the manner
> suggested.
>
> --
> Jim

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Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[James E. Lang]

I often cringe when I read things with omitted or doubled words or with 
incorrectly spelled words or with incorrectly selected words. However in the. 
Interest of harmony and multicultural understanding I generally bite my tongue 
and say nothing. 

That said, I can freely dish out constructive criticism. My native language is 
English (US) though I also spent 3 1/2 years in New Zealand where English (UK) 
is the norm. I am a 77 year old retired computer programmer without database 
experience. I use LibreOffice Calc heavily and LibreOffice Writer sporadically.

It would be my honor to be able to give back to the project in the manner 
suggested.

-- 
Jim
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Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[toki]

On 27/03/2016 14:22, Tom Davies wrote:

> Is Ingram a replacement for Lulu or could it be used in addition to Lulu?

a) I got the name wrong. It is Ingram Spark, not Ingram Express.

b) Ingram Spark is a replacement for Lulu.

It is who Lulu uses for their POD printing, as well as being one
(probably the largest) of their distributors.
(Amazon is a retailer, not a distributor, albeit a retailer whose sales
are greater than that of most distributors.)

> Either way it sounds like a good subject to bring up on the documentation

I have brought it up several times.
I never fully understood the objection to Ingram Express.
* Part of it was the learning curve:
# Lulu is far more forgiving of non-adherence to their published
specifications than Ingram is;
* Ingram expects that you, the publisher, know what you are doing, and
consequently provides far less hand holding than Lulu;
* Part of it was the upfront cost;

* Part of it was having to purchase ISBNs.
I don't know what Bowker's current rate is, but the most economical
option is to purchase them in lots of 1,000.   (For roughly the cost of
between ten and twenty individual ISBN's, a block of 1,000 can be
purchased. Individual ISBNs scream "amateur amateur".  Blocks of 1,000
say "established publisher".

> The published guides are already in the Apple store and the Ubuntu one.

Another possibility is to have CreateSpace do the printing. This usually
results in faster delivery times for people who purchase from Amazon.
(Amazon's algorithms plays lots of stupid games with indie publishers
that don't use CreateSpace.)

> occurred to me that it might be good to get the guides into the Google 
> Playstore too, 

Are you talking about dead tree versions, or electronic versions of the
guides?

> If anyone knows of other places it would be good to have the published
> guides then please email the Documentation Team;

For electronic versions, SmashWords probably has contracts with more
online bookstores, than any other distributor out there. OTOH, given
what their meatgrinder does to Word file formats, I have no qualms that
the end result will look positively dreadful, unless an ePub only
version is distributed by them. That will have to wait until LibO can
export to ePub without losing presentation markup.

jonathon





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Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[Tom Davies]

Hi :)
Is Ingram a replacement for Lulu or could it be used in addition to Lulu?
Either way it sounds like a good subject to bring up on the documentation
mailing list itself, or/and on the general discussion mailing list, i
think;

disc...@global.libreoffice.org

(of course capital-letters / upper-case is only to help make it more
human-readable.  Email systems convert all upper-case to lower-case)

The published guides are already in the Apple store and the Ubuntu one.
Sometimes such stores don't allow items to be free so there is a small
charge for them there - hopefully enough to cover time and resources as
well as the cost of getting the guides into those stores.  It has only just
occurred to me that it might be good to get the guides into the Google
Playstore too, if that is possible = so i might mention that on the
Documentation Mailing List unless Jonathon (Toki) manages to do so first.

If anyone knows of other places it would be good to have the published
guides then please email the Documentation Team;

documentat...@global.libreoffice.org

The aim is to be seen.  The published guides look very nice when printed by
Lulu.  They make the MS Office ones look old, tired, overly-expensive and
bloated.  Even after the LibreOffice published guides have been "thumbed
through" quite a bit they still look cleaner, much more modern and
attractive.  So it's more about advertising, marketing and generally being
seen out in the world = it's not about making a profit, but if that happens
too then i guess it's a help.

When the Documentation Team first discussed getting the guides printed and
"out there" there was no money available for documentation so i think Jean
Weber ended-up paying to get us into Lulu out of her own pocket.  Hopefully
she has since reclaimed those costs!  After that had generated enough money
she was able to use the money to pay the tariffs to get the guides into the
other stores.

So there are 3 good reasons why the Documentation Team used the Lulu
bookstore from so early on.  However now that some money has been generated
it should be possible to get the guides into some other stores (and maybe
other places too) in order to be seen more widely.

Regards from
Tom :)




On 27 March 2016 at 04:31, toki  wrote:

> On 26/03/2016 23:37, anne-ology wrote:
>
> >> These guides do generate a sundry, but useful, amount of income for the
> TDF and wider LibreOffice community.
> >   [huh ???]
>
> The slightly inaccurate, but easier to explain answer, is that dead tree
> guides are printed and distributed by Lulu.(^1) Consequently, they are
> available on Amazon(^2), and a few other Internet only sites.
>
> Periodically Jean publishes a financial report, that says how many
> copies were sold, how much revenue was generated, and where that revenue
> went.
>
> ^1: Personally, I think that ODF should go directly to Ingram Express.
> Whilst both the initial cost, and annual cost would be slightly higher,
> that is more than offset by both the greater distribution presence that
> Ingram offers, and slush pile quality reputation that Lulu currently
> enjoys.
>
> ^2: Whilst indie authors have a fascination with "the amazon strategy",
> that strategy was formulated for specific fiction genres. Currently, the
> Amazon strategy only works with CreateSpace, not Ingram Express. Were
> Amazon to retweak their ordering algorithm to favour Ingram Express over
> CreateSpace, using Ingram Express might, once again, become a viable
> part of the  Amazon Strategy.
>
> jonathon
>
>
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Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[toki]

On 26/03/2016 23:37, anne-ology wrote:

>> These guides do generate a sundry, but useful, amount of income for the TDF 
>> and wider LibreOffice community.
>   [huh ???]

The slightly inaccurate, but easier to explain answer, is that dead tree
guides are printed and distributed by Lulu.(^1) Consequently, they are
available on Amazon(^2), and a few other Internet only sites.

Periodically Jean publishes a financial report, that says how many
copies were sold, how much revenue was generated, and where that revenue
went.

^1: Personally, I think that ODF should go directly to Ingram Express.
Whilst both the initial cost, and annual cost would be slightly higher,
that is more than offset by both the greater distribution presence that
Ingram offers, and slush pile quality reputation that Lulu currently enjoys.

^2: Whilst indie authors have a fascination with "the amazon strategy",
that strategy was formulated for specific fiction genres. Currently, the
Amazon strategy only works with CreateSpace, not Ingram Express. Were
Amazon to retweak their ordering algorithm to favour Ingram Express over
CreateSpace, using Ingram Express might, once again, become a viable
part of the  Amazon Strategy.

jonathon


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Re: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[anne-ology]

   Since I have been/am an editor, seems to be right up my alley ...
  and I'd be glad to help - just let me know what-, when-, how-ever,

   [further comments below]



From: Tom Davies <tomc...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 7:14 AM
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation
To: "users@global.libreoffice.org" <users@global.libreoffice.org>


Hi :)
If you have an hour, or few, per month - or if you could help during
occasional holidays - or 'just' as a "one off" = YOU could be a big help.

People who are new to LibreOffice/OpenOffice are a HUGE help as
proof-readers = helping the documentation make more sense to noobs, or even
just helping reduce the numbers of 'obvious' errors.  Sadly such 'noobs'
learn so much so quickly, almost by "osmosis", that they quickly become
quite expert.  Hence why there is always a need for more new people. :)

   [helping others with these 'glorified typewriters' has kept me in the
know on these machines  ;-) ]

Their team is so small that even a little help often has a big impact.

If you have no professional/voluntary experience with any sort of
documentation or writing project then this could be a good way of getting
some insights and gaining some experience - or it could be just a good way
to 'relax' by doing something a bit different for a while.

If you do have some experience then please let the team know, so that they
have some idea of how much they can just leave you to get on with it.

Either way it takes a while to get used to their systems and for them to
register you so that you can work on the "Published Guides".  These guides
do generate a sundry, but useful, amount of income for the TDF and wider
LibreOffice community.

   [huh ???]

Right now there is a HUGE need for people willing to proof-read the latest
Guide/Handbook for Base, the database part of LibreOffice.  It needs people
who don't use and don't know anything about Base.

   [that's me - I've never used Base]

If you do have knowledge or experience of databases in general or Base in
particular then you would be a great help for the next stage.  After
proof-reading is the "review" stage to check the technical accuracy of the
guide/handbook.

Regards and good luck from
Tom :)

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[libreoffice-users] Volunteers for Documentation

[Tom Davies]

Hi :)
If you have an hour, or few, per month - or if you could help during
occasional holidays - or 'just' as a "one off" = YOU could be a big help.

People who are new to LibreOffice/OpenOffice are a HUGE help as
proof-readers = helping the documentation make more sense to noobs, or even
just helping reduce the numbers of 'obvious' errors.  Sadly such 'noobs'
learn so much so quickly, almost by "osmosis", that they quickly become
quite expert.  Hence why there is always a need for more new people. :)

Their team is so small that even a little help often has a big impact.

If you have no professional/voluntary experience with any sort of
documentation or writing project then this could be a good way of getting
some insights and gaining some experience - or it could be just a good way
to 'relax' by doing something a bit different for a while.

If you do have some experience then please let the team know, so that they
have some idea of how much they can just leave you to get on with it.

Either way it takes a while to get used to their systems and for them to
register you so that you can work on the "Published Guides".  These guides
do generate a sundry, but useful, amount of income for the TDF and wider
LibreOffice community.


Right now there is a HUGE need for people willing to proof-read the latest
Guide/Handbook for Base, the database part of LibreOffice.  It needs people
who don't use and don't know anything about Base.

If you do have knowledge or experience of databases in general or Base in
particular then you would be a great help for the next stage.  After
proof-reading is the "review" stage to check the technical accuracy of the
guide/handbook.

Regards and good luck from
Tom :)

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