I've worked with some three person teams on many projects and love it for that reason, Andrea. There are a LOT of plates to spin when it comes to the Codex. We've never been able to get someone to coordinate the international versions and I fear for what are on those pages, for example.
The WordPress Meetup group here in Portland has asked me to do a WordPress Codex evening followed by a Codex Day. I'll be posting about that in a bit, and I'd love to see more such projects from WordCamps and WordPress Meetups, too, and that takes some team coordination as well. Lorelle On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Andrea Rennick <[email protected]>wrote: > Ideally a team of three. One is too few (what if they get busy? then it > stalls), and two can disagree (another stall) while a third can be a > tiebreaker if needed. Or a sane person, depending. :P > > I'm just tossing out ideas here. > > a. > > > On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Doug Sparling <[email protected]>wrote: > >> I like the idea as well. >> >> >> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Lorelle on WordPress < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> This is so exciting. The Docs team has been walking on egg shells for >>> years over the confusion of the WordPress Handbook, and I'm eager to see >>> new energy being sent in this direction. >>> >>> The close ties between the Forum and Codex have been there since the >>> beginning. However, time and skills serving the Forum and the time and >>> skills serving documentation are distinctive, as several people mentioned. >>> I agree that there needs to be one or two people overseeing the >>> organizational structure, management, and maintenance of the Codex. >>> >>> Having a site of our own has been essential and lacking, which is why we >>> created the unofficial docs task list not long ago. It was critical that we >>> find a better way of communicating and keeping our community connected than >>> the mailing list. As it was "unofficial," we haven't done much to promote >>> it or work with it, but it was a start. We need to have a place to support >>> and educate each other on how to write for the Codex and offer task lists >>> beyond those we've had in the past on the Codex, so I'm excited about >>> having our own space or making the current blog on WordPress.com official. >>> >>> The mailing list has not been the sole line of communication either. As >>> many do, I work with many people one on one to help them write and edit for >>> the Codex and assign tasks, communicating with the mailing list when >>> necessary for edits and such. >>> >>> As we struggled to understand the role the WordPress Handbook and >>> WordPress Lessons played in the role of documentation in the WordPress >>> Community, we've come to realize the Codex best serves the WordPress >>> Community by providing support for issues found within the Forums, >>> expanding upon Learn WordPress instructions for the WordPress Lessons >>> section, and developing more extensive documentation and guides beyond the >>> basics found within the help files, especially servicing developers and >>> programmers. >>> >>> While melding together Forum and Codex sounds great on the surface, I >>> agree with Andrea and others that we need to have one or more people >>> focused on the bigger picture overseeing the Codex, thus supporting the >>> overall WordPress Community better. >>> >>> Thanks for the survey, Jane, and for helping with all of this. >>> >>> Lorelle >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 8:28 AM, Andrea Rennick <[email protected] >>> > wrote: >>> >>>> It makes totally sense, because Support & Docs are two sides of the >>>> same coin. :) If users can't understanding docs or can't find them, they >>>> post in the forums. ;P >>>> >>>> Better docs mean less support issues, because people don't scale. And >>>> the people answering questions are the first ones who see the need for new >>>> docs. Because they answer the same questions over and over (and over) >>>> again. >>>> >>>> Getting people to read docs is a separate issue, but having support and >>>> docs work hand in hand in tandem is a big first step. >>>> >>>> I think half the people overlap anyway, yes? >>>> >>>> a. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Chip Bennett <[email protected]>wrote: >>>> >>>>> Personally, I love the idea. Speaking as a contributor group member >>>>> who tries to keep in the loop regarding support and/or Codex issues that >>>>> impact our group (or issues where our contributor group can be helpful), >>>>> such consolidation is welcome. >>>>> >>>>> Chip >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Jane Wells <[email protected]>wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Hi everyone. The results of the recent surveys to identify active >>>>>> contributors and elect team reps made it pretty clear that the docs team >>>>>> is >>>>>> in a bit of a slump, organizationally speaking. Only 5 people from the >>>>>> wp-docs post responded, and of those, 2 were new or not yet contributing, >>>>>> and there was no consensus re reps among the remaining 3 respondents. It >>>>>> got me thinking about how we organize contributors, what has worked well >>>>>> elsewhere in the WP ecosystem and in other free software projects, and >>>>>> leads me to this proposal: what if we combined forums and docs into one >>>>>> Support team? >>>>>> >>>>>> Looking back at the Codex activity from the past six months or year, >>>>>> chunks of it have been tied to forum mods (like Ipstenu and Andrea_r), >>>>>> other contributor groups (like Chip on the Theme Review Team), and new >>>>>> releases. Not that how Automattic/WordPress.com organizes itself should >>>>>> decide anything, but their support team manages forums, email support, >>>>>> and >>>>>> docs, and it seems to work pretty well. They have a schedule for >>>>>> reviewing >>>>>> existing documentation so it never gets too far out of date, and the >>>>>> people >>>>>> on the front lines with users in the forums and via email can see very >>>>>> clearly where they need to beef up documentation. I'm thinking this could >>>>>> work well for .org, too. Those who are strong writers and just want to >>>>>> contribute to documentation could still do so, but within a context of >>>>>> what >>>>>> our user support needs are at any given time based on the actual support >>>>>> requests. >>>>>> >>>>>> What I'm envisioning is less siloing of contributor personnel, with >>>>>> one group blog at make.wordpress.org/support that uses tags like >>>>>> forums and codex to organize posts, and has pages to help orient new >>>>>> contributors and get them started. These mailing lists could fade away in >>>>>> favor of email subscriptions from the blog, which are more easily >>>>>> searchable and would be more visible to potential contributors. Within >>>>>> the >>>>>> uber-group, some people would naturally gravitate toward specific tasks >>>>>> while others would multi-task as they have been doing. >>>>>> >>>>>> Over time we could expand the purview of the group to include things >>>>>> like moderating instructional videos and comments at wordpress.tv(and >>>>>> start embedding appropriate videos into codex), possibly helping to >>>>>> staff in-person help desks in local communities and/or at events like >>>>>> WordCamps and Meetups, etc. I think the prospects are pretty exciting, >>>>>> and >>>>>> I could see this becoming the biggest and most active of all the >>>>>> contributor groups, which would be awesome. >>>>>> >>>>>> If there are any strong objections to this approach, please reply to >>>>>> this thread today so we can discuss. If not, and everyone is willing to >>>>>> give this a shot and all work together (at least as an experiment for, >>>>>> say, >>>>>> the next release cycle or two), I'll go ahead and set up the group blog >>>>>> tomorrow. >>>>>> >>>>>> Jane >>>>>> ______________________________**_________________ >>>>>> wp-docs mailing list >>>>>> [email protected] >>>>>> http://lists.automattic.com/**mailman/listinfo/wp-docs<http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> wp-docs mailing list >>>>> [email protected] >>>>> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> -- >>>> Andrea Rennick, http://wpebooks.com and http://ronandandrea.com >>>> Co-author of WordPress All-In-One For Dummies http://rml.me/aio >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> wp-docs mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> wp-docs mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> wp-docs mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs >> >> > > > -- > -- > Andrea Rennick, http://wpebooks.com and http://ronandandrea.com > Co-author of WordPress All-In-One For Dummies http://rml.me/aio > > > _______________________________________________ > wp-docs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs > >
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