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<TITLE>Re: [documentation] Hitchhikers guide to Drupal</TITLE>
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<DIV id=idOWAReplyText57541 dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>ok. I'll try it
again.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>Every new contributor brings
change.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>That change is generally beneficial and not
always smooth. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>If newbie docs go to a different site, then
we lose. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>Both the newbie community and the current
Drupal community. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Drupal community reflects it's active
members. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>Two years and a half years ago, we
did not really have a support community. We had developers who talked to
other devs and those who asked good questions (good by targeted) that were asked
by people able, capable and interested in looking for the answers. I
have seen new people come in. Some frustrated for a while, then suddenly,
they got it and took off and started pumping in modules. People were
beating me to posting answers. (This is good, I wanted to work on other
things in my spare time and work seriosly picked up). That was my
payback to the community. I participated in growing this segment of the
community and will continue to do so.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>When I joined, I thought, this is
neat. SO I started answering questions I could or directing people to
posts or enough of a trail that they could find the answer. Overtime I
have learned a lot about Drupal despite not learning php. Drupal is
changed because people stayed and worked through the change. WHo would
have thought the php snippets section could happen? Who would have thought
that Drupalsites, or evolt? or TheOnion? Three conferences?
Magazine articles? The fight about the admin section (still ongoing)
:)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>I wrote the best practices because every
day people would post about losing their production sites. The number of
posts about lost or screwed up production sites is down to what? One a
month? Documentation and advertisement of that documentation contributed
to that.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>Did we lose people? Probably.
Did we gain? Yes... lots more then we lost.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>So, what do we want. We want Drupal
to succeed. We want Drupal to attract more people who contribute.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>We have a decent support community, but we
need someone to grow the welcoming group for the less technically
adept. People willing to supply that documentation, that link to the
manual, because if people are asking, then they need to be taught how and where
to find resources and those resources need to be located. We need more
documentation. We have not had people contributing it. We need it on
Drupal.org, not somewhere else on someone's blog. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>If we segment the general community, then
the new community will grow with misconceptions of the old commnuity becuase it
started from a flawed perception. And NO one will learn from the
seperation. No one will grow from over coming the challanges of bringing
in the new members and integrating them. We will all
lose.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Arial size=2>If you think change is not accomplish
without discussion, dissent, strong opinions and a touch of choas, you
really need to go back to some of the earlier threads on
Drupal. </FONT> Hell, look back on human history.</DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>Now, how to deal with the dead weight. Education. We
need links to the Open Source docs on contributing back. On how
development in an open Source project works. On how Drupal development
occurs. We link these when people 'demand'. We teach phrasing of
requests so those of a similier interest can collaborate and learn enough how to
do something together or raise funds for their specific needs. And be we,
I mean all of us. Write the docs on this. If you have explained it
three or four times, then you have explained it one or two times to much and
should add it to the handbook.</DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>Frankly, it's hard to seperate the dead weight from the potential
contributor. But we've been doing it for a while, we just needed to do it
more smoothly.</DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>-sp</DIV></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><BR>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> documentation-bounces@drupal.org on behalf
of Charlie Lowe<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thu 1/5/2006 6:35 PM<BR><B>To:</B> A list for
documentation writers<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [documentation] Hitchhikers guide
to Drupal<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<P><FONT size=2>Robert Castelo wrote:<BR>><BR>> On 5 Jan 2006, at 23:29,
Kim P. Werker wrote:<BR>><BR>>> eventually some folks with popular
marketing and "average" end-users<BR>>> in mind are going to splinter off
into their own distribution with<BR>>> prettier packaging, slightly
smoother edges, and more straightforward,<BR>>> newbie-oriented
documentation.<BR>><BR>><BR>> If you think that's an itch that needs to
be scratched why not scratch<BR>> it on drupal.org?<BR><BR>Well, if I can
jump and offer an answer: because we are having this<BR>conversation. I'm
becoming more and more convinced that drupal.org is<BR>too developer-focused to
accomplish some tasks. A community such as Kim<BR>describes would not have to
have this particular conversation because it<BR>would have a different focus,
much more end user oriented.<BR><BR>Some of this has to do with who gets to
speak and who feels they have a<BR>right to speak. The power--control--of
drupal.org is completely in<BR>developers hands. Most major conversations and
decision making happens<BR>on the developer list and, apparently, at the few
Drupal get togethers<BR>at conferences.<BR><BR>I'm not saying there is necessary
anything wrong with this other than a<BR>different community with a different
emphasis might more effectively<BR>accomplish what Kim describes just as
CivicSpace has their own site and<BR>Bryght their own rather than hosting
everything that they do on<BR>drupal.org. This for no other reason than the
difference in who would<BR>feel empowered to speak and contribute in such a
community.<BR>--<BR>[ documentation | <A
href="http://lists.drupal.org/listinfo/documentation">http://lists.drupal.org/listinfo/documentation</A>
]<BR><BR></FONT></P></DIV>
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