[drupal-docs] establishing a process/workflow for creating, submitting, editing documentation

[Charlie Lowe]

Here are the major concerns that I can think of. Please jump in with 
more and let's discuss this to figure out the best approach. Here are my 
ideas:

1) Where to post drafts of documentation and/or guidelines for creating 
documentation?

In many instances, I think we have to treat the handbook as a wiki and 
let people edit/post, rather than creating a process with heavy 
moderation. Let people use their own best judgment. But there are 
obviously going to be many instances where a writer realizes that 
something needs feedback and development before posting to the handbook 
(we an perhaps create recommendations later for helping the writer to 
make this judgment).

It seems the choices we have are the mailing list, the project issues, 
or the forums. I suspect that the mailing lists is the least of the 
three alternatives, although someone else may have some better ideas 
about this.

Project issues
- allows for file attachments
- can notice the mailing list
- will not display a post inline the way it would appear in the handbook
- has RSS

Forums
- forums may seem more user-friendly to non-developer types (people see 
the project issues as developer space)
- comment boards may be more user friendly for discussion than project 
issues
- when a document is posted into a new forum thread in the body of the 
post, it will display much like it will in the handbook
- does not provide automatic noticing of the list.
- has RSS

****

Personally, I think either could work, and there are probably more 
reasons one way or the other. I'm probably missing things. But let's 
start with two premises here:

* Let's work with the technology we have at the moment, rather than 
saying one is better than the other based upon what could be. If one 
becomes a better solution later on due to technological enhancements, we 
can always switch.
* People have been using the wiki and have had no problem emailing the 
list when they have something important to share. I suspect that the 
lack of email subscription in the forums is not optimal, but not a 
non-starter.

2) How can we treat the handbook like a wiki so that people can edit/post?

Currently, the handbook has moderation enabled, making it difficult for 
people to add and edit pages. Dries has already offered to implement one 
or two changes for collaborative book. What ways could the collaborative 
book be improved to improve the current modertation process so that we 
can still guarantee the quality of the book pages but better enable 
everyone to participate in it's construction?

One way I could imagine would be some kind of notification for book 
maintainers so that they know when changes have been made. Boris has 
suggested the subscriptions module. I think even the notify module could 
work.

***

Suggestions? Ideas?

Charlie