[documentation] Hitchhikers guide to Drupal

[Bill Fitzgerald]

I sent this earlier, but it didn't see to go through -- I apologize if some of you are seeing this twice.

Hello, all,

Yeah, I was having some trouble seeing that page too -- thanks for 
pulling it back into the realm of the visible.

I like the way it reads except for one thing: "Drupal can define 
customers as contributors who pay with their time, and clients that 
sponsor development."

As I see it, Drupal doesn't have customers -- at least not in the sense 
of commercial software products. I would recommend changing the line I 
quoted above to: "As an open source project, Drupal has community 
members. These members contribute according to their skills, their time, 
and their inclination. Drupal does not have a customer base, it has a 
user base. As the project grows (as the functionality changes, as the 
documentation evolves, and as more people use the software varying 
ways), we look to expand the number of users who contribute to the project."

Also (and I'm sorry if this already exists) it might be good to have a 
handbook page outlining how non-coders can contribute to Drupal -- the 
Hitchikers' page could link to this, as well as to the README first page 
and the "How to enact change" page (which rocks, btw  :) .

My .02

Cheers,

Bill

----
Bill Fitzgerald
http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers
503.897.7160


Larry Garfield wrote:

>Were you asking for feedback on that page?  Because I keep getting an access 
>denied message, although I am logged in.  Kinda hard to review it that 
>way. :-)
>
>On Monday 02 January 2006 05:01 am, Robert Castelo wrote:
>  
>
>>Happy New Year,
>>in response to a few hissy fits from users over the last few months,
>>I've posted a page to the handbook explaining to users
>>(non-contributors) that they are not the centre of most developer's
>>universe....
>>
>>Hitchhikers guide to Drupal
>>http://drupal.org/node/42941
>>
>>Not sure how much the rest of the community agrees with the ideas
>>expressed, but I've noticed some developers getting really hacked off
>>with the attitude of certain users, and thought it might be useful to
>>have a page to refer these users to instead of having long pointless
>>threads each time one of them posts something like this:
>>
>>http://drupal.org/node/41966#comment-79224
>>
>>A down side to the user base growing so quickly is that we'll no doubt
>>be seeing a lot more like this in future.
>>
>>A handbook page like this needs to be very carefully worded so as not
>>to alienate users, if there's interest in the ideas it can be rewritten
>>to be more diplomatic before we publish it.
>>
>>
>>
>>Best regards,
>>
>>Robert
>>    
>>
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