[documentation] Newbie documentation

[Jennifer Wabin]

Not having been involved in the community for a little while (while I'm
waiting for 4.7 to release), I find it comforting to be reading about so
many others who are now interested in improving the documentation for
newbies - like myself.  While in some ways, I like the idea of a separate
streamlined site for newcomers, I also prefer the way we are all thrown
together now.  The way I see it, the benefits of separate sites include:
making documentation more user oriented, new questions are expected, more
toleration of "dumb" questions, more easy of participating as a newcomer,
and maybe new questions won't get as lost in the mix.

However, I think the benefits of having 1 intergrated site are: 
1) newbies have a lot to contribute - I bet we find bugs as fast or faster
than developers. After all, we stumble around, "do things wrong," and think
in untraditional ways. I've personally submitted a ton of requests and bug
reports when things didn't go quite as I expected.  I think this can only
help module developers. I know that complaining is annoying and not everyone
is polite. I'm sorry, and I believe I've read at least a few attempts good
pages on drupal.org etiquette before the Hitchhiker's Guide version. (I
haven't actually dug down far enough to read that one yet, but it doesn't
sound very polite from responses. In any case, I would resent being called a
Hitchhiker. Even tho the book is cute, the term still is not.)  In addition,
I think a lot of newcomers would be more friendly if they weren't so
frustrated. Which leads me to...
2) Drupal.org needs to get better anyway - The documentation is fairly
extensive but hard to negotiate and hard to access.  A/V documentation is
helpful and will help the ignorant.  I think it's a great idea, and I also
see it as a daunting task. For those of you with the energy to do it, by all
means go ahead! :) I think that's a wonderful idea.  I know that for me
personally, I wouldn't have benefited from any video or audio clip on what
to do. I'm especially impatient, and I just don't tolerate waiting for
people to speak very well.  I would much prefer written tutorials on a few
pages with screen shots as those are easier for me to navigate.  That is
what I would like to work on, and have to a certain extent.  I personally
think the issue is structural one for the documentation.  Can we do both? 
3) Forums - They seem to be active, really, really, active.  Which is great,
but it also leads to frustration.  As questions drop off the front page at a
fairly rapid rate and don't get answered.  Especially if they are just a
teeny bit more technical than: How do I do this? (which is really an option
already built in).  Can we branch them out a bit?  What if we just add an
additional forum or two within the How do I category?  What?  I'm not
exactly sure... and I just realized I'm about to be late for work.  (oops)

Jennifer