[documentation] Hitchhikers guide to Drupal

[Kim P. Werker]

On 6-Jan-06, at 12:56 AM, Dries Buytaert wrote:

> The question is: 'do you want to work with us, helping new users?'.

Yes. Absolutely. That's why I'm here, and that's why we put up our  
outline in the forum. It seems like there's lots of interest in  
newbie-oriented documentation, and people like the idea for various  
reasons. Some, like me, would have appreciated it in the beginning.  
Others think it will help to strengthen the general documentation  
effort. Others want to take some of the support burden off the  
overworked and under-appreciated developers. Our suggestion is to  
initiate the newbie-doc effort off site or in a subdomain because we  
think approaching it fresh will enable faster progress, the testing  
of novel navigation and information structuring, and the opening up  
the possibility of innovation.

To me, the Handbook is daunting. Both because I tried to use it as a  
newbie and didn't succeed and because now that I want to help with  
documentation -- specifically for newbies at first -- the thought of  
starting with the Handbook is overwhelming and I'm tempted to walk  
away (not a threat; just a humble admission of impatience).

I've been doing nothing but writing and editing lately, and one of  
the most valuable things I've learned is that if I'm stumped with  
something -- be it a paragraph, an outline, or a chapter -- often the  
most productive thing to do is start from scratch. It's not throwing  
away the work I did (in fact, I often come back to it to cut and  
paste); it's not dismissing my original work as a waste of time. It's  
just acknowledging that at first I went down a path that didn't work  
for me. In the end, the old and new become meshed seamlessly and get  
tossed into the greater piece.

That's what we want to do with newbie documentation -- pick and  
choose, move stuff around, scratch our heads, trim down, flesh out,  
and all the while play with how the visual presentation and  
navigation affect the reader's experience. Then take what we've got,  
words and experience and all, and bring it back to drupal.org for  
more hashing out.

Cheers,
Kim

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