Making handbook editable by all (was Re: [documentation] the documentation site...<snip>)

[Dries Buytaert]

On 12 Jan 2006, at 07:31, Boris Mann wrote:
>>> Only creates are allowed, not edits, as per statement above.
>>
>> This could easily be changed if someone would submit a patch for  
>> the book module which implements the "edit all book pages" access  
>> control such as what I included in the wikipage.module I put up on  
>> my site. If I could figure out how to do it, it must be simple to  
>> do :)
>
> I keep feeling like I'm missing something...doesn't "maintain  
> books" give this permission?!

I'm willing to do the experiment, but I'm not confident it will work.

Would it be a good idea to allow everyone to commit changes to Drupal  
core?  I think not.  It takes a small group of people with a good  
overview to coordinate the many changes, to maintain consistency, to  
maintain integrity, etc.

I think writing Drupal documentation is more like writing code than  
writing an encyclopedia with stand-alone articles.  Wikipedia has  
little or no structure, whereas the Drupal handbook is very  
structured (much like code is).  People don't read Wikipedia from  
beginning to end, however, people do read the Drupal handbook from  
beginning to end.  Thus, you don't need to understand the entire  
Wikipedia website before you can contribute an article, however, you  
should have a pretty decent overview of the Drupal handbook, before  
you should be able to add a new page.  Otherwise, the handbook will  
grow unwieldy: information will be duplicated, information will be in  
the wrong place, writing style will differ, people will use  
terminology before it has been explained properly, the level of  
detail will be unbalanced, etc.  And that's pretty annoying when you  
read something from beginning to end.

The alternative is to make the handbook more Wiki-like, and to do  
away with the impression that you can read it from beginning to end.   
If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck.  So if it looks like  
a Wiki people will use it more like a Wiki; both when reading the  
handbook and while contributing to it.  If you call it a book, people  
will expect it to be a book.

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/