[documentation] "Recent conversations about online documentation"

[Laura Scott]

First of all, this is more of a background topic pertaining to  
documentation, and is not a call to any particular action.

I'm sure many of you are already seeing this in your feed readers:  
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/09/recent_conversa.html

One paragraph in particular caught my eye:

> Motivation through a reputation system
>
> A survey answered by 350 contributors to online documentation  
> showed that building reputation could be a useful motivation for  
> getting people to contribute, although reputation interests them  
> less than community-building. As I point out in the article,  
> enhancing chances for building reputation may help to attract the  
> people who tend to provide high-quality documentation: trainers,  
> consultants, and others trying to fashion a career around a  
> technology.

I thought I'd toss this out there as we strive to improve our own  
documentation. Others have raised this issue in the past,  
particularly with regards to the tricky challenge of crediting  
authors and editors.

Another bit:

> I exchanged some very interesting mail with Lance Smith, who  
> believes that people who write documentation have an artistic bent  
> and are chronically unsatisfied with the sloppiness that  
> accompanies most of the work they see around them. The urge to  
> intervene and tell people how to use their computers is aesthetic.  
> The kind of person who contributes to mailing lists and web pages  
> just finds it demoralizing to see bad practices carried on by  
> generation after generation of new learners.

Perhaps a hint at how we might appeal to potential contributors and  
maintainers who might actually stick around and become leaders in  
this area?

Anyway....

Laura
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