[documentation] wiki style help pages

[Addison Berry]

I've not got time to digest and respond to the whole thread right now,  
but just wanted to point out the instructions for joining docs are here:
http://drupal.org/node/23367, first page under the Contributing to  
docs section.


On Apr 2, 2008, at 1:02 AM, ricco at webulite.com wrote:

> Steve,
>
> What you seem to be saying is that I am not missing something. That I
> cannot simply sign up to get a "EDIT PAGE" tab at the top of all doc
> pages. Assuming you are familiar with how the doc system works more  
> than
> me, and your comment was inspired by my post.
>
> If you go to http://groups.drupal.org/WikiHelp, and follow any link  
> to any
> page off the front, you will see they are wiki pages, and anyone  
> then just
> clicks EDIT, and edits the page (would be cool if groups.drupal.org  
> wiki
> pages had the TALK tab implemented and the wiki page content type  
> had a
> default to "enable comments read/write, but that is a future  
> feature, not
> one currently implemented in the groups.drupal.org world.) And yes,
> mediawiki calls what you are talking about a WATCH LIST, and you can  
> sign
> up to monitor pages changes. And of course certain mediawiki gods  
> can see
> revisions and undo bad edits.
>
> But you see how easy http://groups.drupal.org/WikiHelp pages are to  
> edit?
> That was why I set the group up. I don't see what is unDrupal about  
> it...
> in fact it seems to be simply a group like the 260 other groups, that
> allows members to create wiki pages like the other groups offer. It  
> seems
> kind of odd that the moderators would allow a "spain drupal users  
> group"
> or many of the other 260+ groups, but not tolerate a "WikiHelp"  
> group. Not
> sure how it can hurt things, and it seems like it would be an
> experimentation environment that would help shed light on if the  
> drupal
> doc group is not getting members because it is too hard to work, or if
> simply nobody care about documentation.
>
> I would bet that the WikiHelp group in 6 months would accumulate a  
> great
> deal of user input simply because of the ease of it's use.
>
> It sounds like what you are implying is that there is a sort of heavy
> monitoring of the ability to edit doc pages, and that the goal is to  
> keep
> every Tom, Dick, and Harry from doing updates. If that is the case, I
> simply have a totally philsophically different approach to how to  
> get your
> user community to maintain and participate in documentation.
>
> So at this point I am trying to determine if it is a matter of I am
> missing how to become a documenter, becoming on, and then pointing  
> out how
> you folks can change the drupal doc pages so that others that follow  
> can
> change drupal doc pages simply by clicking one link... or... if Drupal
> purposely does not want every Tom dick and harry changing the  
> docs... In
> which case you folks have to decide if you want to allow me to make  
> make
> the http://groups.drupal.org/WikiHelp group, and see if i can prove  
> that
> the fully open system will give you better docs in the long run...  
> or if I
> should just forget about documentation, and go back to just being a  
> Drupal
> user instead of trying to get involved with helping with Docs.
>
> Cheers! Ricco
>
>> Seems like a simple text link on top of every doc page that said:
>>
>> "Click here to help improve this document," or something to that
>> effect, with a link to the appropriate page on how to contribute to
>> documentation would be nice.
>>
>> I don't know what the thinking is behind the application for document
>> contributors is. Perhaps the hurdle is there to improve the signal to
>> noise ratio?
>>
>> One thing drupal's wiki feature lack is the ability to send out email
>> notifications when a page is updated. I think this is a crucial
>> feature that's needed before opening up documentation to every Tom,
>> Dick, and Harry who wants to change a page. That feature should
>> probably implemented before documentation became more open. This  
>> would
>> make catching bad edits more timely.
>
>
> --
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