[documentation] Add disclaimer to all handbook pages

[Mr. Meitar Moscovitz]

On Jun 5, 2008, at 8:01 PM, Nathaniel Catchpole wrote:

> Whilst thinking about the contributors block and last updated info,  
> it occurred to me we don't have a disclaimer displayed for all  
> handbook pages. I think it'd make sense to have something displayed  
> on all pages to make it clear that it's community contributed  
> documentation etc. - might be worth putting in the contributors  
> block. "All documentation is contributed by volunteers and may not  
> have been checked for accuracy" something like that.

I'm kind of just wondering aloud here, but isn't it pretty obvious  
that Drupal is entirely a community-driven, volunteer-run project, and  
that *all* of its code/documentation has come from volunteers and may  
not have been checked for accuracy?

I can see that there's certainly a fine line to walk here, but since  
any d.o user account can add a new handbook page, I would imagine that  
it's pretty self-evident where the documentation comes from.

So as not to be nothing but a dissenter, what about this idea: rather  
than blanket the entire handbook with a big disclaimer, why not  
develop a set of standard snippets that we as doc team members can add  
to pages we feel are dangerous, risky, or need any other kind of red- 
flag placed on them. I'm thinking something along the lines of  
Wikipedia's "The community feels that this article might need  
revision…" sort of things. See any of the massive list of template  
messages at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages

for examples. Currently, it seems to me that the docs team does do  
this, but we do this by submitting issues against certain nodes, which  
are not visible from the handbook pages themselves and thus no user  
browsing the handbook pages would see them. Using something akin to  
Wikipedia's template messages system (which is purely enforced by  
convention, not by the software—which is sensible if you ask me),  
would remedy that problem.

Of course, I have no idea what the technical implementation of that  
would look like. Just brainstorming here.

Cheers,
--
-Meitar Moscovitz
Personal: http://maymay.net
Professional: http://MeitarMoscovitz.com

> For example, code snippets probably need this more than most.
>
> http://drupal.org/handbook/customization/snippets - has a disclaimer
> http://drupal.org/node/45471 - (theme snippets parent) has a  
> disclaimer
> http://drupal.org/node/35728 - an actual code snippet, doesn't have  
> a disclaimer. Unless I find the snippet via the handbook hierarchy  
> (and IMO more people will find it from incoming links, irc, google  
> and drupal.org search than clicking through), I won't see the  
> disclaimer.
>
> If the block happens, then it's just an extra sentence to add, but  
> it'd need to be carefully worded - since equally we don't want to  
> give the idea that there's official, non-volunteer documentation  
> hiding somewhere.
>
> Nat
>
> --
> Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
> List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

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