[documentation] Contributors to docs need more public recognition

[Steve Dondley]

Someone reverted some documentation I submitted at
http://drupal.org/node/262422 which removed a credit attributed to
myself and others for writing the documentation. I specifically placed
the credit in there to point out a bad oversight on the part of d.o.
which is that documentation writers receive little to no public
recognition for their work.

Giving public recognition to contributors will work to move people out
of the "user" category and into the "contributor" column for a few
reasons:

1) It will cater to people's ego (yup, we all got 'em) to see their
names in lights.
3) Most contributors seek karma. The only way to obtain karma is to give credit.
4) They might feel not sharing their talents while others freely share theirs.
5) It reminds them that there are real people behind all the work at
d.o. and that it doesn't just magically appear for them.

Currently, you have to be a registered user and logged into view the
revisions. Even when you are logged in, the revisions tab is barely
clicked and only by those actually maintaining the documents.

With this in mind, I recommend the following:

1) A block down the side to give public recognition to all those who
have contributed to the documentation (maybe sorted by the number of
revisions).
2) A link at the top of the block to the list of revisions with an
encouragement for user to click there to admire the hard work of
others.

I think this is a modest change that hopefully won't take a lot of
effort. I think the payoff would be big.

Thanks.



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