[FM Discuss] Beyond manuals

[adam hyde]

hey


> I think that Wikipedia's fast, accurate editing success stems from the
> sense of a strict style guide - "everyone" knows what encyclopedia
> entries should read like, and their "training" is reading a couple of
> other entries to see how they're written. Now, before Adam has a
> conniption, I don't think Wikipedia's model is right for us. I think
> their barrier to entry, strict hierarchy, and box-out methods aren't
> our culture or style. But your article does point out a difficulty for
> FM compared to Wikipedia - it's very difficult to train writers to
> consider audience, keep the detail level correct, the sorts of things
> you mention in "Failures of Writing." http://is.gd/oy52
> 

I think the thing here is that we get an ecosystem going. I dont see it
as a need for training, I see the way forward as filling up the ecosytem
with people making a wide variety of contributions. We make up the
ecosystem wiht tech writers, spell checkers, people that 'just add
stuff', experts, newbies etc...all play a valuable role.

On the issue of training, I also think we arent a training org. We can
guide people if they ask for it, but we shouldnt think about training
writers per se. If someone asks we help, if they dont then we leave them
to come up with their own solution - this leads to more open creativity
in the types of contributions we get ie. lets not be prescriptive.

We also have to be attentive to what kind of help people ask for - do
they want answer from a technical writer, an ed, a fellow geek, someone
who is familiar with the system etc. Also it is very very important to
be open and helpful and nice to people that ask for help. I have asked
for help at some sites and been badly flamed. I would never ever want to
see FM supporting this kind of behaviour.

> I think that if we can keep the community vibe at FM strong, we can
> recruit editors/maintainers who "edit books because they still play an
> important role in learning" (to quote from your reasons for editing
> books). I think that our book model is also helpful in that it helps
> with the tying together disparate contributions. 
> 

totally agree


the other points i want to ponder and will reply in more detail in the
coming days

adam

> A
> Anne
> 
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 8:29 AM, Andy Oram <andyo at oreilly.com> wrote:
>         Adam mentioned that the FSF book sprint this past weekend had
>         more people working simultaneously on a book than ever before
>         at FLOSS Manuals. We divided the book into smaller and smaller
>         files to enable simultaneous editing. The FLOSS Manuals server
>         held up admirably (yay, tech team) and the IRC channel helped
>         a lot to recruit volunteers, coordinate contributions, and
>         bolster morale (yay again, tech team).
>         
>         But this experience is just the nose of the camel. We're going
>         to become more popular and we're going to get more
>         contributions in small chunks. I'm still a little nervous
>         about the job I'm assigning myself of going over the whole
>         manual and making the flow just as good as any work by a
>         single expert author.
>         
>         As I reported in previous mail, O'Reilly folks are interested
>         in FLOSS Manuals. But all the buzz around here (you can get a
>         sense of it by visiting radar.oreilly.com) is about really
>         tiny exchanges of information: what happens with Twitter and
>         other even newer initiatives. The new generation is on mobile
>         devices and wants interaction as much as information. They're
>         quite happy with information in chunks smaller than this email
>         message.
>         
>         I think that, despite the name "FLOSS Manuals," we have to
>         think about smaller contributions and about how to tie them
>         together. I've known this at least since 2004 when I first
>         wrote about online contributions. Here's one of my articles
>         for background:
>         
>         http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2006/07/06/rethinking-community-documentation.html
>         
>         Linking disparate contributions, ratings, and other ways of
>         marshalling the flood will become more important.
>         
>         Andy
>         _______________________________________________
>         Discuss mailing list
>         Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>         http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Anne Gentle
> email: annegentle at justwriteclick.com
> blog: www.justwriteclick.com
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-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

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