[FM Discuss] wikimania and foo report # 1

[John & Melonie Curwood]

Hi I just thought I would offer some thoughts on the following paragraph
around knowing what to add.

> Of this group also, and this I found not surprising but still very
> interesting - almost 41% said they would contribute if they knew there
> was a specific topic that needed their input. I find this interesting as
> I think this is also something FLOSS Manuals should be thinking about -
> if you register with FM, how do you know what needs to be done? At this
> stage, unless you post to the mailing list or find someone in the chat
> room, you don't know what is needed. We have tried a few tools to remedy
> this but so far we haven't really utilised them effectively. I think we
> could do more experimentation with this, and we might also try some new
> tools in the forthcoming Booki platform.

I feel that the whole where do I start? question is a tough one with
regards to breaking the ice for new members of FLOSS manuals. I remember
finding it difficult figuring out where to start when I first signed up
(in the end i think it was just a few cosmetic changes to already
established chapters).  And I have been thinking about it ever since -
especially when the Inkscape manual began having a major push to
coincide with the release date of a new version of the software.  The
question came up about how do we know what needs to be done to bring the
manual up to date with the new release and then track our progress.

At that time there was talk of a to-do list going up on the write page.
I have since been thinking that we could expand on that idea.  Create a
To-do/request list where we not only added areas that writers knew
needed attention but also could include requests for chapters from
readers who were looking for specific info that isn't present in the
current manual.  FM members could then rate the importance/necessity of
the requests which could then be ranked from greatest to least
importance so someone coming onto the write page for a manual could see
a list of say the 5 most important changes/updates/additions to make to
the manual giving some direction on where to start your writing.

Hopefully this makes sense, anyway just throwing out ideas to help the
growth of FM.

Cheers,

John Curwood