Good point Mick. I've tried to describe the differences I see in "user-generated doc" and "community-generated doc" to others and I usually fall short, but you're hinting at the differences I see/perceive. Much of the Drupal wiki is user-generated doc. FLOSS Manuals is community-generated doc with a specific goal and purpose "free documentation for free software." <br>
<br>Even though FLOSS Manuals uses a wiki, it's really a souped-up CMS and publishing system in one. So when you need a Drupal book for a specific purpose, and the info wants to be free, FLOSS Manuals can provide a toolset to write that particular book. <br>
<br>But, we're still playing an old skool publisher role then - only books that a handful of acquisition people want are then brought into the FM framework. How do we play in the space between - with lots of acquisition experts plus lots of editors vetting the content, perhaps in small chunks? <br>
<br>I won't claim to have the answer. :) But I have made one observation about FM in another context - that FM provides not only a toolset, but often also provides (or recruits) writers and editors who are exceptionally good at what they do. We'll be sought after more for the people and community than the toolset in some cases. <br>
<br>Andy, your thoughts?<br>
<br>Anne<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/3/23 <a href="mailto:mick@mcin.net" target="_blank">mick@mcin.net</a> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mick@mcin.net" target="_blank">mick@mcin.net</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
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:</blockquote>
</div><div><br>I agree with the need for this but maybe FLOSS manuals isn't the place for this. <br><br>Take the Drupal manuals that I'm starting now for example and hoping to get help with on the mini sprint 17-19th April. <br>
<br>Drupal is a nightmare to document, I think we can all agree on that, that's why well written books on it actually sell. However there is also clearly a place for on going micro documentation - this is currently on the pages on the relevant Drupal groups and modules and forums and blogs. <br>
<br>If we were to try to move that to FLOSS Manuals then the Drupal <br>'manuals' would soon be as messy as the Drupal site. <br><br>I'm thinking of the Drupal manual for FLOSS Manuals as a middle ground between the two. It's maintained by a smallish number of people guiding the contents, in this case the inicial drive would be to represent how to do multimedia in a couple of ways using the currently preferred version of Drupal version 6. <br>
<br>This would have the same level of clarity as a Drupal book, the same self imposed limitations (to create that clarity) - but with the advantage that we can update the 'best practice' for how to achieve certain goals as the technology improves and shifts (as it seems to do every 6 months in Drupal) <br>
<br>I think this is a different situation with something like the Command Line, where there isn't going to be huge divergences in the ways people do things, and indeed the subject matter really lends itself to breaking things down in the micro sections, but I'm wondering how many situations this can be applied to. <br>
<br>I also wonder if we should because of these issues, limit the scope of the Drupal manual to something thing like - 'Overview of Multimedia in Drupal '<br><br>In general I think we need to be clear about what FLOSS Manuals isn't as well as what it is. I think this will help us when we are faced with issues of Communities who have their own documentation systems - which I think are more normally used to these smaller contributions. <br>
</div></div><br>Mick<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Anne Gentle<br>email: <a href="mailto:annegentle@justwriteclick.com" target="_blank">annegentle@justwriteclick.com</a><br>blog: <a href="http://www.justwriteclick.com" target="_blank">www.justwriteclick.com</a><br>