[kde-doc-english]New on the list

[Lauri Watts]

On Monday 15 April 2002 20.28, Dr R Divakar wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have been using Caldera's OpenLinux WorkStation 3.1.1 over the last 4
> months on my home desktop for free. I believe the Open Source model works
> when users contribute. The KDE website led me here to this mailing list.
> Since my background is in Metallurgy and I am not very good at programming
> though I am, by my own admission good with using software, I felt I could
> contribute by helping with the documentation. And that is why I am here. I
> have a full time job as a Research Scientist at a Government Lab. I will be
> able to spend an hour or so each day at home on this. Is this enough? If
> yes, how does one get started? What are the hardware / software
> requirements? I believe my English is adequate and I have some experience
> in setting up and content management for our lab intranet. Ideally, I would
> like to start with proof - reading already written drafts of documentation
> so I get used to the writing technique and style. I have been unable to
> find any FAQs regarding this at the KDE website.
>
> Please advise.

Hi, and welcome aboard.

There is an organized proofreading team, which is led by Malcolm Hunter, and 
also uses this list for communication.  

One of the things that's worked well in the past with people who don't wish to 
commit too much time initially, is to use the bugs system, or simply report 
changes here on the list (I prefer the bugs system, there's more feedback, 
and it's obvious to all parties when the work has been completed and the 
changes implemented.)  Just submit a bug at http://bugs.kde.org with the 
package set to "docs".

As to style, well, that's a difficult and perennial question.  KDE is, as you 
know, an almost entirely voluntary project, and we put fairly heavy demands 
on our authors already with the need for them to be (usually) running 
development versions of software, and the huge DocBook DTD.  I do point out 
to people they don't necessarily need to learn the DocBook markup right away, 
I'll happily do it for them until they're comfortable, but most people want 
to "take ownership" of their contributions.  This is great, but means a lot 
of new people also give up fairly early on.  The point of this rambling of 
mine is, we have tried in the past to be very gentle when it comes to editing 
the actual content of the documentation, because it's one more "demand" that 
is put on people who are already kindly donating their time, and it's one 
more thing that scares them off.

This approach has been reasonably successful, and much of the documentation is 
really good, if a little uneven.  The proofreading team has been another 
wonderful advance for the consistency and grammatical correctness of the 
handbooks.  The final result is, we really don't have any specific 
style-guides, just a few very brief guidelines, which you'll find here:
http://i18n.kde.org/doc/content.html

Ok, this turned into quite a novel, which was unintended.  To summarize, since 
we're all volunteers, the answer is to jump in.  Malcolm can tell you if he's 
working systematically, and which documents have already been looked at, so 
that you're not duplicating efforts, and you can either post bugs, or send 
them direct to the listed author, or me (I would say post on the list, but 
only if they're small < 40kb).

And finally, again, thank you for your interest, and welcome to the KDE team.

Regards,
-- 
Lauri Watts
KDE Documentation Coordinator