Helping with Documentation

[Philip Rodrigues]

Hi,
I'm on the KDE Documentation Team, and Carlos has asked if we can provide some 
ideas for people on this list who would like to help with writing 
documentation.

Our main focus at the moment is collecting a comprehensive list of things 
which need to be done. We're using Bugzilla for this, and filing bugs under 
product 'docs.' In that product we have four components (five actually, but 
the fifth is not really relevant to QT work): Corrections, Missing Content, 
Screenshots, and general. The first three are self-explanatory, and the last 
one is for anything that doesn't fit in the first three. You can see all of 
the bugs in the 'docs' product at:
http://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?product=docs&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bugidtype=include&order=Bug+Number&cmdtype=doit
(hopefully...)

There are two main tasks to be done in Bugzilla: The first is to submit new 
problems. This will involve reading the existing documentation for an 
application and checking that it describes the application correctly. You'll 
also have to look at all the features of the application to see if they're 
described in the documentation. If any of these don't match up, submit a bug. 
Please submit one bug per problem, rather than one bug per application.

The second thing to do is to fix the bugs :-). For 'Missing Content' bugs, you 
can write the content in either plain text or DocBook. Please, please don't 
feel any guilt about not knowing DocBook - we can easily add the necessary 
markup if the content is there. For 'Corrections' bugs, it is more useful to 
edit the DocBook source, especially for typos. We're currently thinking about 
the best way to submit patches, but for now, you can send them to 
kde-doc-english at kde.org.

If none of those interest you, there are plenty of other things which can be 
done in the documentation. Do you know the solution to a common problem (say, 
one that is frequently asked on the mailing lists/IRC channels)? If so, send 
us a writeup of the problem and its solution. Have you found a neat way of 
doing something with KDE? A 'howto' document would be welcome.

If that still doesn't take your fancy, email kde-doc-english at kde.org and we'll 
try to find something for you :-).

I look forward to working with you in the future,
Philip
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