Welcome Pack for Doc contributors (draft)

Philip Rodrigues philip.rodrigues at chch.ox.ac.uk
Thu Sep 2 23:11:38 CEST 2004


Hi Carlos,

> I would only explain better what kde-quality and kde-doc-english has to
> offer: kde-quality offer support (and guidance if requested).
> kde-doc-english is the forum to discuss all documentation issues.

Agreed - I wasn't thinking a lot about kde-quality when I wrote the draft, 
hoping that you'd be able to fill in the gaps about quality, so that's 
good :-).

> I imagine that this mail is focused on writers. What do you think about
> rewriting this section:
>
> "dealing with docs.kde.org, dealing with the XML tools used to generate
> documentation, programming stuff to automate, for example, screenshot
> generation."
>
> to
>
> "writing context help, articles, web pages, etc..."?
>
> Rationale: the new writer probably don't know about docs.kde.org, or the
> XML tools. And he may be interested in other writing tasks as well.

Also agreed. Especially in the context of quality teams, this seems a more 
sensible suggestion.

> Here is my take:
>
> ----
>
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for your offer to help with KDE documentation - we're glad to
> welcome you onto the team!
>
> If there's a particular application or document that you'd like to work on,
> that's great! Just tell us what it is, and we can put you in touch with the
> right people to get started straight away.
>
> If you're not sure what you'd like to work on, that's no problem. We have
> tasks which are simple and easy for beginners, through to longer and
> slightly more difficult jobs. This is a volunteer project, so we won't tell
> you that you *must* work on something, but to help you narrow down on
> something you'd enjoy, we've divided the available tasks into four
> categories. Take a look at them, and if you'd like to work on one category
> in particular, tell us here at kde-quality at kde.org. We can help you with
> the documentation tools, and to find the short cuts in the free software
> jungle!  The kde-quality mailing list main objective is to support you
> while you are starting to work with KDE, so don't hesitate to announce
> yourself.
>
> We can help find a task that suits you:
>
> 1. Writing new content for application manuals
> 2. Updating content/proofreading for application manuals
> 3. Writing content for general KDE documentation, like the User Guide or
> the Glossary
> 4. Taking screenshots, writing context help, articles, web pages, etc...
>
> We also have a lot of resources that you'll use when writing documentation:
>
> The main reference for everything docs-related is the KDE Documentation
> Primer, which you can find on line at http://i18n.kde.org/doc/doc-primer or
> http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtodocs.php .
> This should walk you through everything you need to know to get up to speed
> on writing docs for KDE, but be aware that it's still a work-in-progress.
>
> After getting up to speed, we strongly recommend that you subscribe to the
> kde-doc-english mailing list, where we discuss all documentation issues.
> It's very low traffic, but will keep you up-to-date on what's happening
> with KDE documentation. You can find instructions on subscribing at:
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-doc-english .
>
> You can also find us on IRC in #kde-docs on irc.freenode.net . Feel free to
> join us there any time.
>
> Once again, thanks for your offer of help, and we look forward to working
> with you,
>
> KDE Quality Team
> KDE Documentation Team

The changes look fine to me. Lauri points out that it's quite long. I think we 
should look into cutting out some of the verbiage. Tom, and any other native 
English speakers here, perhaps you can proofread and suggest ways of phrasing 
the same content a little more succinctly?

Regards,
Philip
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