KDE Documentation Gathering Idea

[Steven Hatfield]

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Hello!
KDE help entries are pretty good, but as everyone knows, can be better.
Some KDE programs don't have help documentation, or simply have "more to
come".  The main problem that I've seen is that the developers of
applications are too busy writing the applications to write measly little
help files for them.  I know I don't like to write help file entries for
apps that I write.

So I thought I'd write in with an idea that I picked up from the Mac world.

The MacGIMP people have taken it upon themselves to get some documentation
from people who use the software by offering free CDs of the software for
anyone who writes a 500 word article on how they use their favorite plugin.

You can read about it here:
http://www.macgimp.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=155

Perhaps it would be a good idea to mimic something like this in KDE?

A simple (yet hopefully effective) idea:
When KDE4 is a few months away, maybe as release candidate 1 is about to
come out, start a contest.
People submit help entries for how to use their favorite program, and the
people who submit the best entries are then included in the credits of the
applications, and on the website at final release time.  Maybe corporate
sponsorship can be achieved to do some cool T-Shirts for the winners.  Then
all the developers will have to do is copy/paste the ideas into the help
documentation for their specific program, and voila, everyone has more help
documentation.

Furthermore, the winners can be brought into the fold (so to speak) and
they could continue to write help entries for applications.  Who knows what
kind of relationships from developer to help file writer can be nurtured
with something like this?  This hopefully would serve to energize end users
to contribute something back to projects that they use.

Just a thought.

Have a great day!
- -Steven

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~ +  Steven R. Hatfield   |  "The Key To Software Freedom"
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~ +  Software/Database/Web Developer                        \
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~ +  Email: steven at knightswood.net                           /
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