On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Steve Steiner (listsin) < listsin@integrateddevcorp.com> wrote:
Where would we put an "inventory" project for it to be most useful?
As JP mentioned earlier in this thread, some work has already taken place here: <http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/DocumentationAnalysis>.
It doesn't really look like that effort went anywhere.
I don't think it's quite fair to say it didn't go *anywhere*, it just didn't get anywhere particularly complete. I think the reviews that have been done thus far are still a valuable resource for someone interested in working on the documentation.
Maybe we should have an auction?
(snipped lengthy description of labor-intensive bounty resolution process) What we really need is for people in the community to knuckle down and do the work of actually reviewing the documents, rewriting things, soliciting feedback, copy-editing the documents, checking for accuracy, etc. As Jessica did when she started the thread :). Frankly, the work is boring: what the documentation needs is not a dynamic market-driven system for managing contributions and paying bounties, it's not a comprehensive overhaul of our entire documentation toolchain. What it needs is for people to sit down and read all the documentation, make a list of all of its problems, one at a time, and then write, delete, and edit as necessary, incorporating feedback from the community. Once we have people taking part in that effort and working with the docs on a daily or weekly basis, *then* we can listen to the reality of the problems and frustrations that they have working with the tools or determining priorities or whatever and solve those problems. Separately from that, if you're interested in contributing some time to manage a bounty program for the TSF, that might be a reasonable idea. Other projects have experimented with bounty-based systems for resolving bugs. Unfortunately there are a number of difficulties with those systems, which are really out of the scope of this discussion, but they're worth talking about if you have a real interest in doing it.