Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 05/06/2009 - 15:29.
I've burned down Drupal.org's documentation twice. Djun Kim(purejin) did it once before me. I view it as a task that needs to be done every 18 months or so.
1. Survey.
2. Decide on your vision (this is where you talk to people)
3. Present the plan / outline
4. Get buy in. This is not as hard as some people think IF your plan answers their concerns.
5. Schedule \ announce
6. Get some people to be available towards the end to review and fine tune.
7. Schedule your time. Edit / organize / prune. (estimate a minimum of 40-60 hours of time for this part alone)
8. Post completion.
Drupal.org's audience evolves as the technology evolves. As a result this re-org is useful. After each re-org it helped solve the problems people had in the forums or in IRC with finding content.
With expansion comes contribution and change and growth. After a time, it is time to prune. I was ruthless with outdated content. If it hadn't been updated and was no longer on a supported version of Drupal, it was gone (gone as in deleted). This approach really riled up many people and I got nasty messages. There is 'religious belief' that links are forever, they are not. The current drive is to 'archive' outdated content in it's own section. I have always believe that that polluted search results, if a 'how to' is not updated in 3 versions, it's not that important.
I do believe I mentioned this approach a time or two to various people who wanted to re-organize / edit books and content.
Drupal is not static. Drupal.org is not static. There are many audiences for information and many different methods to find / discover it. How to address the interwoven nature of drupal code /configuration / content management is and will remain a moving target.
I think it's great that Acquia has your stamp of approval. I think it's great they are paying people to write documentation. Certainly there is more control when you pay people or gain revenue from such then from hundreds of random volunteers.
Many have thought they knew better. They went off and built their mouse trap. I don't know, I got tired of it and stepped aside.
I've burned down Drupal.org's documentation twice. Djun Kim(purejin) did it once before me. I view it as a task that needs to be done every 18 months or so.
1. Survey.
2. Decide on your vision (this is where you talk to people)
3. Present the plan / outline
4. Get buy in. This is not as hard as some people think IF your plan answers their concerns.
5. Schedule \ announce
6. Get some people to be available towards the end to review and fine tune.
7. Schedule your time. Edit / organize / prune. (estimate a minimum of 40-60 hours of time for this part alone)
8. Post completion.
Drupal.org's audience evolves as the technology evolves. As a result this re-org is useful. After each re-org it helped solve the problems people had in the forums or in IRC with finding content.
With expansion comes contribution and change and growth. After a time, it is time to prune. I was ruthless with outdated content. If it hadn't been updated and was no longer on a supported version of Drupal, it was gone (gone as in deleted). This approach really riled up many people and I got nasty messages. There is 'religious belief' that links are forever, they are not. The current drive is to 'archive' outdated content in it's own section. I have always believe that that polluted search results, if a 'how to' is not updated in 3 versions, it's not that important.
I do believe I mentioned this approach a time or two to various people who wanted to re-organize / edit books and content.
Drupal is not static. Drupal.org is not static. There are many audiences for information and many different methods to find / discover it. How to address the interwoven nature of drupal code /configuration / content management is and will remain a moving target.
I think it's great that Acquia has your stamp of approval. I think it's great they are paying people to write documentation. Certainly there is more control when you pay people or gain revenue from such then from hundreds of random volunteers.
Many have thought they knew better. They went off and built their mouse trap. I don't know, I got tired of it and stepped aside.
Steven Peck (sepeck)