Submitted by Leo (not verified) on Wed, 05/13/2009 - 04:47.
In the process of researching different CMS I often came across people who had abandoned Drupal due to a perception that the community is not helpful. Often it would turn out that what they really meant was that the documentation wass not helpful, and they could not understand why it was allowed to be so oblique.
I'm now sufficiently far down the Drupal development line that the initial frustrations are over but I still remember the experience of trying to find out how to do things. In general, I've found sites other than drupal.org more useful resources regarding how to do certain things, than drupal.org itself.
I think wikipedia is a great model collaborative documentation and the Drupal documentation pages should aim to follow a similar model: E.g.
* Do not restrict who can edit pages, in favour of making it easier to contribute *
For example: I really cannot be bothered to go through the process of joining a drupal documentation group. The only people who will get around to doing that are the relatively small number of people who are sufficiently dedicated to go "on a mission" to improve the documentation. The reason wikipedia works is because *anybody* can contribute, and then the dedicated peeps concentrate more on quality control. And as is plain to see, it *does* work.
* Rely on links in the content and the search function to navigate *
The drupal documentation site attempts to use the left hand navigation for, well .. navigation. This really does not work. I basically ignore it and rely upon search.
* Use the right tool for the job *
Drupal is great for setting up a content managed website. It is not so great for creating documentation. I would actually propose using something like MediaWiki to do this job. Accept that Drupal is not and should not be trying to be all things to all people.
In the process of researching different CMS I often came across people who had abandoned Drupal due to a perception that the community is not helpful. Often it would turn out that what they really meant was that the documentation wass not helpful, and they could not understand why it was allowed to be so oblique.
I'm now sufficiently far down the Drupal development line that the initial frustrations are over but I still remember the experience of trying to find out how to do things. In general, I've found sites other than drupal.org more useful resources regarding how to do certain things, than drupal.org itself.
I think wikipedia is a great model collaborative documentation and the Drupal documentation pages should aim to follow a similar model: E.g.
* Do not restrict who can edit pages, in favour of making it easier to contribute *
For example: I really cannot be bothered to go through the process of joining a drupal documentation group. The only people who will get around to doing that are the relatively small number of people who are sufficiently dedicated to go "on a mission" to improve the documentation. The reason wikipedia works is because *anybody* can contribute, and then the dedicated peeps concentrate more on quality control. And as is plain to see, it *does* work.
* Rely on links in the content and the search function to navigate *
The drupal documentation site attempts to use the left hand navigation for, well .. navigation. This really does not work. I basically ignore it and rely upon search.
* Use the right tool for the job *
Drupal is great for setting up a content managed website. It is not so great for creating documentation. I would actually propose using something like MediaWiki to do this job. Accept that Drupal is not and should not be trying to be all things to all people.