[GRASS-user] Call for documentation help

[Markus Neteler]

My suggestion is to establish a documentation manager (as we have
jobs like:

    *  Bugtracker manager: Maciej Sieczka
    *  Translations manager: Carlos Dávila
    *  Public relations manager: Malte Halbey-Martin
...).

This works just great.

I have added a draft job description of a 'Documentation manager' at
http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Project_jobs

Applications welcome!

Markus

PS: Michael said that contributions should be sent via email in copy to me.
For practical reasons I suggest to establish asap a 'Documentation manager'.


Nikos Alexandris wrote:
> 
> I would like to give some of my free time to support as much as I can (of
> course). I already have found small mistakes in the man pages.
> 
> Please,
> 
> could you make it more clear... "copy the the GRASS project team leader, 
> Markus Neteler <neteler [at] fbk.eu" ?
> 
> Sorry for my misundertanding.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Nikos.
> 
> 
> Michael Barton-3 wrote:
>> 
>> The GRASS team needs your help. As you all are well aware, GRASS is 
>> enormously sophisticated spatial analysis sophisticated. This also makes 
>> it equally complicated and sometimes baffling for users, with over 300 
>> individual modules. GRASS has a top notch integrated and contextual help 
>> system. BUT we need help in making the most of the help system.
>> 
>> As with all open source software, the development team is a group of 
>> dedicated volunteers who work hard (in addition to their regular jobs) 
>> to create the first rate software that you all use. They are also very 
>> responsible in trying to document the program modules they code and 
>> maintain.
>> 
>> This is where your help is needed. In spite of best intentions and 
>> efforts, development team members with coding skills need to put most of 
>> their always limited time into writing and maintaining the code that 
>> makes GRASS such a powerful and versatile software package. Many of you 
>> in the GRASS community are expert users even if you do not have 
>> expertise in programming. It is also clear from the traffic on this list 
>> that you are regularly willing to share your expertise with others by 
>> answering questions.
>> 
>> Would some of you be willing to join the development team to help manage 
>> and improve the GRASS documentation and help system? You don't need to 
>> be proficient at programming, and because this is a team effort, you 
>> don't even need to know all parts of GRASS. What is needed is sufficient 
>> knowledge of some GRASS modules to help improve and maintain their 
>> documentation pages, a little bit of html (the help pages are in very 
>> basic html), and a desire to work cooperatively to improve GRASS. Here 
>> is a partial list of roles that are needed.
>> 
>> Individual module management:
>> -Add or improve examples. Examples of how to use a module to get 
>> different results is very helpful
>> -Add or improve example graphic in modules. Screen shots are often worth 
>> many words
>> -Improve and enrich descriptions in English. In many cases, 
>> documentation was written by valiant souls for whom English is a 2nd (or 
>> 3rd or 4th) language. Native speakers are needed to enrich these 
>> descriptions.
>> -Add or improve non-English versions of the documentation. GRASS is 
>> trying hard to be international and is used around the world. Much of 
>> the operational language of the modules have been translated to other 
>> languages (though a lot more help is needed in this too). Help and doc 
>> pages in other languages would make GRASS much more usable globally.
>> 
>> Overall:
>> -Documentation management. Someone or ones to mangage a team of 
>> documentation helpers, ID holes and weak spots in the documentation, 
>> coordinate with the coding team, and think about documentation standards.
>> 
>> If you are interested and willing to contribute a small part of your 
>> time to help others use GRASS, please respond to the GRASS Developer 
>> list <grass-dev at grass.itc.it> and copy the GRASS project team leader, 
>> Markus Neteler <neteler [at] fbk.eu>
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> Professor of Anthropology
>> Director of Graduate Studies
>> School of Human Evolution & Social Change
>> Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
>> Arizona State University
>> 
>> Phone: 480-965-6262
>> Fax: 480-965-7671
>> WWW: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
>> 
> 
-- 
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