[GRASS-user] Call for documentation help

[Dr. Manuel Seeger]

Hello,
I'm now using GRASS for a while and try to introduce it to the students' 
education. So I think I could try to help with the enhancement of the 
documentation. But I am not a native english speaker. Extending, I could 
offer my support for german and spanish documentation.
Unfortunately, I do not feel able to coordinate this..;-)

Please let me know, where you could need my help!

Manuel

Michael Barton schrieb:
> 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
>


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_______________________________________________________________________
Dr. Manuel Seeger
Wiss. Assistent 			Scientific Assistant
Physische Geographie 			Dpt. of Physical Geography
FB VI - Geographie/Geowissenschaften 	Geography/Geosciences
Universität Trier			University of Trier
D - 54286 Trier
Tel.:	+49-651-201 4557
Fax:	+49-651-201 3976
Web:	http://www-neu.uni-trier.de/index.php?id=9607