[SeasonOfDocs] Suggested plan for Swapnil's SeasonOfDocs/GeoNetwork work

[Jo Cook]

Hi All,

I should definitely have given an update on the GeoNetwork documentation
code sprint before this- I do apologise, but I've been snowed under with
work and conferences.

Firstly working through this thread- as Cameron said initially- the
documentation task for Geonetwork is huge- there's no doubt about that, but
there was never any intention it should be entirely the work of one person
to fix that problem. Again, I'd like to reiterate that if there's a problem
installing on Windows then that's a great place to start fixing things and
I'm happy to help with that.

Secondly I'm in two minds about whether auditing the existing docs in the
way that Felicity did is the best place to start, as to an extent that has
already been done in Byron's spreadsheet, which has been adopted as the de
facto guide to completeness. Personally I think the current priority is not
that a document gets 5/5 for best practices, but that it's present and
complete in terms of functionality, and that users are not put off by
mistakes or missing steps. New documentation could, however, be built from
templates, but I think that's a decision for the wider Geonetwork PSC.
Happy to be argued down about this though, particularly if Swapnil feels
his talents would be better used in a different way.

Now to the code sprint. Basically we took Byron's spreadsheet and various
people assigned themselves sections to work on. When sections were
completed they were marked as such. The focus was on larger sections that
needed updating or adding altogether. We also improved the "how to
contribute to the documentation" section as it was missing steps, so it
should be much easier for people to contribute in future. I also went
through all of the release notes from 3.6 onwards, ensuring that there were
GitHub issues for anything missing, out of date, or incomplete as a result
of new user-facing functionality (I ignored anything that could not be seen
in the user interface). Continuing this process for subsequent releases
should now be fairly straightforward and it's a task I'm happy to
undertake, and the GitHub issues are small enough and hopefully simple
enough that any user could help with fixing them. There's now also an
unofficial process whereby for large documentation updates, pull requests
are reviewed before they can be accepted.

I think that as we're coming up to Christmas and a lot of us are likely to
take significant amounts of time off, let's take a break now from the
fortnightly meetings and re-group and re-launch in January. We can
hopefully get Francois to join us as well by then. Having said that, I
should have time this week to attempt to install Geonetwork on windows 10,
if that would help Swapnil?

Thoughts?

Jo

On Sun, Dec 15, 2019 at 9:45 PM Byron Cochrane <byron at openwork.nz> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Sorry about the slow response. Been a bit overloaded with things to get
> done by the end of Thursday this week.
> Friday would be about the only availability I have this week for a
> meeting. Jo at least should be in this call. Paul and others more involved
> would also be useful. My bandwidth for unpaid work is a bit maxed out right
> now but will contribute what I can.
>
> Francois Prunayre (a core GN developer) organised a documentation
> codesprint a few weeks ago and made some good progress against my
> spreadsheet. Several people from our group participated including Jo Cook,
> Maria Arias de Reyna, and Paul van Genuchten. I was not able to participate
> to any significant degree myself.  Jo should be able to give good feedback
> on how that progressed. I would think that this document codesprint, its
> progress and results should be a good point for relaunching our efforts
> here. I would think it useful to contact Francois to get his perspective on
> a way forward.
>
> I have also been looking for an excuse to contact Simon Pigot (another GN
> core developer - Aus based).  He seems to be getting somewhat active again.
> I could contact him to get his thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Byron Cochrane
>
>
>
>
>
> OpenWork Ltd
> Nelson, New Zealand
> byron at openwork.nz
> +64 21 794 501
> https://www.openwork.nz/
>
> “*The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so
> certain of themselves, yet wiser people so full of doubt*” - Bertrand
> Russell
>
> On 12/12/2019, at 11:29 PM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I had a chat with Swapnil today. I'm mindful that the doc task for
> GeoNetwork is huge, and that there is more than one person is going to be
> able to do in 3 months. So lets be strategic in how we make use of
> Swapnil's time.
>
> My suggestions:
>
> * Swapnil has had problems getting GeoNetwork installed on Windows 10.
> I've suggested installing on Ubuntu or Lubuntu, probably in VirtualBox,
> maybe also look at OSGeoLive installed into VirtualBox. (Some GeoNetwork
> folks might be able to give better advise.
>
> * I think that Swapnil should start to build up a best practices
> recommended architecture for an Open Source docset (based on
> https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/ )
>
> * He should then audit existing docs against best practices to create a
> gap analysis. (For OSGeoLive work, Felicity gave a 5 start rating to all 50
> Quickstarts she worked on. Maybe do something similar).
>
> * This should lead to a very large potential body of documentation work to
> be done, from which Swapnil should focus on specific parts.
>
> * Focus should be on helping amplify the writing effectiveness of existing
> volunteer writers.
>
> * This might involve providing writing templates (which are starting to
> emerge in TheGoodDocsProject)
>
> * We should also provide a checklist about what docs should have before
> they are considered "done". The GeoNetwork Project Steering Committee
> probably should consider that a feature is not considered complete until it
> has docs which meet the minimal requirements of this checklist.
>
> * I know Byron (and others?) have started a doc audit and built a
> spreadsheet.
>
> * Would it be possible to get Byron, Swapnil, me (and others?) onto a call
> within the next week? Byron, what is your availability like? Maybe a
> weekday evening, or most times during this weekend should work for me.
> (Byron is in New Zealand, Swapnil and I are both in the same timezone in
> Melbourne/Sydney). Anyone else want to be included in this call?
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Technology Demystifier
> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>
>
>

-- 
------------------------
http://about.me/jocook
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