[SeasonOfDocs] WtD and tGDP, WAS Re: introduction

Mon Jul 1 11:19:09 PDT 2019

Hi Jo,

Thanks for more questions -- I think they're important as we all try to
figure out good ways to help make software docs better, wherever they
happen (the docs and the "good ways"). I also think there will always be
overlapping initiatives and the most important way to deal with that fact
is to work on discoverability and connecting communities and efforts
wherever and however we can.

I think you're probably right, the underlying reasons or motivations for
WtD and tGDP are the same or very similar. But they seem to me at least to
be entities with different purposes and structure, which is why I
emphasized the WtD-as-community vs tGDP-as-product/project comparison. tGDP
is evidently also a community, but a community in service to a more
specific goal, of producing quite particular guidelines for OSS project
docs.

The tGDP archive includes mention of other resources as well, and at that
point maybe Jo's concern starts to make more sense. I'm a newcomer, so I
offer my vision very tentatively, but from my current vantage point I'd
like to see tGDP focus on templates, guidelines, tools -- the basic
infrastructure that an OSS project needs for its docs to contribute well to
its success. There are WtD resources that can help with that. There are
resources other people have developed, too, sometimes on their own,
sometimes as forks or improvements to previous work -- just like OSS
itself. Maybe as tGDP and WtD both continue to grow, there'll be obvious
places for one to rely on the other for expanded goals or resources, but
... well, I'm a fan of the iterative approach.

Does this help any further?

On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 1:23 PM Jo Cook <jo.k.cook at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Jennifer et al,
>
> This is really helpful, thanks. It did, however, lead to more questions
> for me at least!
>
> I like the origin story, and the idea that there needs to be a community
> of documentarians, but if you ask why documentarians feel as if they need a
> community or a conference, aren't you going to get the same reasons that we
> do for setting up tGDP? From the WtD vision document:
>
> "The time for all technical people to care about documentation is now.
> We’ve lived too long with awful instructions for the tools we use everyday.
> People should demand solid instruction of things that they use."
>
> Having said that, if people from WtD don't feel as if we're reinventing
> the wheel, then we probably shouldn't worry too much about it :-)
>
> All the best
>
> Jo
>
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 4:52 PM Jennifer Rondeau <
> jennifer.rondeau at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Jo and all,
>>
>> Replying to the list in hopes that others are also interested in the
>> question. This is my take on the differences between the two; I'm sure
>> other WtD community members would have different viewpoints.
>>
>> TL;DR: WtD is a community; tGDP is a project.
>>
>> But that's hardly a satisfying response. Let me elaborate, with an
>> invitation also for anyone who hasn't read it to take a look at the
>> Write the Doc origin story <https://www.writethedocs.org/origin-story/> Spoiler:
>> WtD started as a conference whose success startled the founders, and has
>> since grown into a global community organized around conferences, meetups,
>> and a Slack workspace. (There are other bits, too -- for more detail,
>> explore the website.)
>>
>> There's a WtD GH repo, but it exists to power the WtD website, which in
>> the beginning existed only to promote the conference. Insofar as WtD
>> provides resources akin to what I see tGDP wanting to develop, there's the
>> guide, which has languished untended for quite a while now, and the video
>> archive and the newsletter. The newsletter grew out of community
>> frustrations with the limitations of the free Slack plan -- members can tag
>> conversations with the newsletter emoji, our capable newsletter editor
>> copies them out into dropbox, and once a month a small group of us chooses
>> the meatiest conversations and writes them up for a newsletter that you can
>> subscribe to or read on the website. The latest editor has also established
>> the index, which makes it a truly useful long-term resource; there's been
>> some discussion around indexing the video archive against the same list,
>> and turning the whole thing into a replacement for the guide.
>>
>> Organization in/with/at WtD is still fairly ad hoc and free form. There
>> have been some conversations around formalizing governance and process, but
>> we're still at the figuring out how to proceed stage of things.
>>
>> tGDP on the other hand seems to me as a newcomer like a project that
>> wants to develop a specific set of resources for OSS documentation. That's
>> a pretty different focus from WtD's -- it seems to me there's quite a bit
>> of overlap, but also quite a lot of difference. WtD is centered around
>> people coming together, whether in person or virtually, to discuss any and
>> all issues related to software documentation. tGDP seems to want to create
>> a product -- for certain very loose values of "product". Insofar as tGDP
>> wants to create community around its project, there's quite a lot in common
>> with WtD. Insofar as it wants to define and make a specific thing, there's
>> quite a lot of difference.
>>
>> This message has gotten long, so I'd better stop for now. Happy to
>> discuss further -- and if people here want to continue this conversation, I
>> might invite a couple of WtD's founders in to share their views. Mine is
>> only one, don't forget!
>>
>> Cheers, and hope it helps,
>>
>> Jennifer
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 9:01 AM Jo Cook <jo.k.cook at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Jennifer,
>>>
>>> Welcome! It would be great if you could elaborate on what you perceive
>>> the differences between WtD and tGDP- as it's a question that has been
>>> bothering me as we get it set up.
>>>
>>> I probably won't be at the call today, so an email discussion about it
>>> would be great.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Jo
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 1:49 PM Jennifer Rondeau <
>>> jennifer.rondeau at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I've just joined the list by invitation from Cameron, and am very
>>>> pleased to be here. I'll be joining the intro planning meeting too.
>>>>
>>>> I'm Jennifer (she/her, they/them), and I heard about the
>>>> GoodDocsProject through Write the Docs, where I'm a pretty active community
>>>> member/manager/organizer, and the nominal lead of the WtD Guide -- although
>>>> it's languished pretty unattended for a while. I can say more about that
>>>> project if y'all are interested, but I'll save it for a separate message.
>>>> (TL;DR: I've looked at some of the list archive discussion about where to
>>>> host GoodDocsProject, and I'm not sure the WtD guide is a good fit. But
>>>> y'all should take a look at
>>>> https://www.writethedocs.org/newsletter/#index-of-newsletter-topics if
>>>> you're not already familiar. It's also not a good home for GDP -- oh lord
>>>> what an acronym! -- but it's a related WtD resource.)
>>>>
>>>> I'm also one of three leads for the Kubernetes docs, and am pretty
>>>> involved with that OSS community also.
>>>>
>>>> The GoodDocsProject is close to my own interests for a third reason,
>>>> too: about a year ago, I halfheartedly started a conversation between
>>>> people I knew who were involved in creating OSS docs guidelines at a few
>>>> major companies (Google, Twitter, Red Hat), with the idea of encouraging
>>>> collaboration across projects instead of forging ahead with independent
>>>> sets of guidelines. I evidently didn't follow through -- but now here y'all
>>>> are making such a thing really happen, and it's lovely to see and inspiring
>>>> to be involved.
>>>>
>>>> And last but not least -- I'm a tech writer at Stripe. I'm  joining
>>>> this project on my own, but I'll be talking to my manager about Stripe
>>>> support as well, because it's aligned with some internal goals and
>>>> initiatives that we've been discussing.
>>>>
>>>> Looking forward to learning more and discussing further and generally
>>>> helping out however I can!
>>>>
>>>> Jennifer
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> SeasonOfDocs mailing list
>>>> SeasonOfDocs at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/seasonofdocs
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ------------------------
>>> http://about.me/jocook
>>>
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------
> http://about.me/jocook
>
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