[wp-docs] Joining Forces: Support

Tue May 15 22:32:42 UTC 2012

I've worked with some three person teams on many projects and love it for
that reason, Andrea. There are a LOT of plates to spin when it comes to the
Codex. We've never been able to get someone to coordinate the international
versions and I fear for what are on those pages, for example.

The WordPress Meetup group here in Portland has asked me to do a WordPress
Codex evening followed by a Codex Day. I'll be posting about that in a bit,
and I'd love to see more such projects from WordCamps and WordPress
Meetups, too, and that takes some team coordination as well.

Lorelle

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Andrea Rennick <andrea at ronandandrea.com>wrote:

> Ideally a team of three. One is too few (what if they get busy? then it
> stalls), and two can disagree (another stall) while a third can be a
> tiebreaker if needed. Or a sane person, depending. :P
>
> I'm just tossing out ideas here.
>
> a.
>
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Doug Sparling <doug.sparling at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I like the idea as well.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Lorelle on WordPress <
>> lorelleonwordpress at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This is so exciting. The Docs team has been walking on egg shells for
>>> years over the confusion of the WordPress Handbook, and I'm eager to see
>>> new energy being sent in this direction.
>>>
>>> The close ties between the Forum and Codex have been there since the
>>> beginning. However, time and skills serving the Forum and the time and
>>> skills serving documentation are distinctive, as several people mentioned.
>>> I agree that there needs to be one or two people overseeing the
>>> organizational structure, management, and maintenance of the Codex.
>>>
>>> Having a site of our own has been essential and lacking, which is why we
>>> created the unofficial docs task list not long ago. It was critical that we
>>> find a better way of communicating and keeping our community connected than
>>> the mailing list. As it was "unofficial," we haven't done much to promote
>>> it or work with it, but it was a start. We need to have a place to support
>>> and educate each other on how to write for the Codex and offer task lists
>>> beyond those we've had in the past on the Codex, so I'm excited about
>>> having our own space or making the current blog on WordPress.com official.
>>>
>>> The mailing list has not been the sole line of communication either. As
>>> many do, I work with many people one on one to help them write and edit for
>>> the Codex and assign tasks, communicating with the mailing list when
>>> necessary for edits and such.
>>>
>>> As we struggled to understand the role the WordPress Handbook and
>>> WordPress Lessons played in the role of documentation in the WordPress
>>> Community, we've come to realize the Codex best serves the WordPress
>>> Community by providing support for issues found within the Forums,
>>> expanding upon Learn WordPress instructions for the WordPress Lessons
>>> section, and developing more extensive documentation and guides beyond the
>>> basics found within the help files, especially servicing developers and
>>> programmers.
>>>
>>> While melding together Forum and Codex sounds great on the surface, I
>>> agree with Andrea and others that we need to have one or more people
>>> focused on the bigger picture overseeing the Codex, thus supporting the
>>> overall WordPress Community better.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the survey, Jane, and for helping with all of this.
>>>
>>> Lorelle
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 8:28 AM, Andrea Rennick <andrea at ronandandrea.com
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> It makes totally sense, because Support & Docs are two sides of the
>>>> same coin. :) If users can't understanding docs or can't find them, they
>>>> post in the forums. ;P
>>>>
>>>> Better docs mean less support issues, because people don't scale. And
>>>> the people answering questions are the first ones who see the need for new
>>>> docs. Because they answer the same questions over and over (and over) again.
>>>>
>>>> Getting people to read docs is a separate issue, but having support and
>>>> docs work hand in hand in tandem is a big first step.
>>>>
>>>> I think half the people overlap anyway, yes?
>>>>
>>>> a.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Personally, I love the idea. Speaking as a contributor group member
>>>>> who tries to keep in the loop regarding support and/or Codex issues that
>>>>> impact our group (or issues where our contributor group can be helpful),
>>>>> such consolidation is welcome.
>>>>>
>>>>> Chip
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Jane Wells <jane at automattic.com>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi everyone. The results of the recent surveys to identify active
>>>>>> contributors and elect team reps made it pretty clear that the docs team is
>>>>>> in a bit of a slump, organizationally speaking. Only 5 people from the
>>>>>> wp-docs post responded, and of those, 2 were new or not yet contributing,
>>>>>> and there was no consensus re reps among the remaining 3 respondents. It
>>>>>> got me thinking about how we organize contributors, what has worked well
>>>>>> elsewhere in the WP ecosystem and in other free software projects, and
>>>>>> leads me to this proposal: what if we combined forums and docs into one
>>>>>> Support team?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Looking back at the Codex activity from the past six months or year,
>>>>>> chunks of it have been tied to forum mods (like Ipstenu and Andrea_r),
>>>>>> other contributor groups (like Chip on the Theme Review Team), and new
>>>>>> releases. Not that how Automattic/WordPress.com organizes itself should
>>>>>> decide anything, but their support team manages forums, email support, and
>>>>>> docs, and it seems to work pretty well. They have a schedule for reviewing
>>>>>> existing documentation so it never gets too far out of date, and the people
>>>>>> on the front lines with users in the forums and via email can see very
>>>>>> clearly where they need to beef up documentation. I'm thinking this could
>>>>>> work well for .org, too. Those who are strong writers and just want to
>>>>>> contribute to documentation could still do so, but within a context of what
>>>>>> our user support needs are at any given time based on the actual support
>>>>>> requests.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What I'm envisioning is less siloing of contributor personnel, with
>>>>>> one group blog at make.wordpress.org/support that uses tags like
>>>>>> forums and codex to organize posts, and has pages to help orient new
>>>>>> contributors and get them started. These mailing lists could fade away in
>>>>>> favor of email subscriptions from the blog, which are more easily
>>>>>> searchable and would be more visible to potential contributors. Within the
>>>>>> uber-group, some people would naturally gravitate toward specific tasks
>>>>>> while others would multi-task as they have been doing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Over time we could expand the purview of the group to include things
>>>>>> like moderating instructional videos and comments at wordpress.tv(and start embedding appropriate videos into codex), possibly helping to
>>>>>> staff in-person help desks in local communities and/or at events like
>>>>>> WordCamps and Meetups, etc. I think the prospects are pretty exciting, and
>>>>>> I could see this becoming the biggest and most active of all the
>>>>>> contributor groups, which would be awesome.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If there are any strong objections to this approach, please reply to
>>>>>> this thread today so we can discuss. If not, and everyone is willing to
>>>>>> give this a shot and all work together (at least as an experiment for, say,
>>>>>> the next release cycle or two), I'll go ahead and set up the group blog
>>>>>> tomorrow.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jane
>>>>>> ______________________________**_________________
>>>>>> wp-docs mailing list
>>>>>> wp-docs at lists.automattic.com
>>>>>> http://lists.automattic.com/**mailman/listinfo/wp-docs<http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> --
>>>> Andrea Rennick, http://wpebooks.com and http://ronandandrea.com
>>>> Co-author of WordPress All-In-One For Dummies http://rml.me/aio
>>>>
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>
>
> --
> --
> Andrea Rennick, http://wpebooks.com and http://ronandandrea.com
> Co-author of WordPress All-In-One For Dummies http://rml.me/aio
>
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