Hi I've been working on updates to the Derby docs for a few months, and now that we are close to completing this release I think that this is a good time to revisit the processes (and stumbling blocks) that the Derby project has for updating and reviewing the Derby documentation.
Here is what I propose: 1) Ask for feedback from the derby-dev community about the information on the Derby Documentation page that describes how to setup your environment, update the files, and submit patches. http://db.apache.org/derby/manuals/dita.html I can tell you from my own experience on updating Derby doc files, that I would like to see more explicit instructions on how to locate and update the DITA files, guidelines for tagging the files, and formatting conventions. I also think that it would be good to have an FAQ for documentation update questions. RECOMMENDATION: Start a derby-dev thread about the instructions and guidelines for updating the Derby documentation files. I volunteer to start this thread and implement the recommendations from the community. 2) Ask for feedback from the derby-dev community about the documentation review process. http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/TenTwoDocReview A wiki was used to capture documentation review comments. Was the wiki a useful tool for the reviews? Were the instructions for contributing to the documentation reviews clear? Are there other ways to review the documentation that would be better? RECOMMENDATION: Start a derby-dev thread about the documentation review process. I'll volunteer to drive this discussion unless somebody else would like to -- just let me know if you do :-) -- Laura Stewart
