Le 03/08/16 à 20:26, Martin Rosse a écrit : > Hi Daphne, > > I am a technical writer who just started working on the Apache Directory > developer documentation, and that requires Java knowledge. It sounds like > you are looking to work on end user documentation. I have 10+ years of > experience in software documentation, so maybe I can give you some tips. > > One caveat, I am relatively new to this project, and I defer to subsequent > responses from experienced committers to the project. > > On to your question--I apologize if you know the following already, but > it's worth making sure so here's some up front info just in case... > > Contributing to open source projects requires a lot of self-learning. These > are technical projects where your help is welcomed, but you are expected to > either have a lot of experience or are expected to be really good at > figuring out a lot of things on your own. All open source projects provide > the necessary info on how to contribute, including making doc > contributions. In other words, the answer to your question is already there > for you on the Apache Directory website already. Essentially, you can > either fix existing doc bugs or propose doc enhancements, and the tools and > info for doing so are described in detail such that in general you > shouldn't need to be posting a question like this to the developer list. If > they are not, then post and explain specifically what's lacking in that > regard. That being said, of course, your post still has some value in that > it may garner some interest, make others aware of your skills, and open the > door to some doc need info that has been percolating in some developer's > head. But generally, you should be able to move forward on your own and > find things to work on without even asking. > > Also, unless you are already familiar with tools like JIRA, Maven, > Markdown, Subversion, etc., there can be a lot to learn just to be able to > understand the workflow and tools to be able to submit a documentation fix > or improvement, let alone learn the underlying software so you can revise a > user guide's contents. > > But if you are up for the challenge, it is an awesome learning > experience...just don't expect much hand-holding and only ask questions to > developers as a last resort after googling, checking JIRA issues, etc. > > With all that said, I am new to this project and have noticed that the > published guides are very good and thorough, but have some minor issues. > For example, if you install the software and use the guides to learn the > software, you will notice some minor doc issues. So you may want to start > doing essentially usability testing of the existing docs and noting things > to fix. You also may find existing doc issues documented in the bug > tracking tool -- JIRA. Before getting to involved in digging in to the > usability testing, you may want to find a JIRA issue (marked > "documentation") and then see if you can figure out all the mechanics of > submitting a documentation patch, and submit one successfully. Going > through that effort alone will be a great learning process. > > Hope that helps, > > Martin Rosse Martin, I would not have wrote a better answer... You can *feel* the technical writer being you ;-)
Thanks !
