I am sorry to hear that the low number of contributors of content is disappointing. I am sure that, as the software evolves, the documentation should adjust accordingly and that, having a healthy number of writers is desirable. So maybe Jean's question is an important one: Why have the numbers dwindled?
I am sure that the causes for this phenomenon are multiple: Adulthood comes with a growing number of responsibilities, the urgent takes precedence over the important, bureaucracy loves complicating simple things... maybe younger generations are not aware that a free software movement is a conquest... maybe there is an entry barrier that is driving people away. For example, during the production of a tutorial for Base in which I have been working I have discovered that there are very few sources of information (my may thanks to the oo.forum, in general and Drew Jensen in particular) and this text, that I could have written in three months, has taken me over a year and a half (and it's still not done!). I recommend that we take a scientific approach to this and that we build a survey that could try to identify: a) who are the people actively participating today (demographics like age, gender, occupation, etc.) b) what drove the people to volunteer in the first place c) How are they finding the experience, what has facilitated their work and what has been frustrating to them d) Demographics of the people who are no longer participating e) Reasons why they are no longer able to volunteer f) How did they find their experience, what made their contribution easier and what was frustrating to them g) Etcetera This survey should be repeated at least once a year and historical data should be kept for comparisons. Info distilled form this data should allow the necessary tweaks to promote the longer and most fruitful cooperation possible. If the number of signed contributors is really big, it could be necessary to formalize the survey with some kind of form (and Internet is great for this!) so that tabulation of data could be easier. This is turn would require an exploratory research (open questions) among a smaller (representative) sample in order to produce the appropriate categories for the formalized survey. There is nothing wrong in wanting to know who we are, what do we want and what are we actually getting, if this can help us achieve a healthy number of active writers that would be helping spread the adoption and use of this great software. Being a social scientist, I would be happy to help with this, but not before I finish the Base tutorial. Mariano Casanova --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
