I know some might have hoped I would just go away. But generally speaking when I say I will do something I follow through. At the very least I can work on the Glossary. I looked at the poll of developers from last May. I loaded the results in an R data.frame, but I did not find any relationships within that data at all. I wonder what conclusions the core team was able to draw from that other than, like, 77 percent of the responses came within 48 hours of its release. This fact must mean something, Below is a wordcloud representation of the frequency of most used words under the "What's your favorite thing about Django?" item. This doesn't really mean a lot, but it is kind of neat to look at. You can notice the prominance of 'documentation', and 'orm'. Again, these probably don't mean a whole lot, although developer folks sure exhibited an eagerness to express themselves. And you only need to skim over those results to see that a lot of Django regulars, the developers, really like the documentation. It would be interesting to hear why or how these folks use documentation that causes them such affinity for the docs. Without those why-or-how answers to user interface questions, users defined as extremely active members of the developer community, it is hard to balance with the criticism that pops up here-and-there, including my own. This discussion begs to transpire among members of the core team because nothing can change unless they see fit. If the consensus is to deny a need, the documentation will continue to be an afterthought. The Django core developers are not the only public involved. Some might say they are in service to the public at large. The Django cadre must regularly ask about the state of public sentiment and satisfaction, because it is reckless to do otherwise. [image: Rplot_pos.png] On Sunday, December 27, 2015 at 5:42:49 PM UTC-5, Tim Graham wrote: > > Adding a survey link is not difficult. We conducted a community survey [1] > earlier this year with one question related to documentation, "What parts > of the Django documentation do you find most useful?" What questions to ask > and how to turn the answers into actionable items is the part I'm not sure > about and maybe you could advise on. > > In my view, Django's docs haven't strayed from the "topics", "reference", > and "how-to" division that we've had since 1.0 or so. Are you aware of this > grouping? Maybe a "how the docs are organized" section on the index page > would help communicate that and make it more intuitive where to look for > something? > > I'll admit I'm skeptical of a wholesale reorganization to this structure > for several reasons: > 1. It'll be confusing for existing users who are familiar with the current > section. > 2. It'll make it more difficult or impossible to backport documentation > enhancements to the stable version of the docs (assuming we don't also > reorganize them with same structure) > 3. It'll create an opportunity for broken links (obviously we could > mitigate this to some extent by adding redirects to the new locations). > > It seems to me you were pretty close to finding what you were looking for > at https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/forms/ (first bullet, I > think), but I didn't understand what you meant by the page being "the Joy > of Cooking with Django." > > [1] https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2015/may/07/community-survey/ > > On Sunday, December 27, 2015 at 2:47:35 PM UTC-5, Doug Epling wrote: >> >> Again, I am sorry if my comments have ruffled anyone's feathers. I am >> not going to argue. My sole intent is a positive one. And, indeed, I am >> humbled by the ongoing work of this community over a period of time that I, >> until now, have not been involved. >> >> I beleive, it is my impression, that between Django 1.1 and now, on the >> verge of its second major version, there has been a tremendous amount of >> Python software develpment. And the internal commenting as well as the >> public documentation has trailed along ad hoc. >> >> It can be said without legitimate reproach that any system whether it is >> thermodynamics or a system of communication, such as our documentation, >> will naturally tend toward entropy unless something actively intervenes. >> And we have developed a fairly complex system compared to, say, werksgeud. >> >> That patchwork approach has disrupted a flow of utility for users in both >> public documentation and internal commenting. If this is true, Django has >> strayed from principles of its foundation. And our motto: "The framework >> for perfectionists with deadlines."; holds true only until fininding >> oneself lost in the documentation. >> >> Tim is exactly right; this is with no doubt a non-trivial issue. Is >> Django capable of tackling non-trivial issues? If not I am in the wrong >> place (a challenge to Django, relax, it's not personal) because I believe >> Django should be setting the standard. And this issue will not be resolved >> by an ad hoc approach; meaning our traditional methodology of a problem >> ticket reporting process is not amenable. This calls for something else if >> it calls for anything. >> >> However, Wim has a good idea! Some exploratory research is a very >> reasonable first step toward an objective problem definition. Tim, how >> hard would it be to present every visitor to the documentation with a >> pop-up (or some other kind of) general invitation to visit a link on Survey >> Monkey to help us with some feedback? >> >> On Friday, December 18, 2015 at 7:02:56 PM UTC-5, Doug Epling wrote: >>> >>> I filed bug report >>> #25952 <https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/25952>but apparently it >>> was in the wrong place. And I referenced this post >>> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/django-users/documentation/django-users/1qHviCZMPJA/_8qVb0YYdhAJ>, >>> >>> but I was thinking it was this group ... I wonder how that happened? >>> >>> So I am hereby suggesting that the road map for the v. 2.0 release >>> include revamped documentation. >>> >>> It should begin as soon as possible with the somewhat standard best >>> practice of collecting "find what you were looking for" or "was this page >>> helpful" or "rate this page on its organization, clarity, brevity, etc." >>> data on every single existing page. >>> >>> It might also be helpful to evaluate how different audiences access the >>> docs. Tutorials are great -- module and class libraries, not so much. >>> >>> With resulting user feedback along with expert categorization of >>> documentation use cases, as with any writing exercise, there must be an >>> outline. The existing outline might be a good place to start. >>> >>> Oh, and those pesky deadlines, when is v. 2.0 slated for release? >>> >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers (Contributions to Django itself)" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/django-developers. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-developers/ffade33c-73c1-411a-8386-0c21fd842ace%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
