I certainly wouldn't object to that, and there are a number of people, the phpdoc "regulars", that would get my vote to become the phpdoc equivalent of the PHP group, and be listed there in phpcredits(), but that is different from being "just" an author of the documentation and being credited as such.
Agreed. Maybe one solution is to credit everybody (even the single committer from 1998) in the manual, but list the "PHP Doc Group" in phpcredits().
Those people would be only be active people steering the documentation project, similar to the PHP Group. This way we wouldn't need to worry about the "Alexander Aulbachs" of the world, but properly can still highlight the big contributions of the team of folks who are really helping out with today's manual.
Because I do think it's only fair that these guys get the proper credit for their work.
I agree with this. The php-gtk manual is an example where the "main" authors are listed with an et al linking to a list. It's on a smaller scale (just two) but we would do it for all. The master list (that lists everyone) could be located at the new docs.php.net site. Or, put it somewhere in the manual although this is a long list!
We should also list extension specific authors as such. For example Georg is mysql/mysqli master. I think it'd be nice if we had more of these, like someone to take over sockets.
Don't you see I have done/proposed this already? I have proposed a list of names which I think contitutes most of the currently active people to be on the front page (replacing the current list) and already added the "et al link", which points to the page which explains who else provided more helpful contributions to the community. The only difference here is that I have not proposed a listing of *ALL* people who contributed on the big contributions page either. But if you think it is better, I can live with it.
BTW I have not proposed to give a magic name to those on the frontpage, like "PHP Documentation Group" (after the PHP Group as you suggest), because it would elevate those people too much IMHO. I am trying to find a fair balance of elevating some people, but not doing it too much. This is part of my conspiration to not put that list into concrete, but present it more like a flexible group, which is to expand and shrink as time goes by (unlike the PHP Group). I think this better represents the desire to fairly credit the defining group of the documentation adjusted from time to time.
Goba
