"""... Any real sense of community is undermined -- or
even destroyed -- to be replaced by virtual equivalents that strive,
unsuccessfully, to synthesize a sense of community."""
I've brought up the idea of the quasi-community doc that PHP uses to good effect.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php is a prime example where 2/3 of the "doc" is user-contributed comments and code.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/about.notes.php
"By allowing readers of the manual to contribute examples, caveats, and further clarifications from their browser, we are able to incorporate that feedback into the main text of the manual. And until the notes have been incorporated, they may be viewed in their submitted form online, and in some of the offline formats. "
The terseness or non-clarity of a doc is quickly remedied by numerous User Contributed Notes, and over the years, they have rolled these contributed examples into the "official" doc section. While I hardly do much PHP any more, when I do need to perform maintenance etc. it is THE invaluable resource, and I believe an important part of PHP's enduring popularity.
Language arguments aside http://docs.python.org/library/array.html, for instance, would benefit from such community.
-- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
