- ([personal profile] rho) wrote in [site community profile] dw_docs2009-05-15 11:13 am

Some changes to how we're using this community

As well as the addition of [site community profile] dw_docs_training that [personal profile] ivorygates has already mentioned, we're also going to be making a few changes to how we're running [site community profile] dw_docs itself.

First off, we're going to be moderating entries on this community. As I write this, there are 576 members here, and we're taking this step now to keep the number of entries here manageable and make sure that everything stays on topic. We want for this to be a community that anyone interested in documentation can read without being snowed under with the volume of entries.

Things that will be on topic here:
  • Any announcements [personal profile] ivorygates and I make (for example, "we need volunteers for this project!").
  • Summaries of which FAQs we've changed recently.
  • Discussion of broad-stroke documentation issues (for instance, "how do we best handle accessibility in our FAQs?").
  • People from other Dreamwidth projects keeping us informed of things that will be relevant to documentation (for example, "hey, we're going to be adding this big new feature soon so you might want to start documenting it now".

Notable things that won't be on topic:
  • Suggestions for things that need adding or changing (see below for how we're going to be handling these.
  • General Dreamwidth suggestions, which belong in [site community profile] dw_suggestions.
  • The actual process of writing things or questions about this, which will be going in [site community profile] dw_docs_training.

We're not going to switch over to being a moderated community for a couple of days yet at least. We want to give you all time to spot anything we might have missed before we do this. I'll also add that we're still going to be keeping open membership here, and we won't be screening comments. It will only be top-level entries that we'll be moderating.

As I mentioned above, we're not going to be taking suggestions for improvements in entries to this community any more. Instead, we'll be posting a "suggestions box" entry every month, and then having people comment there with their suggestions and feedback. We'll also keep a link to the current suggestions box thread in our profile. This way, people who are interested will be able to track comments on the entry, but people who aren't interested will be able to stay subscribed to the community without having to sit through all the suggestions posts.

We'll be going through the suggestions as they come in, and then migrating them over to a master list of Things That Need To Be Done which our hard working doc team (and doc trainees!) will be able to work off without having to track around the community looking for what's already been dealt with and what hasn't.

Again, we'll be waiting at least a couple of days before we implement this, so we can make any changes we need to based on your feedback.
liv: Stylised sheep with blue, purple, pink horizontal stripes, and teacup brand, dreams of Dreamwidth (sheeeep)

[personal profile] liv 2009-05-15 10:44 am (UTC)(link)
I've been randomly fixing inaccuracies in FAQs as I see them (eg today I saw that the advanced cust FAQ says "paid users only", so I got rid of that). Is that acceptable, or should I report them to you guys and wait for a decision?

The other question I have is, what needs documenting at this stage? I know there's a bunch of styles related stuff, but that's being handled mainly by [personal profile] ysobel and the Styles folk, not directly under the docs project. I'm happy to keep plugging away at that, but the question is what do you guys want?

Things I'm happy to volunteer for:
  • occasionally going through the FAQs and making sure everything is tidy and accurate and in the right categories
  • trying to gather together information which is scattered all over comments to official posts and the Wiki and Support request ICs and actually make it into documentation
  • writing new docs, eg the Guides that we said we'd do and didn't quite get finished by Open Beta
  • training newbies, if you haven't already got that covered
Or do you have a better idea?
ivorygates: (Default)

[personal profile] ivorygates 2009-07-16 10:18 am (UTC)(link)
[personal profile] liv you should already be a member of [site community profile] dw_docs_training, which should answer that last question. For the rest, we could really use somebody to sift the comments and ICs for Useful Information (send your gleanings by email to me and [personal profile] rho please).

And sure, doing drafts of the missing Guides would be great.
cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)

Suggestions

[personal profile] cesy 2009-06-10 03:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Is this the right place for suggestions at the moment? There doesn't seem to be a suggestions entry on here yet.

I've noticed a fair number of support requests and other comments recently where people assume that importing their friends list from LJ will result in them being able to see entries from LJ on their DW reading page. I would guess this needs to be covered in FAQs explaining the difference between an OpenID account and a feed, and locked entries not being included in feeds, and that this will all be fixed when we have the magic solution after launch. Is it worth putting all of this into one FAQ of "why can't I see my friends' entries from LJ when I imported my friends?"

Also, when I was looking for relevant FAQs, I noticed that http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=108 could do with some formatting.

http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=62 might also be worth expanding to cover from the point of view of "my friend has an OpenID account that I'm subscribed to, why can't I see their entries from $remotesite?"

You could add to http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=20 to explain that if the journal is an OpenID account, you'll need to set up a feed for it.


Edit: looks like the new OpenID known issue FAQ covers it.
Edited 2009-07-16 10:46 (UTC)
ivorygates: (dreamwidth social content with dimension)

Re: Suggestions

[personal profile] ivorygates 2009-07-16 11:36 am (UTC)(link)
FAQ 108 has been reformatted! Thanks for letting us know!
cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)

Other notes

[personal profile] cesy 2009-06-10 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)
http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=127 doesn't seem to match http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=86&q=import&lang= perfectly - there's extra information on the latter. Is it worth cross-linking or something?

Also, why did it add &lang= on the end when I used the FAQ search? Is that a bug?

On http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=130, is that known bug still true or has it been fixed?
zvi: self-portrait: short, fat, black dyke in bunny slippers (Default)

Private Messages

[personal profile] zvi 2009-06-25 05:35 am (UTC)(link)
I'm leaving a suggestion here as there is no suggestions box entry.

I needed to turn off private messages today and wasn't able to locate a FAQ to tell me where the toggle was to control who could send them to me.
cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)

[personal profile] cesy 2009-07-15 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
As I mentioned above, we're not going to be taking suggestions for improvements in entries to this community any more. Instead, we'll be posting a "suggestions box" entry every month, and then having people comment there with their suggestions and feedback. We'll also keep a link to the current suggestions box thread in our profile.

Where is the current entry? Can you add one, please?
cesy: "Cesy" - An old-fashioned quill and ink (Default)

[personal profile] cesy 2009-07-15 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Do we have a plan to port or re-write all the info that's in LJ FAQs but not yet in DW FAQs?
ivorygates: (Default)

[personal profile] ivorygates 2009-07-16 10:22 am (UTC)(link)
My immediate response is: "no, because most of it doesn't apply." But you know, I could be wrong...

I have opened a Documentation Suggestions Thread. Please post there letting us know what information covered in the LJ FAQs you feel should also be covered in the DW FAQs.
Edited 2009-07-16 10:27 (UTC)