[Typo3-documentation] The_New_Documentation_Team_Process

[Jean-Marie Schweizer]

CAUTION. MANY WORDS TO

http://wiki.typo3.org/index.php/Documentation_Process_-_Problems_and_Resolutions#The_New_Documentation_Team_Process

On one hand there is a good point that even in its infancy we already 
adapt similar behaviour and manors like the other NGs.

And here is why I think that is *not* a problem:

1. There will always be people that jump in and just type whatever they 
think of (similar to somebody who downloads the TYPO3 packages and just 
installs it without reading *anyting* and then posting his problems to 
the NG.

2. Then there will be other people that search google, look through the 
FAQs, the documentations, the NGs and *then* when they have spent time 
looking for a solution and didn't find it, then they post a question to 
the NG.

An Open Source Community (OOC) will always prefer the latter, even if 
they wouldn't completely ignore the first.

Why?

An OOC is not Microsoft!
An OOC doesn't have billions to spend on support and documentation.
An OOC provides an alternative to lincenced and sometimes much more 
expensive solutions.

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I don't think we will ever accommodate the first but we can help the 
second. Personally, I would be willing to help the first so far till 
they start reading but I have no interest in playing free support just 
because they are to lazy to read.

If we analize TYPO3 (in terms of documentation) we realize that:

1. A lot of issues are already documented or written somewhere
2. They real problem is *not* that it is not there but to *find* it..

And *here* I see where we as a docTeam should put our energy into. All 
the structuring, all the discussions about how to write etc. should improve

1. ACCESSABILITY: so newbies can find everything easier.
2. READABILITY: so newbies understand what is written.
3. MAINTENANCE: so everything is up-to-date.

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What is a NEWBIE?

A very interesting question, isn't it? Because I think that there are 
some different ideas about that around TYPO3, naturally because NEWBIE 
is a relative figure.

Of course, we could say that a newbie is always somebody who is new to 
something (by definition that would be correct) But by looking at it a 
little closer the definition of a newbie *must* be related to the 
product somebody is a newbie too, that is, it depends on what 
requirements are asked by the product.

And *here* is the glitch. TYPO3 is not for everyone, e.g. somebody who 
doesn't know HTML and CSS will always have problems with his lack of 
knowledge and will try to find a problem with TYPO3 instead of with 
himself. Same thing if you don't know PHP, MySQL or have no idea about 
apache.

As Michael Stucki told me at the very beginning of my work: " We can't 
help people to learn PHP, MySQL, Linux, Apache, HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS 
etc. We only can help them understanding TYPO3. And in order to 
understand TYPO3 you have to have some knowledge of the above.

At first I thought: Well, but it should be possible to write the 
documentation so even the newbiest of the newbies would understand.

Now, I think we should settle on some minimum requirement and improve 
the documentation with that in mind. This should be written on the Wiki 
and accessible to everyone. Because then we don't have many people 
getting frustrated because they don't even start or at least they know 
what they are getting into.

Such a description should allow different levels too. Maybe somebody 
just wants to put a simple website up with TYPO3. He doesn't have to 
know a lot. But somebody, e.g. like me, who wants more, who wants to 
improve webdesign and its creation process, has to know more.

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Here I think Jonathans structure with HOW TYPO3 WORKS at the very 
beginning is good place to write such a definition.

My goal would be to specifiy

1. Minimum requirements of the person who wants to work with TYPO3.
2. Core decissions that are made in this  NG. Subject to change of course.

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I KNOW THAT WAS A LOT BUT I HOPE I DO GET SOME FEEDBACK ON THIS.

Jean-Marie