[TYPO3] No tutorials? Draft idea attached...

[Tyler Kraft]

Hi Peter

I've been thinking about your comments for a while and went back and 
re-analysed this discussion to see if maybe my views are really flawed 
here...


> I have never said the documentation is bad, because it isn´t! 
No but many newbies do, and they don't seem to do anything about ti 
other than complain - and that's the issue I have here.


> You are right about perspectives, we need to write/organise 
> documentation in a newbie/editor/administrator perspective. And if we do 
> I think even developers will benefit, because most of them start as 
> Typo3 newbies as well (but maybe learn quicker).

Fine I obviously agree as I said it. But the problem is that I as a 
developer with typo3 have no interest in writing newbie documents. That 
takes time and money and when I have work to do I'm not going to do 
that. When I'm not busy I would be far more interested in learning new 
things or writing better documentation for extensions I routinely use 
that are hard to understand. And I don't mean that in a selfish way but 
simply as a way to better my experience, improve my productivity, and 
also I'm so far removed for a newbie state that I wouldn't have a clue 
what they struggle with when they approach typo3. If a newbie asked for 
help documenting a feature or needed an explanation or example for their 
document then I would be more than happy to help. But funny how that 
never happens?


> Well, we need someone to encourage them, not telling them "stop 
> complaining. If you don´t like it, make something better yourself". 
> That´s *not* encouraging!

Yes I agree to a point but never in my experience has anyone came and 
said "I found the whole thing hard and difficult, and the documentation 
didn't help - what can I do to change that?" They always seem to say the 
"Documentation is awful, badly structured, hard to use, scattered 
everywhere, and typo3 is never going to be huge until THEY change that!" 
Well who is they? I ask because the people who write, develop, develop 
with and promote typo3 seem to do ok with the documentation it seems.

And interestingly enough whet they are encouraged to write something 
that would be beneficial they seem to totally alien to the idea of doing 
that ("The experienced user should do that, they understand it fully", 
"I dont know enough", etc)


> I have experience from trying to make better structured documentation, 
> but with no support from the "big guys" you can´t do any bigger changes 
> - simply because you don´t have any control over the documents or the 
> current structure on typo3.org.

I'm sorry Peter as I don't mean any disrespect, as in the past you've 
been very helpful to me and many others,  but I disagree here - I think 
this is another version of "the documentation is crap do something about 
it."  The difference is that you've tried to do something and write some 
better documentation, but it never got on the main doc lists.

Maybe just my opinion but here's a thought - if they (the big guys) wont 
put it up on t3.org, or if they are to busy writing the next big 
extension to make all our lives better, or if they are doing something 
as useful as the next RC... Why don't you put it up somewhere for people 
to get at least? Many others do, and there is a wiki now also. Maybe 
then if it got used enough the "big guys" would notice and then have no 
choice but to do something about it.

Don't get me wrong I fully understand that you spent a lot of time and 
effort to do something positive and I can understand how you may feel 
rather disappointed for not having the big guys actually do what they 
should have. I completely understand that the system is flawed but other 
than we all keep pushing forward and trying to make changes from the 
inside in every way possible, or we all just complain here forever, 
about everything ;-)

So this thread is very very very (TOO) long... how do we solve this? I 
guess we just need more people like Matthew Manderson who set out to 
write something...  Matthew do you need help?