New to fedora
by Joey Brandt
Hi, my name is Joey and I am trying to get started helping in the
community. I love Linux and open source. I currently work for a software
company in the Client Services department and have 3 years of experience in
software testing, training, and documentation. Is there anyone that can
help me figure out my role? Thanks so much!
-Joey b
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9 years, 12 months
Fedora Docs Meeting Reminder 21APR2014 1400UTC
by Pete Travis
As you might have guessed by now, I'm writing to remind you of the upcoming
meeting of the Fedora Documentation Project. The team will gather in
#fedora-docs on freenode at 1400UTC.
Today's meeting reminder is special. While I've enjoyed coming up with
marginally unique reminders every week, we have calendar system now that
will send the reminders automatically. Hooray!
https://apps.fedoraproject.org/calendar/docs/ - enjoy.
--Pete
10 years
Open Help Conference
by Shaun McCance
Hi all,
I wanted to let you know that the Open Help Conference is happening
again this year, June 14-15, in Cincinnati.
http://openhelpconference.com/
We've had some Fedora folks out before. It would be nice to see some of
you again this year.
As in previous years, Open Help has a mix of presentations and open
discussions, all focused around doing documentation and support in open
source and open communities.
After the conference, we also host three days of sprints for any people
or projects that decide to stay on.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Shaun McCance
Open Help Conference
10 years
F21 Beats are Open!
by Pete Travis
Greetings Writers,
The Release Note Beats[0] are open for Fedora 21! I'm slow in sending out
this notice, actually, they've been clear for a while, but it is time to
get together and get each other motivated to write.
If you're new to Docs, Beat writing is a good way to get started. Simply
choose a package, service, or functionality that interests you and do a
little research to see how will change in F21. You can check rawhide
package changelogs[1], read the software changelogs in
/usr/share/doc/$pkgname, scrape upstream mailing lists and commit logs, and
reach out to package maintainers or developers.
Of course, this is a broadly defined task, and intimidating for even
experienced writers. Fedora is a big project, there's a lot going on!
Remember that it's a cooperative endeavor, you don't have to do it alone.
You can reach out to a mentor[2], mail the list[3], or hang out in
#fedora-docs (especially during Office Hours[4]).
Remember that the categories are a guideline. It can be hard to fit
information into one, but it can all be sorted out later on. Taking
ownership of a whole beat is great, and adding content for various beats as
you learn about changes is great too. It's better to have two perspectives
on one feature than to have none shared because the writers didn't want to
step on each others' toes.
For a given feature, I like to highlight a few things:
- Briefly explain the software and its purpose. That might only mean a
simple sentence fragment, like "The popular http server Apache...". Other
software might be more complex and require more explanation. The reader
doesn't always know what the software is, so explain a little.
- Elaborate on how to use the new feature. For command line utilities,
this could be example invocations and some context on when or why one
would use the cited command. For complex features, you could briefly
explain the use case and refer to upstream documentation. Avoid
demonstrations that require screenshots - images don't translate well.
- Provide references to upstream documentation, upstream release notes,
relevant Fedora Documentation, and other useful resources.
- If the feature affects one of our guides, speak up! Let the guide
maintainer know with a mail or bug report.
The last and possibly most helpful way you can contribute to the Release
Notes is to talk about the beats process. Discussion can help other beats
writers feel engaged instead of isolated. If you interact with other areas
of Fedora, talk to those groups about Beats. Many people each making small
contributions, noting a single change, will produce a much more
comprehensive work than a dedicated few could ever manage.
Thanks for reading, and for writing!
[0] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:Documentation_beats
[1] http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ - find the package, browse the
source tree for $pkgname.spec. The changelog is at the bottom.
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs_Project_mentors
[3] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/docs
[4] Currently 1800UTC Thursdays and 1500UTC Sundays
10 years
