Self-Introduction: Jonathan Roberts

[Jonathan Roberts]

Hi!

My name is Jonathan Roberts and I've been following the list for a
while and thinking about contributing but not really sure about the
best place to start - I figured I can't go wrong with a
self-introduction :D

Things you may want to know about me:

I live in the UK and I'm currently taking a gap year before heading
off to university to study Theology, rather bizarely after changing my
mind about studying Physics and Philosophy last year! To help me pass
the time I've worked on a few projects: the Questions Please...
podcast (http://questionsplease.org) where I've interviewed a range of
very exciting people including Richard Stallman, Jeremy Allison, Jeff
Waugh and Mark Shuttleworth - though struggling to get a hold of
someone from the Fedora Project; I've also almost finished producing
the "Free Me" DVD - an attempt to promote free culture in general
(http://questionsplease.org/freeme/) which I'm quite excited about.

As for my qualifications as a writer/editor: I studied English at
higher level on the International Bacallaureate and scored a 5 (hugely
disappointed not to have got a 6); I've been doing a bit of writing
for Free Software Magazine
(http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blog/31677) and also a bit of
editing when they've been short on time.

I don't really have an idea of specific documents I would like to
(help) write at the minute, I'll be sure to give this some thought
over the next few days, but I do know that I would like to contribute
back something to Fedora and I have the time and the inclination to,
hopefully, make a reasonable contribution to the documentation
project; if there's ever any editing that needs doing I'm happy to
look over things like that as well.

Well, that is possibly the longest self introduction you're ever
likely to see?! Oh, and my GPG Key ID etc:

B923BC72

1735 EF16 3EF2 EF9D A2DD  02B0 A791 8B23 B923 BC72

I prefer, however, to use webmail because I often access my e-mail
from a number of different systems and it's easier for me to stay
organised this way. I hope this is OK.

Yours kindly,

Jonathan Roberts

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2007-03-28 at 14:46 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> Hi!
>
> My name is Jonathan Roberts and I've been following the list for a
> while and thinking about contributing but not really sure about the
> best place to start - I figured I can't go wrong with a
> self-introduction :D

Good to meet you Jonathan!  The best place to start is often to simply
look at the draft documentation on the wiki at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts and see what you'd like to
improve.  (I'd lean away from creating brand new documents since we're
still trying to wrangle a number of these into shape, including the
Desktop User Guide.)
> Things you may want to know about me:
>
> I live in the UK and I'm currently taking a gap year before heading
> off to university to study Theology, rather bizarely after changing my
> mind about studying Physics and Philosophy last year! To help me pass
> the time I've worked on a few projects: the Questions Please...
> podcast (http://questionsplease.org) where I've interviewed a range of
> very exciting people including Richard Stallman, Jeremy Allison, Jeff
> Waugh and Mark Shuttleworth - though struggling to get a hold of
> someone from the Fedora Project; I've also almost finished producing
> the "Free Me" DVD - an attempt to promote free culture in general
> (http://questionsplease.org/freeme/) which I'm quite excited about.

I am CC'ing Max and Greg on this email so they can see whether one of
them has time to participate as a resident BMOC and Voice of
Fedora.  :-)

[...snip...]
> I don't really have an idea of specific documents I would like to
> (help) write at the minute, I'll be sure to give this some thought
> over the next few days, but I do know that I would like to contribute
> back something to Fedora and I have the time and the inclination to,
> hopefully, make a reasonable contribution to the documentation
> project; if there's ever any editing that needs doing I'm happy to
> look over things like that as well.

I started this way too, back in 2003, and since then I've been fortunate
enough to have people willing to help me learn DocBook and XML, XSLT,
GNU Make, CVS and Subversion, some Python, and a few other odds and
ends.  Much of it was done on Fedora Docs "property" and with generous
dollops of patience on the part of the victims^Wother volunteers. ;-)

Getting involved is basically a matter of rolling up one's sleeves and
delving into something interesting, however new or unfamiliar.  You will
reap great rewards as a result!  (That's my Chinese fortune cookie mode
in full view.)

[Jonathan Roberts]

> Good to meet you Jonathan!  The best place to start is often to simply
> look at the draft documentation on the wiki at
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts and see what you'd like to
> improve.  (I'd lean away from creating brand new documents since we're
> still trying to wrangle a number of these into shape, including the
> Desktop User Guide.)

I've looked over this - and the documentation as a whole! - some bits
look like they're pretty close to being finished? Or is it just my
imagination, I don't know your criteria for defining a completed doc.
For example the ISO burning tutorial. I'll keep looking over the
documents abouts writing documents and try and sort membership of the
fedora project etc so I can start editing.
> I am CC'ing Max and Greg on this email so they can see whether one of
> them has time to participate as a resident BMOC and Voice of
> Fedora.  :-)

Thanks :D
> Getting involved is basically a matter of rolling up one's sleeves and
> delving into something interesting, however new or unfamiliar.  You will
> reap great rewards as a result!  (That's my Chinese fortune cookie mode
> in full view.)

Haha well hopefully it will turn out like this! I'll get my membership
and everything sorted - what do I need to do to get added to the docs
writers group? - and then (try to) make myself useful...

Jon

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 16:22 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> > Good to meet you Jonathan!  The best place to start is often to simply
> > look at the draft documentation on the wiki at
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts and see what you'd like to
> > improve.  (I'd lean away from creating brand new documents since we're
> > still trying to wrangle a number of these into shape, including the
> > Desktop User Guide.)
>
> I've looked over this - and the documentation as a whole! - some bits
> look like they're pretty close to being finished? Or is it just my
> imagination, I don't know your criteria for defining a completed doc.
> For example the ISO burning tutorial. I'll keep looking over the
> documents abouts writing documents and try and sort membership of the
> fedora project etc so I can start editing.

I think everything you need to do for membership is outlined here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/NewWriters#SigningUp
> > Getting involved is basically a matter of rolling up one's sleeves and
> > delving into something interesting, however new or unfamiliar.  You will
> > reap great rewards as a result!  (That's my Chinese fortune cookie mode
> > in full view.)
>
> Haha well hopefully it will turn out like this! I'll get my membership
> and everything sorted - what do I need to do to get added to the docs
> writers group? - and then (try to) make myself useful...

Once you have your GPG key and go through the account creation process,
you should be good to go.  A Bugzilla account is a good idea too, if you
don't have one.  Use the same public email address for everything to
avoid confusion.  If you have any questions or hardships, please drop a
line to the list! :-)

[John Babich]

Jonathan:

Welcome to the Fedora Docs Project.

Ditto on everything Paul has written. I just volunteered
as lead writer for the Fedora User Guide. We are very
interested in expanding it to incorporate more KDE and
(time-permitting) Xfce coverage. Let me know if your are
knowledgeable in those areas and interested in contributing.

I prefer using the wiki to do the bulk of the changes, with the
result that the learning curve is very low to begin writing.

John Babich
Volunteer, Fedora Project

[Jonathan Roberts]

On 11/04/07, John Babich  wrote:
> Jonathan:
>
> Welcome to the Fedora Docs Project.

Hi, Thanks :D
> Ditto on everything Paul has written. I just volunteered
> as lead writer for the Fedora User Guide. We are very
> interested in expanding it to incorporate more KDE and
> (time-permitting) Xfce coverage. Let me know if your are
> knowledgeable in those areas and interested in contributing.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable in those two areas, afraid (or
pleased to say!) I'm a Gnome user but I'd be happy to contribute in
anyway you see fit: I have been making some changes/updates to the DUG
over the past few weeks or so but they've mostly been pretty small - I
hope they've at least made some improvements :D
> I prefer using the wiki to do the bulk of the changes, with the
> result that the learning curve is very low to begin writing.

Yeah, I've found that. The trickiest part is remembering how to mark
all the different technical terms, names, menu commands etc but it's
not hard to look up and I'm sure they'll come with practice!

Yours,

Jon

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 14:03 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> On 11/04/07, John Babich  wrote:
> > Jonathan:
> >
> > Welcome to the Fedora Docs Project.
>
> Hi, Thanks :D
> > Ditto on everything Paul has written. I just volunteered
> > as lead writer for the Fedora User Guide. We are very
> > interested in expanding it to incorporate more KDE and
> > (time-permitting) Xfce coverage. Let me know if your are
> > knowledgeable in those areas and interested in contributing.
>
> I'm not particularly knowledgeable in those two areas, afraid (or
> pleased to say!) I'm a Gnome user but I'd be happy to contribute in
> anyway you see fit: I have been making some changes/updates to the DUG
> over the past few weeks or so but they've mostly been pretty small - I
> hope they've at least made some improvements :D
> > I prefer using the wiki to do the bulk of the changes, with the
> > result that the learning curve is very low to begin writing.
>
> Yeah, I've found that. The trickiest part is remembering how to mark
> all the different technical terms, names, menu commands etc but it's
> not hard to look up and I'm sure they'll come with practice!

Oddly enough, this actually is much *EASIER* in DocBook XML, so if
you're marking the name of a package, you use, for example,
"<package>MyRPM</package>", or for a command, "<command>runme
-now</command>".

[Karsten Wade]

On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 09:30 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> Oddly enough, this actually is much *EASIER* in DocBook XML, so if
> you're marking the name of a package, you use, for example,
> "<package>MyRPM</package>", or for a command, "<command>runme
> -now</command>".

Yep, I'm always referencing this page for my own usage:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/WikiEditing#Marking_Technical_Terms

In a similar situation, the XML markup is easier to remember what goes
where. :)

- Karsten