CMS discussions yet again

[Jared Smith]

On Wed, 2009-01-28 at 11:49 +1000, Christopher Curran wrote:
> What lifecycle? Most docs projects are stagnant wiki pages? 

I respectfully disagree on this point.  Maybe I should take a moment to
explain that when the Fedora Docs Project talks about their
documentation, they're often referring to the formal documents (Release
notes, Security Guide, Software Management Guide, User Guide) as well as
the more informal documentation on the wiki.  In the case of formal
docs, we aim to provide leadership and oversight on the process, while
in the case of the informal documents on the wiki, our aim is to be more
of a gardener, not a gatekeeper.

In the case of some of these formal documents, the source is the wiki,
and our "lifecycle" is to convert the wiki to DocBook, and from there do
editing, translation, and publishing to HTML/PDF, and publishing on the
web.  (As an aside, doing the conversion from wiki -> DocBook is one of
the pieces I most enjoy and find my time is most valuable to the
project.)  Other formal documents started their life in some other
format, often times already being in DocBook format.  The same workflow
still applies, however... with editing, translation, format conversion,
and publishing.

In the case of the informal documents, their entire lifecycle is most
likely to be spent on the wiki.

Also, to call the wiki pages stagnant is a bit of a stretch.  There's a
lot happening in a lot of different places on the wiki (both directly
related to the docs project and otherwise), and I think it's incongruous
to paint the entire wiki with a broad brush and call it stagnant.

> You keep talking about content coming from places as if it actually is 
> coming in. Last I looked there were two(2) documents actually being 
> produced: the security guide and the release notes. Perhaps two is many 
> in your world but most people's definition of many is more than that.

There are a number of documents coming in.  I alone have worked on the
release notes, the installation guide, the software management guide,
and the user guide in the past few months, along with many of informal
docs on the wiki.

It may not compare to the number of docs you juggle in your <dayjob/>,
but that doesn't mean we're not working, as your post implies.

-Jared