My plans

I am no longer interested in doing the organizing, coordinating, and
other admin work that the documentation team needs to be done, and
after all these years I am tired of trying to either do the user guide
updates or get people to do them.

So when I get back from this trip in a few days I plan to start
working seriously on what interests me most, which is writing new
material on more advanced topics. Some of this will find its way into
the docs blog but most will be longer items that will eventually be
part of another book or two. My books will be under creative commons
license so they can be made part of the official docs if others want
them.

I do hope some people will finish reviewing the Impress Guide. The
Draw Guide Is being done. The Math Guide still needs rebranding but I
think is otherwise ok.

Jean

Hi Jean,

I am no longer interested in doing the organizing, coordinating, and
other admin work that the documentation team needs to be done, and
after all these years I am tired of trying to either do the user guide
updates or get people to do them.

Well, your expertise would certainly be missed, although I can
understand how you feel. It's funny but, during your "absence", I had
been thinking about posting to you on the list and suggesting that we
might team up, you and I together, and divvy up the work on the
existing documentation. I had thought that if we worked in
coordination together, largely under your guidance, we could get a lot
done with 1 to 2 hours of work per day each (5 days per week, for
instance) over the next couple of months.

But it's also true that, since I've taken on the commitment of
operating an Alfresco platform for LibreOffice, I can take on a lot of
the mundane drudgery you're talking about - in fact it would even form
a natural part of the job.

So when I get back from this trip in a few days I plan to start
working seriously on what interests me most, which is writing new
material on more advanced topics. Some of this will find its way into
the docs blog but most will be longer items that will eventually be
part of another book or two. My books will be under creative commons
license so they can be made part of the official docs if others want
them.

Well, I'm sure you would/will produce some very valuable material.
It's true that knowledge and experience such as yours may well be
ideally utilised working on advanced topics that require the kind of
knowledge of the product that many other docs team contributors -
whether occasional or one-time - simply don't have.

I do hope some people will finish reviewing the Impress Guide. The
Draw Guide Is being done. The Math Guide still needs rebranding but I
think is otherwise ok.

Well, there are people who have been/are now working on the Impress
guide and Getting Started guide.

Myself, I'm still in discussion with the Alfresco project. There are
some interesting ideas in the air, but it's not yet clear whether they
will have time to undertake a major configuration/customisation job on
alfresco.libreoffice.org/documentation.libreoffice.org, or whether
they might simply act in an advisory role. In the second case, I'd be
looking at doing the work myself - maybe with help from Jeremy and
Samphan, depending on their availabilities.

So, all that being said, are your plans still the same?

In any case, I hope you are having/have had a good break. :slight_smile:

Hi David,
I had a great time, thanks, and learned a lot about what I can and
can't do on my iPad. :wink:

As for plans: well.... I'm sure it's obvious that I will continue to
comment and offer suggestions and opinions; I can't seem to stop
myself from doing that. Also, I intend to continue to publish the user
guides in print form when other people get them done, and to do that
I'm likely to do some of the final formatting (and nagging others
about last minute things) for the PDFs as well.

In addition to writing new stuff, I intend to suggest improvements to
the existing guides. I have a lot of ideas about how to reorganise (or
repackage) existing material that I'd like to bounce off you and the
other members of this list, if/when I get time to write those ideas
down. This would also tie in with discussions about putting short
items on the wiki, blogging some tips, developing how-tos, and so on.

I am also monitoring what's happening with the OOo documentation (work
is continuing on some of it), because error corrections and editorial
updates to the OOo docs are usually relevant to the LibO docs and IMO
should be brought into the LibO docs as well. (I retain my co-lead
position at OOo, for whatever that's worth at the moment, and am on
the list to contribute to Apache OpenOffice.org.)

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:

Good news :slight_smile: Imo the best boss is one that is able to stand back and let people
sort things out for themselves at that sort of level, but is around to just
offer gentle guidance occasionally. One that gets involved with the actual work
as an equal is even more superb. So, imo you have been doing an excellent job
as 'leader' since your note :slight_smile:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Tom,

Imo the best boss is one that is able to stand back and let people
sort things out for themselves at that sort of level, but is around to just
offer gentle guidance occasionally.  One that gets involved with the actual work
as an equal is even more superb.  So, imo you have been doing an excellent job
as 'leader' since your note :slight_smile:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Speaking for myself, I don't think that the docs team needs a "boss"
or even a "leader" as such. It does need a crew of regular
contributors who can cooperate in a friendly, flexible manner that
makes contributing an enjoyable, productive experience. And it needs
some good, experienced team players who are willing to provide
guidance and advice to newcomers where needed, in a discreet, tactful,
friendly and non-authoritarian manner.

IMO, with the above, we'd have all we need to be a good team...

My 2 cents.

I agree with you about what we need, but I don't agree that's
necessarily *all* we need. Past experience tells me otherwise.

IMO we also need at least one (preferably several) people who will take
a coordinating (or "leadership") role to help work move along
expeditiously, *especially* now when we do not yet have a crew of
regular, experienced contributors. In my experience, little actually
gets done on group projects unless there are leaders. If this project
turns out to be different, then I will be delighted.

--Jean

Hi Jean,

I agree with you about what we need, but I don't agree that's
necessarily *all* we need. Past experience tells me otherwise.

IMO we also need at least one (preferably several) people who will take
a coordinating (or "leadership") role to help work move along
expeditiously, *especially* now when we do not yet have a crew of
regular, experienced contributors. In my experience, little actually
gets done on group projects unless there are leaders. If this project
turns out to be different, then I will be delighted.

I see what you're getting at, but I think it's a delicate thing.

I think people want contributing to be fun and enjoyable.

My impression is that they're easily scared off by any hint of
discord/disagreements between team members. I seem to have noticed in
the past that new contributors have faded almost immediately when
"spats" have broken out in the list.

I also have the impression that many new contributors quickly go
silent if they have any feeling of imposed direction or imposed
commitment. Like they get enough of that in their off-list lives, and
don't "come here" for more of the same.

IMHO, guidance has to be provided with a very light hand and extreme
discretion. If people over-extend their presence within a team, they
can easily kill the germination of a core of regular contributors.

Again, just my own 2 cents.

Hi :slight_smile:
OOooops :frowning: Sorry. I post tooo much :frowning: Sometimes people enjoy seeing "a good
scrap". Some of us like to diffuse it or turn it around. Like in the marketing
list yday. High energy, a passion for the task and/or the project can be good
fun to work with & inevitably lead to spats. Everyone just agreeing all the
time can be sooo boring lol. We learn a lot about each other and alternative
viewpoints too imo.

Most of the people i disagree with i consider friends or they become friends
"further down the road". I love it when i can step into the middle of a
misunderstanding and translate so that both people realise they are on the same
side.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: