Where have all the bloggers gone?

So, we started a blog with enthusiasm, and a few people contributed
fairly early on, and then... nothing except my publication announcements
and two other posts from me. So it goes...

--Jean

Fairly reminiscent of those dark days again during 2006 or 2007 when only a literal handful of us contributors were still working on the version 2.x OOo user guides, eh? Those, plus a number of those preceding and succeeding them essentially wrote some 90% or so of the current (mostly, rebranded OOo material) LO documentation, especially the Getting Started and Writer Guide manuals.

BTW, I am still rewriting the current LO template and guide.

Gary

Is this it? <http://libodocs.wordpress.com/>

It is in a little-known place, I think.

- Dennis

OK, brain dump. Worth less than what you paid for it. Prego, (just watched Stealing Beauty and missing Tuscany).

Alas, the RSS feed does not do full posts. Can you change that? There are folks like myself who won't subscribe to teaser-RSS feeds: It makes us work too hard. Other folks don't want full posts. You might need to offer different buttons for people to choose their preferred feed. (I don't know how easy it is to get WordPress to do those things.)

In the two months, there have been 9 posts and two comments. You've got more categories than posts so far!

Although I am a very negligent blog poster, I think that not posting more frequently is a problem if you want more attention. I don't know who the posters are, I see the generic Team poster and 3 named contributors, all with one apiece except for Jean. There are no links to author profiles from the post timestamps. That makes the blog too one-way.

But maybe you want to figure out what people would be looking for that you have to offer, beside announcements. I'm guessing. And what relationship are you out to establish. Blogs are conversational. Not fragments of user manuals. The voice is different. I have seen books written on a blog, but this isn't that.

For example, explain the way that the styles dialogs work and what the categories are, in small short articles in a series. And screen shots, lots of screen shots. Or just point out where the Page Layout option is and what is there, what can be controlled.

I have a question already - can I have a different layout for each sheet of a spreadsheet document, and can each sheet have different headers and footers. The Page Preview is scary, having me think that I am stuck with the one, so I don't want to try making headers over different pages and find out that is not what I got. There is no document preview print preview that I can find, only single page preview. How do I preview the document?
  Stuff like that. And more human presence. What do you struggle with using it yourself and figuring out how to document it. What is your most memorable duhh... moment.

I suspect writers may be reluctant bloggers, having to do with how precious the words are regarded, perhaps. Yet some of the greatest blogs I read are by authors and screen writers. But they talk about their experience, they don't put their writing on the blog unless there is some story they have to tell about something in their work or struggling or dealing with the publishing process, movie studios, publishers and having to do book tours, etc. What's your drama around documenting LibreOffice?

Also, because this is where your audience is, things that folks stumble on when it isn't like Word or Excel or PowerPoint, and how to learn around in Libre Office instead.

Basta! Finito. orcmid

Dennis, thanks for the comments. Much appreciated!

I'm not sure how much if any control we have over the RSS feed at
Wordpress.com; someone with the time to do it needs to look into that.

I agree with almost all you've said. We had some discussion about what
topics to include, how often to post, etc (most of which you've
summarised very well; good to have that reinforcement), but as with most
projects, not enough people to do the work.

We hadn't thought about the relationships angle, providing links to
author profiles etc. Not sure whether most of us would feel comfortable
about that, as it could be interpreted as self-promotion rather than
promoting the Docs team and LibreOffice itself. Actually the blog
started out for announcements, then we thought to do tips and other
explanations.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback. I just hope we can build on it.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:

I think links to blogs by non-lurkers is a good idea, or any other relevant
links. Anyone that contributes anything to documentation or people that post on
the WordPress site is likely to be interesting to people visiting the WordPress
space.

Dennis it sounds as to you have good ideas for the blog. Can you develop the
WordPress place?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

From: Jean Hollis Weber <jeanweber@gmail.com>
To: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Tue, 28 June, 2011 7:45:59
Subject: RE: [libreoffice-documentation] Where have all the bloggers gone?

Dennis, thanks for the comments. Much appreciated!

I'm not sure how much if any control we have over the RSS feed at
Wordpress.com; someone with the time to do it needs to look into that.

I agree with almost all you've said. We had some discussion about what
topics to include, how often to post, etc (most of which you've
summarised very well; good to have that reinforcement), but as with most
projects, not enough people to do the work.

We hadn't thought about the relationships angle, providing links to
author profiles etc. Not sure whether most of us would feel comfortable
about that, as it could be interpreted as self-promotion rather than
promoting the Docs team and LibreOffice itself. Actually the blog
started out for announcements, then we thought to do tips and other
explanations.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback. I just hope we can build on it.

--Jean

> Is this it? <http://libodocs.wordpress.com/>
>
> It is in a little-known place, I think.
>
> - Dennis
>
> OK, brain dump. Worth less than what you paid for it. Prego, (just watched
Stealing Beauty and missing Tuscany).
>
>
> Alas, the RSS feed does not do full posts. Can you change that? There are
folks like myself who won't subscribe to teaser-RSS feeds: It makes us work too
hard. Other folks don't want full posts. You might need to offer different
buttons for people to choose their preferred feed. (I don't know how easy it
is to get WordPress to do those things.)

>
> In the two months, there have been 9 posts and two comments. You've got
more categories than posts so far!
>
> Although I am a very negligent blog poster, I think that not posting more
frequently is a problem if you want more attention. I don't know who the
posters are, I see the generic Team poster and 3 named contributors, all with
one apiece except for Jean. There are no links to author profiles from the
post timestamps. That makes the blog too one-way.
>
> But maybe you want to figure out what people would be looking for that you
have to offer, beside announcements. I'm guessing. And what relationship are
you out to establish. Blogs are conversational. Not fragments of user
manuals. The voice is different. I have seen books written on a blog, but
this isn't that.
>
> For example, explain the way that the styles dialogs work and what the
categories are, in small short articles in a series. And screen shots, lots of
screen shots. Or just point out where the Page Layout option is and what is
there, what can be controlled.
>
> I have a question already - can I have a different layout for each sheet of
a spreadsheet document, and can each sheet have different headers and
footers. The Page Preview is scary, having me think that I am stuck with the
one, so I don't want to try making headers over different pages and find out
that is not what I got. There is no document preview print preview that I can
find, only single page preview. How do I preview the document?
> Stuff like that. And more human presence. What do you struggle with using
it yourself and figuring out how to document it. What is your most memorable
duhh... moment.
>
> I suspect writers may be reluctant bloggers, having to do with how precious
the words are regarded, perhaps. Yet some of the greatest blogs I read are by
authors and screen writers. But they talk about their experience, they don't
put their writing on the blog unless there is some story they have to tell
about something in their work or struggling or dealing with the publishing
process, movie studios, publishers and having to do book tours, etc. What's
your drama around documenting LibreOffice?
>
> Also, because this is where your audience is, things that folks stumble on
when it isn't like Word or Excel or PowerPoint, and how to learn around in
Libre Office instead.
>
> Basta! Finito. orcmid
>
>
>
> From: Jean Hollis Weber [mailto:jeanweber@gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 19:50
> To: LibreOffice Documentation
> Subject: [libreoffice-documentation] Where have all the bloggers gone?
>
> So, we started a blog with enthusiasm, and a few people contributed
> fairly early on, and then... nothing except my publication announcements
> and two other posts from me. So it goes...
>
> --Jean

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to documentation+help@global.libreoffice.org
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be

deleted

Hi,

Well, I didn't say anything at the time, but I must admit that I did
not think it was yet the right time to start a blog. Too much
fundamental organization of existing documentation content and
development of workflow to be done. If I'd had my druthers, I'd have
waited a few months yet.

But I will contribute to the blog when the stuff I'm working on is
further down the line.

BTW, you guys, FWIW, there does seem to be real interest in developing
a LibO plugin for Alfresco, and it looks like that development might
start happening very soon with people from our devs team, and people
involved closely or more distantly with Alfresco.

But, Jean, coming back to the subject of the blog, wordpress.com was a
reasonable place to start it and it can sit there until we really are
ready to start to use it.

Hi again :slight_smile:
Sorry for double-post. Dennis, don't worry if you don't have time to develop
the WordPress space. It has never really been meant as a high-activity place as
it's a side-issue for the documentation team. It would be nice if more people
posted things there. Sometimes people write long mails to the mailing list that
would be good as articles imo.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

From: Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>
To: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Tue, 28 June, 2011 7:29:55
Subject: RE: [libreoffice-documentation] Where have all the bloggers gone?

Is this it? <http://libodocs.wordpress.com/>

It is in a little-known place, I think.

- Dennis

OK, brain dump. Worth less than what you paid for it. Prego, (just watched
Stealing Beauty and missing Tuscany).

Alas, the RSS feed does not do full posts. Can you change that? There are
folks like myself who won't subscribe to teaser-RSS feeds: It makes us work too
hard. Other folks don't want full posts. You might need to offer different
buttons for people to choose their preferred feed. (I don't know how easy it
is to get WordPress to do those things.)

In the two months, there have been 9 posts and two comments. You've got more
categories than posts so far!

Although I am a very negligent blog poster, I think that not posting more
frequently is a problem if you want more attention. I don't know who the
posters are, I see the generic Team poster and 3 named contributors, all with
one apiece except for Jean. There are no links to author profiles from the
post timestamps. That makes the blog too one-way.

But maybe you want to figure out what people would be looking for that you
have to offer, beside announcements. I'm guessing. And what relationship are
you out to establish. Blogs are conversational. Not fragments of user
manuals. The voice is different. I have seen books written on a blog, but
this isn't that.

For example, explain the way that the styles dialogs work and what the
categories are, in small short articles in a series. And screen shots, lots of
screen shots. Or just point out where the Page Layout option is and what is
there, what can be controlled.

I have a question already - can I have a different layout for each sheet of a
spreadsheet document, and can each sheet have different headers and footers.
The Page Preview is scary, having me think that I am stuck with the one, so I
don't want to try making headers over different pages and find out that is not
what I got. There is no document preview print preview that I can find, only
single page preview. How do I preview the document?
  Stuff like that. And more human presence. What do you struggle with using
it yourself and figuring out how to document it. What is your most memorable
duhh... moment.

I suspect writers may be reluctant bloggers, having to do with how precious
the words are regarded, perhaps. Yet some of the greatest blogs I read are by
authors and screen writers. But they talk about their experience, they don't
put their writing on the blog unless there is some story they have to tell
about something in their work or struggling or dealing with the publishing
process, movie studios, publishers and having to do book tours, etc. What's
your drama around documenting LibreOffice?

Also, because this is where your audience is, things that folks stumble on
when it isn't like Word or Excel or PowerPoint, and how to learn around in
Libre Office instead.

Basta! Finito. orcmid

From: Jean Hollis Weber [mailto:jeanweber@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 19:50
To: LibreOffice Documentation
Subject: [libreoffice-documentation] Where have all the bloggers gone?

So, we started a blog with enthusiasm, and a few people contributed
fairly early on, and then... nothing except my publication announcements
and two other posts from me. So it goes...

--Jean

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to documentation+help@global.libreoffice.org
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be

deleted

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to documentation+help@global.libreoffice.org
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be

deleted

If I had the time, I could post tons of stuff on the blog... under
several different names.

<chuckle />

--Jean

Hi,

Well, I didn't say anything at the time, but I must admit that I did
not think it was yet the right time to start a blog. Too much
fundamental organization of existing documentation content and
development of workflow to be done. If I'd had my druthers, I'd have
waited a few months yet.

I agree, but several people seemed keen, and said they would feel more
comfortable with short blog posts than getting involved in bigger
projects or chunks of bigger projects, so it seemed like a good idea to
try to capture some of that interest and enthusiasm. Ah, well, no harm
done if the enthusiasm didn't continue.

But, Jean, coming back to the subject of the blog, wordpress.com was a
reasonable place to start it and it can sit there until we really are
ready to start to use it.

Yes. And I'll probably post something now and then to keep it from
stagnating too much... mainly because I can't stop myself. :wink:

--Jean

I have no idea how to develop a WordPress place and I have no desire to do so. I have too much to work on already.

- Dennis

My only WordPress blog was done to preserve the forced-retirement of one I had on Windows Live: <http://orcmid.wordpress.com/>. It is interesting that I was ill in April and I haven't returned to posting there (a stop-gap until my other blogs are restored to operation) since.

I also interrupted posting on how I made the WordPress blog by conversion of my Windows Live blog (which now redirects to the WordPress one). That interrupted saga is at <http://nfocentrale.com/status/>. That is a Movable Type blog, and MT is what I will continue learning how to manage when I restore to this activity. Neither of these is an example of how I want my older blogs to be restored (after cessation of FTP creation of blogs by Blogger), e.g, <http://orcmid.com/blog/>.

So you can see that, for me, blogging is the operation of one humongous vanity press [;<). My job jar growth is endless.

What Jean says is my experience of how blogs keep going: when it is irresistible to blog [;<).

One thing that I see is missing is anything on the blog about how one can become a (guest) poster there, and who are the authorized posters in the seed community.

- Dennis

Dear Jean:

Your remark about the lack of visibility of accepted protocol in regards to guest bloggers is right, and may sometimes be inauspicious.

Notwithstanding, a lot of posts that plague blogging, and are more in the line of "negative rants" have made blogging in general more difficult to moderate and manage.

Still more "notwithstanding", and recalling an apt point I remember reading in the July 1995 issue of CGA magazine, in an article about 5 types of difficult personalities in the office, where they were referring to the habitual complainer type, their point was that these individuals are more interested in voicing complaints than providing any aid to their solutions.

To me this correlates closely with the problem I mentioned above regarding the moderation of guest blogging.

Worse still, we so often see that the objects of so many problems and complaints are 2-sided wrongs or multi-sided equivalents, where nobody really wants to compromise adequately, nor even be open about that very fact.

If, being aware of that very concern, a person chooses to "complain for the sake of complaining" because they see no hope of resolution, that level, detrimental as it is, is also comprehensible.

All of this is so well known to many cultures, especially those which have been around much longer than that of North America, however this is where I see a major case of "explicitness is of the essence".

English is the most associative language I have heard of, however, especially in North America, it seriously lacks the vocabulary and practice to handle interpersonal and emotional difficulties well. English has its strength in the technical and scientific arenas because of its associativeness, but therein its "Ying and Yang", so little be it often understood here.

As a person who loves his languages, with English as a forst language, followed by French and Spanish as second and third, I see the mission to render the emotive capacities of romance languages into the pragmatic explicitness of English to take these skills out of the darkness of "a black magic skill" in which they have languished so long to the detriment of the better common good.

Ooooo, I just had an idea <evil grin>