David Nelson wrote,
Gary Schnabl wrote,
> I am on the OOo docs email list also as you, so we both clearly know that
> OOo docs is getting a fair number of recent volunteers... whereas LO is not
> receiving many such new volunteers, for what that is worth. OOo docs appears
> to be promoting itself much better effectively relative to LO docs--even
> though you have appealed to some new OOo volunteers recently over at OOo
> docs to entice them to come over to this side of the aisle also.
Frankly, I'm wondering if they don't have some kind of spam thing
going on over there. I've noticed regular posts from supposedly
prospective docs contributors, but not one of them has ever posted
back a second time, which is kind of strange. In the past, here on the
LibO docs ML, when people volunteer then you usually see follow-up
activity and some kind of work contribution thereafter.
The two main reasons that OOo docs gets so many would-be volunteers
are (1) the link to the list is on several of the legacy OOo website
pages, and (2) several years ago the OOo docs team was actively
recruiting (among other people) student and early-career technical
writers to gain experience and build up a portfolio, and various
external blogs included this information and a link. So the perceived
promotion is an historical artefact. Essentially all of the people who
send notes to OOo doc are not subscribed, and presumably when they
receive TJ's response they read the info he send them to, and they
decide (for whatever reasons) that it's not what they want... at least
not during the current uncertainty over the future of Apache OOo docs.
So it's not a "spam thing" and I don't find it strange at all that
people don't follow up.
That said, David is right: people who enquire here have been more
likely to contribute, however briefly. I assume that's because things
actually are happening here and people can perceive that, even if they
are confused about what to do, where to start, and so on.
--Jean