Hi Jean,
Yes, I'm an old-timer in the OOo project, having been around since 2002,
lead editor at OOoAuthors since 2004-ish, Co-Lead of the Documentation
Project since early 2009 (continuing).
Sorry about the "old timer" but please read my loose use of the
term to mean "highly-experienced and respected contributor". It didn't
click that you're in fact a lady either because, unfortunately, there
are far too few women involved in Open Source projects. <rant> If
there were, there would probably be a lot more actual work done and a
lot less unproductive blowing-off of air in mailing lists. I've
worked with women engineers before, and they tend to be pragmatic,
practical and go straight for the shortest and simplest route to the
intended goal. </rant>
However, I am too busy to take on a lead role with LibO docs. I see my
role as "senior adviser" -- "senior" in terms of the OOo old-timer
aspect as well as my age.
I regret a great deal that you won't be the documentation lead for
LibO. But I hope that I may have the opportunity to draw on your
wisdom and experience, as I'm new to the project and am engaging on a
learning curve as I familiarize myself with its methods and practices.
So if the screenshots are from the US-Eng version of the software, then
the text should be in US-English *spelling* to match the software.
However, the *punctuation* can (and IMO should) be in the more logical
"British" style. Actually, the differences are minor and most of them
are easily avoided.
I'm a Brit myself but, certainly at the moment, it seems more
realistic to target getting a comprehensive set of documentation in
*one* variety of English. So maybe "International" English with US
spelling is the best option at this time. Perhaps when the LibO
project is at a more mature stage, there will be manpower to do
localized documentation for Australia and New Zealand, Canada, the UK,
the US...
As regards punctuation, when I write professionally, I like to use
punctuation that conforms to formal grammatical parsing, like as wot
Winston Churchill sed.
Anyway, for the proofreading that I've started, I'd be really grateful
if you could maybe watch this thread, where I'll be posting a few
questions:
http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/documentation/msg00172.html
A big thanks if so.
David Nelson