[Bf-docboard] Wiki meeting topics

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi all,

Lots of activity on this list! I can't be involved daily unfortunately, but it's a good practice for open/free projects to facilitate and empower the people who do the actual work. :)

I would like to come back to a proposal I sent out some months ago. Text copied below. Keep reading, there's also more stuff!

1) Admins

We could re-establish here a similar structure as we tried in past - and what we do for the developers; appoint and empower an admin board of 3 to 5 people.

The admins will typically not have to do a lot, but will help defining decisions (when the team has no consensis) and be an inspiring & positive force to make sure Blender's wiki keeps being cool to work on! The admins can also be representing wiki to other teams (to BF, at blender.org, conferences, etc).

In no way this is meant as a special status, nor is it showing more appreciation as for the other volunteers; the roles are there to make sure everyone in the wiki team can function optimal.

Based on current activity and what I've been advised, I propose:

Admins:
Kesten Broughton
Brendon 'meta-androcto' Murphy
Ivan 'greylica' Paulos Tomé

Other tasks:
Dan McGrath can assist as system admin
Francesco Siddi as graphics designer (skins, layout)

All open for discussion or feedback.

2) Wiki focus

- Cleanup of old docs

Since 2.50 we've keept most of the UI and features compatible though, and that's not going to change for 2.6x versions either. Also plans for 2.7x and later might not going to change Blender as much as we had for 2.5.

For that reason, a first simplification of wiki would be kick out (hide) old docs. The introduction of separate 2.5 and 2.6 tagged docs is confusing too. A doc is either 'current' or 'outdated'.

- Limit structure to minimum

Formatting guidelines and templates and fancy wiki features should help editors, to make work on wiki more pleasant, accessible, and efficient (in that order :). 
We can only get a good wiki with a large and enthusiast team. Add structure and conventions only as a means to manage cases when too much user activity is requiring it.

- Wiki is just a wiki

A good doc is a bare-bones, giving a simple and understandable description of what a function in Blender does, and how to use it. Just like how you end up on wikipedia looking up a fact, Blender wiki is just our collective memory where you find stuff.
Ideally you could just land on a page via a button tip in Blender.

Secondary - maybe kept separate - tutorials can get space too. But I would suggest to limit that.

3) Blender Foundation support

We do get donations and some sponsoring in, very regular even. I'm still struggling with all expenses though, and my preference is to (also) keep our development support at a high level.

I'm always open for ideas how to (financially) support work for our docboard team though. This could also be via book contracts (either BF publishing or a 3rd party publisher).


Thanks,

-Ton-

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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands