[Bf-docboard] Documentation status and upgrade proposal

[Noel Stoutenburg]

koil:

I've reviewed the ideas posted on this topic, and given the matter a 
good deal of thought. My reaction is mixed. In theory, I woudn't have 
any problem with porting the User Manual for Blender to the Sphinx 
platform, (or some other one, if it be deemed reasonable and proper to 
do so). However, since Blender is open source, and community developed, 
I think it that it is imperative that there be mechanism for maintaining 
user development of the documentation, too. And, unless I totally 
misunderstand the new platform (and that's not an outlandish 
possibility), moving the whole manual to the proposed new platform is 
going to reduce the contributions to the documentation by members of the 
community by a couple of orders of magnitude, and unless there is a 
sizeable cohort of documentation waiting in the wings, I'm loathe to 
disenfranchise a significant number of contributors to the documentation.

I would therefore propose that the WIKI should be treated as a 
development place, or, to use a literary metaphor, the "first couple of 
drafts" where the various parts of the documentation are, fleshed out 
and brought to a certain editorial standard. When the pages have reached 
that point, they could then be ported to the final cut version, and 
ported to the new platform.

If the new proposal breaks, or makes it significantly harder for users 
to contribute to the knowledge base, I'm opposed. If the new platform 
can be implemented in a way which the ability of users to contribute 
persists, I stand in favor.

Noel Stoutenburg.
Sometime WIKI contributor, under the username "brasshat".