[Bsod-mentors] Ideas and comments.

Sat May 20 12:58:01 CEST 2006

hi Eugene,

Sorry took a while to get back to you, I'm now on holidays, and difficult to
get to internet, and damn impossible to connect to IRC.

Anyway, I think that text you wrote is significantly screwed up enough to
present a reasonable challenge :) So yeh we will go with that.

-Tim

On 5/18/06, Eugene Reilly <etr9j at blendernation.com> wrote:
>
>  How much text and how bad?  :)
>
> Here is one I wrote in about two minutes and it is attached since I can't
> seem to paste into this window right now. It's really bad, but it does have
> numerous places that will show what the person can do (grammer, spelling,
> punctuation errors).  It is also open to overall correction of the subject
> itself.
>
> Is this too bad?
>
>
>
> BlenderNation <http://www.blendernation.com/>:  Fresh Blender News, Every
> Day.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Tim Wakeham" <tim.wakeham at gmail.com>
> To: "Blender Summer of Docs project" <bsod-mentors at blender.org>
> Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 21:54:08 +1000
> Subject: Re: [Bsod-mentors] Ideas and comments.
>
> Yep i basically agree with all that.
>
> Anyone want to volunteer for writing some bad text that we expect to be
> edited by people without past experience?
>
> Tim
>
> On 5/18/06, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I would advise to not overshoot too much in over-organizing the
> > project. There's no reason to scare away people, nor do I think we get
> > 100s of submissions in. :)
> > My experience with the Google project is that the complexity of
> > rules/methods is not working well. This year they've organized it "much
> > better", causing in a load of confused traffic on the mentor list.
> >
> > Mixed in below some comments.
> >
> > > Ok topics we need some thought and discussion about -
> > >
> > > a) Proposals - structure of proposals, what we expect to be contained
> > > in the proposal, level of detail, how to present them (wiki, bsod
> > > board on b.org , email to list, etc etc.)
> > >
> > > I've discussed things a little with spiderworm and come up with some
> > > ideas for sections that should be present in the proposals. The
> > > structure we came up with is as follows -
> > >
> > > -Intro/Synopsis - General introduction to the proposal in a paragraph,
> >
> > > or two.
> > > -Justification - How is it to benefit the user base?
> > > -Scope/Detailed breakdown - Tell us exactly what will be detailed in
> > > the docs produced
> > > -Deliverables - Tell us what you plan to give as end result, in terms
> > > of quantity, type, etc
> > > -Outline/Timeline - (unsure if this is necessary) speaks for itself
> > > -History/Biography - tell us what experience you have, what have
> > > contributed in the past, prove you can do what you say.
> >
> > This is a bit too much I think. It's not a lifetime job people are
> > applying for! What about this:
> >
> > - Intro/Synposis: one paragraph summarizing the proposal
> > - Scope/Breakdown: what topic(s) will be covered, and how will it be
> > structured.
> > - Deliverables: what the result will be, in terms of quantity, type, etc
> > - Biography: past experience, links to existing work, etc
> >
> > > We also came up with the notion of having a small writing challenge,
> > > maybe asking for a couple of small writing tasks, maybe say 200 words
> > > each, a technical example, maybe something creative or research based,
> > > and an editing task where we give them a bad text and ask them to edit
> >
> > > it accordingly.
> >
> > You could do this, but just based on personal contact with people who
> > sent in a great proposal but didn't show any past experience. Don't
> > oblige everyone to this.
> >
> > > b) Qualifying for the project - what should we ask for in regards to
> > > past experience if any? what should we ask to be demonstrated? should
> > > we ask for image proof that the person is competent with the area of
> > > Blender they want to document?
> >
> > You can mention that the submission should have sufficient information
> > for the mentor team to decide if it's eligible. This can be past
> > experience, or samples of work, etc.
> >
> > > Obviously if we set a writing task as part of entry conditions then
> > > that would demonstrate the writing ability of the candidate, though
> > > this has an inherent problem, language. We would need to find a way
> > > of providing a fair test there, and since their text will be
> > > translated anyway, it seems we should really be testing the
> > > translator.
> >
> > Translations is a difficult topic yes... I don't like to complexify
> > this whole grants system by also giving money to the translators. What
> > about this offer; a translator can do a free pick from the Blender
> > e-shop?
> >
> > > I don't like the idea of requesting past experience documenting since
> > > it limits people who could provide a great contribution, that said, I
> > > think we need to be especially critical of their ability in the
> > > designated area, and in their writing ability if they don't have
> > > experience already.
> >
> > I agree. You could use the description as I provided before. You guys
> > need *some* evidence!
> >
> > > c) Theme - As we mentioned in the original b.org post, we'd like to
> > > involve a theme for the overall scheme of the project. That way we
> > > get a unified end result. The choices that we have got so far, are-
> > >
> > > i) Blender Basics Bootcamp - a detailed introduction to the major
> > > areas of Blender, maybe leading into some more advanced topics, for
> > > example docs on lighting could include radiosity for example.
> > >
> > > ii) Blender Since 2.3 Manual - detailed guides to the major feature
> > > releases since 2.3, things like new animation, fluids, softbodies,
> > > compositor etc etc
> > >
> > > What are the general thoughts about these themes, and has anyone got
> > > any ideas for other themes?
> >
> > I'm fine with any. You guys decide. :)
> >
> > > d) Mentor role - should there be a 1:1 ratio participant to mentors?
> > > do we need to provide each participant with a particular mentor, I
> > > think that as much as possible we shold try to organise a meeting
> > > between the participant and the person responsible for the project,
> > > and of course, non-English participants will have to have a buddy for
> > > translating etc.
> >
> > Limit the mentor role to an absolute mininum. In Google the target is
> > different (get students into new projects, so they need guidance). We
> > can just assume that any documenter should know Blender well enough to
> > be able to write about it.
> >
> > The mentors can limit work to answering to questions, and try to be
> > clear about expectations you have for a succesful completion. The
> > people on this list can be 'mentor', no need to find more I guess.
> >
> > > e) Format - I think the best option is for directly working onto the
> > > wiki here, to allow us to see what is going on and to involve
> > > individual mentors if we decide to take that path.
> >
> > Good!
> >
> > > Anyway that is all i've got for now, lets get some comments happening
> > > and set the ball rolling.
> >
> > Thanks for the good work mate!
> >
> > -Ton-
> >
> > >
> > > -Tim
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Bsod-mentors mailing list
> > > Bsod-mentors at blender.org
> > > http://projects.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bsod-mentors
> > >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > --
> > Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org
> > http://www.blender.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Bsod-mentors at blender.org
> > http://projects.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bsod-mentors
> >
>
>
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