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jenclas
and now am waiting for some way to get involved as invited by Herko I think some time back.
Jenclas, is that an offer to help? If so, please contact me. We have projects pending that don't require great technical knowhow, just clear concise dissemination of how things work!
Rowd,
I tend to agree with Mithrandir that public collaboration through a wiki leaves much to be desired in terms of style, subject organisation and consistancy of content detail. It's great for collecting ideas, but it becomes over fragmented. Maybe the wiki idea is a good information gathering tool, In that regard, I would endorse your idea strongly, but then it should be followed by editorial refinement and formatting before a publication stage.
To make quality documents, requires a multi-stage process involving close collaboration with the developer(s). When I made the documentation for the SmartFAQ module, it took several weeks working with Marcan to ensure fidelity of content.
The ideal is to release a document co-currently with the beta software, because this is the time when users require the help guidance most. Using a wiki would only work retrospectively after release as users became familiar with software usage. As the software is debugged and refined in the public arena, so documentation should be updated to reflect the changes, until a final is produced.
I strongly maintain that development and documentation should always be a parallel process.
Let us also consider the possibility of embedding 'help' comments in with the source code. In this way the developer can describe exactly what is intended with any particular function. No, not the docbook style, I mean a 'user help popup' associated with a particular link, form or screen area. Take alook at the smartFAQ documentation and imagine something like
this here embedded in the page of the actual module!