(dropped ai@ from the CC)
On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 6:49 PM, Gergo Tisza <gtisza(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 4:20 PM, Aaron Halfaker
<ahalfaker(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
I thought Wikitech makes sense for a
wikimedia-specific initiative.
A documentation SIG is not really Wikimedia-specific though (or did you
mean "ORES documentation SIG" specifically?).
Sarah is working on technical writing projects related specifically to
ORES and Cloud Services this quarter (and hopefully for many more
quarters to come). This work is part of the "technical community
building" program from the Technology department's annual plan [0].
Sarah can jump in to say more, but my understanding is that the
initial work of the SIGDOCS is intended to be focused pretty narrowly
on ORES, Cloud VPS, and Toolforge. That certainly does not mean that
we do not have other documentation gaps (we do) or that others are
barred from organizing to work on things like MediaWiki API docs (they
are not). It does mean however that we are making choices about focus
with the hope that this will help make more actionable plans about
which docs to work on first and what sort of work to do.
Also, most Wikimedia-specific technology initiatives
are on
mw.org (all the
Audiences projects, for example).
Where the tracking page for SIGDOCS lives is probably the least
important issue related to organizing the group, but I think your
point is well taken.
Due to being managed differently, wikitech is not a
great work environment
IMO. There is no unified login, no page translation support, no structured
discussion support, no pageview metrics, the registration process is tied
to creating LDAP and shell accounts... There are plans to improve this
eventually [1], but between that and the audience differences, I'd stay
away for now.
All of this is true, but then also very false when you learn that
improving the Cloud VPS and Toolforge docs is at least 50% of the
project to be undertaken.
I'd like to second Gergo's initial enthusiasm about Sarah stepping up
to help organize work on documentation. She has a great background in
technical writing as individual contributor and experience in teaching
writing related topics that I hope we can all leverage to get better
at the craft of making clear and useful documentation.
[0]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2017-2018/…
Bryan
--
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation <bd808(a)wikimedia.org>
[[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] Manager, Cloud Services Boise, ID USA
irc: bd808 v:415.839.6885 x6855