[Indic-computing-devel] [RFC] indic-computing website improvements.

[Cherry G. M. <ch...@fr...>]

Hello list,

This email is intended to be a critique of the shortcomings of the
current indic-computing documentation system. It is intended to add
constructive criticism and elicit discussion.


1) From the perspective of a new volunteer for website maintanence:

   The order of prerequisite reading is not specified.

   Here is a suggested order:

-   The Docbook guide
-   WebMake homepage documentation
-   Etext homepage documentation
-   indic-computing doc-build New Volunteer's guide.

   It would be very helpfull to finish section "3.1, Directory
Structure" of the documenation design goals document.


2) Documentation layout.

   Three formats are in use, with no apparent logical distribution in
directories. They are, sgml, html, and ettext. It would be nice to
make a policy decision about which format to stick to ( even if it
makes the site slightly uglier. ) Once the project has obtained
critical-mass in terms of volunteers for site maintanence and content
management, we could think about diversifying.

3) Tool usage.

  Can we cut down on the number of tools used for documentation
maintanence ? As of now, a prospective documenter has to know 6
tools namely: html, docbook sgml, ettext, webmake, bsd make, python.
A shallower, smaller learning curve can bring in more volunteers at
this stage. For now this is a substantial requirment for a casual
contributor.


Please note that the above observations/suggestions are not meant to
put down the excellent work of current volunteers, but merely as a
means to elicit discussion.

Comments welcome on the devel list.

Best,

Cherry

ch...@sd...
http://cherry.freeshell.org/