Official Development Documentation

Jethro

Well-known member
Is anyone currently working on documentation, another area of vexation with various internet offerings. Would love to see some easy to follow docos on making up modules etc that can kick start the development community. And before anyone says go ahead and write some, I would need a copy of the software first ... phew that should sidetrack that little ball pass.

For my own members will probably knock up a series of "How To" documents before switching to Xen.

There I've mentioned the "D" word, it's out in the open folks.
 
Documentation is important, and I am secretly hoping for crowd sourcing this via some wiki - via recommended community users and staff people. Processing what they think is frequently asked, needs explanation and is suggested by public comments to the page.
 
Documentation is important, and I am secretly hoping for crowd sourcing this via some wiki - via recommended community users and staff people. Processing what they think is frequently asked, needs explanation and is suggested by public comments to the page.

Cool idea on the wiki. Also hoping for development and graphics forums where you can ask questions if you get stuck.

Forget which product it is, one of the free ones though, but they have a program where you can write up one aspect of the software, submit it, and if it's good enough it gets included in an online manual. Sort of takes the pressure off their developers, but can be a haphazard approach. Possibly a wiki would cover the same notion.
 
Once the 'Pages' feature is implemented and fine tuned that might work well for a select group of individuals to document things. Of course it would need to be easy to use, and non-admins would need to be able to edit, which is something Mike said is not the way the pages work now.
 
I think a wiki would be great.

Especially as it can be really challenging to write a user friendly documentation for a software you have written yourself.
 
I would be surprised is Mike and Kier released XF without documentation. I don't think they'd be working on it right now since a lot of functionality is still being built/changed, but I'm sure around the beta it would most likely start to be worked on.

A wiki-like environment for the documentation would be neat though.
 
I think a wiki would be nice for this where a member can edit/add info where he thinks it's necessary.
I don't like that idea since some users could put very incorrect information on there and cause other users less knowledgable to do something bad with their installation.

Staff should edit the wiki, and if a member thinks something should be added/changed, they can click a link and tell staff what they think should be edited in to the article.

That way staff aren't running around a lot of pages to keep track of a lot of information, and users can still have input into what the documentation displays.
 
MyBB has a Wiki - it's a very useful resource. Could be a great thing for XenForo and save a few days of Mike's and Kier's precious time.
 
I don't like that idea since some users could put very incorrect information on there and cause other users less knowledgable to do something bad with their installation.

Staff should edit the wiki, and if a member thinks something should be added/changed, they can click a link and tell staff what they think should be edited in to the article.

That way staff aren't running around a lot of pages to keep track of a lot of information, and users can still have input into what the documentation displays.
Of course there would be logging and all that good stuff.
 
I don't like that idea since some users could put very incorrect information on there and cause other users less knowledgable to do something bad with their installation.

Staff should edit the wiki, and if a member thinks something should be added/changed, they can click a link and tell staff what they think should be edited in to the article.

That way staff aren't running around a lot of pages to keep track of a lot of information, and users can still have input into what the documentation displays.

That goes along with the 'trusted folks' editing it. If they find people who aren't just going to screw things up, they can give just them the permissions to edit the documentation pages, and possibly have someone knowledgeable with installations (not necessarily staff only) review the sensitive steps of things.

Also, given that it is Alpha, I think documentation would be a bit premature but for the things that are 100% not going to change.
 
There is no need for a documentation when things are not even finished, they could change from one minute to another and make the documentation useless.
 
I don't like that idea since some users could put very incorrect information on there and cause other users less knowledgable to do something bad with their installation.
Then someone else will come along and fix/revert it. Most malicious/incorrect edits on Wikipedia are reverted within minutes or even seconds.
 
I don't like that idea since some users could put very incorrect information on there and cause other users less knowledgable to do something bad with their installation.

In your words, my own management style would prompt me to have a maintenance team responsible for managing the content on the wiki.

What'd happen is that there's be a forum or some sort of interface between the wiki management staff and the public, so the cycle to suggest, improve and build upon is constant.
 
People who are doing a poor job or mis-editing, etc, will simply be removed from the team.
 
Not most, but yes, I've spend many hours in there. I also remember Kier (and team?) writing the front and back end for the documentation script. :) It inspired me to make the "manual" style for the admincp/ btw. :p

The manual was constantly updated with version differences, and corrections, processing user feedback and what not. If we learned our content was wrong, or we got more info from internal wiki or support system I took the time to go through the manual to update it.

I remember telling Kier once that they should just finalize that product and sell it as a stand alone thing, it was good enough. I was quite impressed with it.

Anyway, the whole team worked on that documentation, I am sure I didn't do the majority of it.
 
Then someone else will come along and fix/revert it. Most malicious/incorrect edits on Wikipedia are reverted within minutes or even seconds.
Then you run into wiki-fights in some cases (and I've seen it happen a few times).
 
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