GDP: main phase

[Graham Percival]

We have now entered the main phase of GDP.  I seem to have done a
poor job of explaining what's happening, so I'll try to explain it
better.  Please read this message carefully.

If something in this message contradicts anything I said in the
past couple of days, please treat this message as correct.
(and/or ask for clarification :)


OVERALL

We are currently working on Chapter 1 of the user manual /
notation reference: "1 Musical notation".  Sorry vocal guys: we're
not touching your stuff again for at least a month.

There are two main tasks in GDP: Formatting and Rewriting.  We
will be Rewriting two sections at most.


REWRITING

I will post a Draft Rewrite message when we begin examining a
section.  Please discuss the changes there.  After about a week,
we will start rewriting the section, then we'll post a second
draft.  Again, please read the section and comment on anything
else that should be changed.

Translators: please, PLEASE, take part in this.  If there's
anything you don't understand in a section, comment during the
Draft Rewrite time.  It is _much_ easier to rewrite the
documentation while we're actually rewriting it.  If you ask
questions about a doc section three months after we've finished
working on it... well, we'll still help you, of course.  But it
would be really nice if you could ask those questions when we're
actually working on each section.


TIMEFRAME

There will be a week for discussion about a section.  Then we'll
have about a week of rewriting, followed by another week of
discussion.  If all goes well, the section will be finished;
otherwise we'll add another week of work and discussion.

It will probably take two months to cover chapter 1.  If we have
enough manpower (sorry ladies, it's a generic term; I'm not being
sexist), we might start chapter 2 earlier.


FORMATTING

These were formally known as "trivial/easy" tasks, but I thought
that term was a bit insulting.  My general rule of thumb is that a
task is Formatting if I could do these jobs on a document about
Chinese History, rewritten in Swahili -- a language I don't
understand, about a subject for which I am totally ignorant.

There are 8 sections in the chapter, so ideally I would like 6
formatting helpers.  I currently have four helpers; most of whom
are interested in Rewriting.  But we need to get these formatting
things done, so I've asked them to work on formatting instead.  If
you're interested in having these people work on rewriting
instead, please volunteer!

Each week, a formatting helper will take one section that we're
not rewriting.  They will make whatever improvements they feel
comfortable doing -- if you think some English is bad, but you
don't really understand it, feel free to leave it alone!  If
you don't have a clue what microtones are, but you see that the
indentation in the lilypond example uses 1 space instead of 2, go
ahead and fix the spaces without touching the actual lilypond
code.


SUMMARY

Currently we are discussing the rewrite for Pitches, and I am seeking
formatting helpers to get the rest of chapter 1 in slightly better
shape.  I'll open up the discussion about the rewrite for Rhythms
as soon as I feel that everything else is working smoothly.

If you are interested in another part of the docs (learning
manual, vocal stuff, scheme, etc), then please wait until we get
to that section.  The more help we get for chapter 1, the sooner
we'll get to other sections.

Cheers,
- Graham