December Documentation Donation Drive

[Graham Percival]

The Grand Documentation Project has been going for almost four months 
now.  I think that everybody agrees that it's a good thing and the docs 
are much better.  You can see it for yourself here:

http://web.uvic.ca/~gperciva/

As with all volunteer projects, interest waxes and wanes.  People join, 
people leave, and slowly work gets done.  Most people send one update 
each week, others send me five updates in two days and then nothing for 
two weeks, and one person has sent me an update almost every day for the 
past three months.

My role in GDP is strictly managerial.  I give orders, I arbitrate 
discussions, and I provide technical support.  I don't do any of the 
actual work myself[1].  (think of all those Dilbert jokes about bosses)

[1]  ok, if there's a one-word fix, or a simple formatting problem, I'll 
deal with it myself.  But all *real* work is done by other people.


Currently there are three people working on the docs.  Trevor Daniels is 
rewriting the entire Learning Manual by himself.  Eyolf Ostrem (sorry, 
no funny characters from this keyboard :)  is rewriting the entire NR 
chapter 1 by himself (and will later tackle NR 2, 3, etc... by himself). 
 And Ralph Palmer is fixing small formatting issues in both manuals.

My hope was to have all of NR 1 finished by the end of 2007.  That 
obviously isn't going to happen.  My current goal is to have a _first 
draft_ of NR 1 by the end of the year... this might also not happen.


If you want to procrastinate your Christmas shopping (or "holiday 
shopping", for anybody in the Politically-Correct USA), please consider 
helping out with GDP.  Get in touch with me, look at the TODO lists, 
etc.  If you have a preference for a particular job, great!  If you 
really have no preference at all, let me know and I'll simply assign 
something to you -- I'm a bit reluctant to assign a job, since it's 
always nicer to work on something that interests you.  But if you really 
have no preference, I can certainly assign tasks.

I give you this absolute guarantee: I will not demand that you do 
anything you don't want to do.  If you hate some task, just tell me and 
I'll suggest something else for you to work on.  If you're tired of 
volunteering on the docs, just say so and walk away.  You can quit 
whenever you want, no questions asked.  If you were involved in GDP 
before and are considering joining again, the same applies: I thank you 
for all your work, and I would gratefully accept any more volunteer effort.


Of course, the "I don't ask for anything more than you're willing to 
give" rule applies to everybody else, too.  There are huge TODO lists. 
I'm not willing to do anything that's on a TODO list -- as I said, I 
only supervise this project.  ("just supervising" still eats up 10-15 
hours a week.  It's not like I'm slacking off here!)   If nobody offers 
to do a particular task, it will continue to sit on the TODO list.  The 
documentation will continue to have those flaws.


LilyPond is a volunteer project.  The quality of our documentation -- or 
bug reporting system, or website, or really anything -- is directly 
related to the amount of effort people put into it.

Cheers,
- Graham Percival, LilyPond Documentation Editor