This is a portion of the ongoing reorganization of the Drupal.org handbook.

This section of the new handbook is the first section. It's intended to be approximately one page describing the reasons for giving back to the Drupal community. It should provide a short, general introduction to the Drupal project and the various roles that contributors can assume within the project, with links to the sections of the Drupal.org handbook that follow it. It may end up serving as the landing page for the top-level handbook link.

Comments

add1sun’s picture

add1sun commented

AFAIK, this does not exist already as a handbook page. Remember this is more about why and less about what. This page will point people to sections that describe what they can do and how in all its details.

I think this page should take the place of the existing Hitchhiker's guide (http://drupal.org/node/42941). That page isn't terribly useful, makes a cultural reference that is out of place and may not make sense to some people. Seems like the info in that page can be merged into the Welcome and HowTo enact change pages. So I suggest we move relevant info from the Hitchhiker guide to other pages and then rewrite the page (rather than deleting it) as the new Why get involved page.

Some references to help with writing this page:
http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-slides-contributing (Slides from the Drupalcon presentation)
Contribute landing page (http://drupal.org/contribute)

Some existing pages you may want to refer to from the page:
http://drupal.org/node/36602 (HowTo enact change)

trevortwining’s picture

trevortwining commented
Assigned: Unassigned » trevortwining

I can take a stab at this one!

mike booth’s picture

mike booth commented
Component: Misc » New documentation

Since the big Getting Involved handbook reorganization day may be tomorrow (or today, if you're in Szeged right now) I attacked this one. The Hitchhiker's guide (http://drupal.org/node/42941) has been renamed to "Getting Involved with Drupal" and has undergone a rewrite that can be fairly described as "total". ;)

There are a bunch of keywords on the page -- e.g. the first paragraph -- that could easily be turned into links, but I refrained from linking them yet on the assumption that their targets might change as the Getting Involved handbook is deployed.

Feel free to edit with wild abandon. I certainly did! (Note that the earlier page should be in "Revisions" in case you think I missed something vital in there.)

mike booth’s picture

mike booth commented
Status: Active » Needs review
trevortwining’s picture

trevortwining commented

I think you did a great job there. my text is below (i'm in EST, couldn't get there sooner than you early risers over there). anything you feel we can include that isn't covered by what you wrote?

Getting involved with Drupal

Open source projects are very different from commercial counterparts. We don’t have armies of employees to provide support, documentation or improvements. We acquire those valuable assets through the involvement of the community that forms around us. It’s the community that gathers around the use of open source software that gives any project its strength.

The Drupal community is one of the best.

We succeed because of the thousands of volunteers that participate daily to strengthen and build our capacity. These volunteers bring a deep and diverse experience to the community. With a little bit of well-placed time in the right areas, great leaps forward have been made, and many more are being made each day. Many people think these changes are mostly to the Drupal code base; in fact they include changes to documentation, testing, support materials, answering questions, marketing support and many other areas where time can be spent by people with all ranges of ability and interest.

With each task performed, Drupal becomes that much better, that much more supported, and that much more usable. Each contribution made helps Drupal become a better fit for you. Each contribution you make helps Drupal become a better fit for others in the community.

All it takes is making a small commitment in time to make just one change. If you're ready to do that, you can start here.

||Links, etc.||

mike booth’s picture

mike booth commented

Ah, I'm in EST too, but I was afraid the show might be over by the time I woke up so I got a headstart last night.

I like your writeup as well. There is some good phrasing in there. I'm going to try and merge the two a little bit.

mike booth’s picture

mike booth commented
Status: Needs review » Needs work

Okay, I ended up with most of trevortwining's text on the page, with a few edits. I think it improves the intro quite a bit.

I think it could use another linked phrase or two before I RTBC it.

add1sun’s picture

add1sun commented
Status: Needs work » Reviewed & tested by the community

Looks good to me. We can always continue to tinker, even after the reorg. I'm marking it RTBC. :-)

add1sun’s picture

add1sun commented
Status: Reviewed & tested by the community » Fixed

marking fixed since it is in the book and weighted at the top. Thanks all!

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for two weeks with no activity.