As of today, October 15 2008, everyone with a user account on Drupal.org is able to edit most handbook pages (details are noted below). All users can already create new pages in the handbooks so this is an expansion to editing rights. In the past this has been permitted only for members of the documentation team or site maintainers.

This new permission is currently set to last for a <em>trial period of one month</em>. At the end of the period, on November 15 2008, the documentation team and site maintainers will assess if the trial has been successful and make a decision whether to continue with open edit rights. If the change causes too much spam or vandalism in the handbook, then we will be forced to revoke the open editing. If we are unsure, we may decide to extend the trial period in one month increments until we can firmly make a decision one way or the other.

It should be noted that this has been done in the past and failed. Years ago all users were allowed to edit the handbook and there was more vandalism and spam than could be caught and cleaned up by the community. This is still a concern and not one to be taken lightly. Nevertheless, we hope that this proves to be a big boost to improving the handbooks here on Drupal.org and that the community will rise to the opportunity. The documentation team has been discussing and preparing for this <a href="http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/2008-August/006191.html">since August</a> and, much like the Getting Involved book, this has been a true community initiative.

<h2>Why the change?</h2>
<ul>
<li>Distribute the work: Regular maintenance tasks such as fixing typos don't take alot of time, yet, the documentation team is limited in size.</li>
<li>Make it easier for new users to make contributions: New users can potentially make the best contributions to clarifying and improving documentation, though they may be the least likely to know how to gain access rights for editing.</li>
<li>Lower barriers to participation: While the barrier to joining the documentation team is low, it is a barrier nonetheless. The joining process has led people to conclude (erroneously) that this signifies a time obligation that they don't feel they can "commit" to. This isn't true- there is no obligation to time or amount of work, but it is understandably misleading.</li>
<li>Times have changed: The community has grown and changed since this was last attempted. It could be a great help to our handbooks and we'd like to see if what was a burden in the past can be a useful tool now.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Some notes about handbook pages</h2>
During this trial period, all users will see an "edit" tab under the title of most pages. However, there are some pages for which editing is locked. There are several reasons for locked pages:
<ul>
<li>Pages that have <a href="http://drupal.org/node/205376">images</a> or <a href="http://drupal.org/node/11774">tables</a> in them need an input format with additional HTML in order to display properly. This elevated format is restricted to use by documentation team and site maintainers due to security concerns.</li>
<li>There are some pages that are considered central and particularly important, and we want to make sure to protect them during this period. Most of these pages are listed on the <a href="http://drupal.org/node/319685">Locked pages</a> list.</li>
<li>Regular page content types or forum posts that have been added to the book outline are not editable. These pages may only be edited by site maintainers. The open and documentation team editing rights extend only to "book" content type nodes.</li>
</ul>

If you would like to help with editing pages that require documentation team access, <a href="http://drupal.org/node/23367">feel free to join</a>!