Improve on-boarding efforts for Documentation

Thanks for posting this Amber. As mentioned in some related issues, it seems like these responsibilities would be handled by the DocsWG

https://www.drupal.org/project/content/issues/1414988#comment-12646091

If that’s the case, possibly the first step is to determine who/what is needed to sustain an active DocsWG?
https://www.drupal.org/project/documentation/issues/2968619#comment-1261...

Thoughts?

It's not clear to me what you're hoping to see the DocsWG do with regards to this issue. Do you think the DocsWG should be responsible for taking on the role of on-boarding new contributors? Or to help figure out what the procedure for doing so should be?

Additionally, mentors and sprint leaders often assume that documentation tasks are a good place to refer newcomers or non-technical folk to, but are equally in the dark about where to point people to get started ...

In general, my experience is that this just isn't true. Especially when there isn't a mentor, or organizer, present at the sprint with a predefined list of documentation tasks to work on. I think we point people to the documentation with the idea of, "Oh, it's easy to edit typos, you don't even need to know Drupal". But for the most part the majority of documentation issues are far more complex than that. When I have seen this work well is things like writing the user guide, where a small group of people came up with a battle plan that required a large group of people to swarm and complete. Most issues aren't like that.

I would love to see us figure out way to do a better job of sprinting on documentation. And I think initiatives around a specific goal are the best way to do that. The DocsWG as an entity isn't going to dictate what those initiatives are, or run them. Though there's likely to be overlap as members of the DocsWG are also generally active contributors to the documentation.

Hi everyone,

I'd love it if we could update the content on this page:
https://www.drupal.org/contribute/documentation

With changes to introduction and the "how to contribute" section on this document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/147oXhn2WaElQLjK8-YE-NjxWni8b9K51bx3ChAMJg-4/edit#heading=h.phrwe7es4x3d

^ What this needs to function is an agreement with the Mentor team that they can have someone for docs specifically who will:
- Send people a welcome email
- Point them to the queue & help them find an issue at their level
- Answer any normal mentor-ish questions that they'd get
- Help by reviewing content, or congratulate them on their accomplishment when they're done
- Point them back to a 2nd issue
^ repeat per new contributor

I'm also proposing giving more specific content to the rules of engagement so that mentors/mentees know what they're getting into and putting this on a sub page somewhere -- location tbd.

I will ping mentor team about this to see how it sounds. What is the feedback from you all?

-Shannon

Circling back to the proposed resolution in the issue summary -

A community member should join the Documentation Initiative group who has a desire to coordinate, organize, and communicate on-boarding efforts related to Documentation. Or else, an existing Docs Initiative member should take on leadership of this effort. Ideally, this person would coordinate with @rachel_norfolk (the current D.A. community liaison).

Has there been any further discussion around the merits of this idea? Seems like someone assuming this role could help onboard contributors and act as a liaison between projects and initiatives with overlapping goals and needs. Some of which include the following -

• Documentation Initiative
• Google Season of Docs
• Create 'Contribute' Section

Well, we are beginning work on the getting involved guide at the moment. Is that what you mean?

I 'think' this issue was more about seeing if all docs related projects could be part of the Documentation Initiative where the Documentation Working Group would be the driver?

If Getting Involved guide was considered part of the ongoing initiative, related issues could be tagged appropriately and would show up here -
https://www.drupal.org/project/issues/search?issue_tags=Documentation%20...

Probably would be good to follow up with everybody listed in the "Who are we?" section of https://www.drupal.org/about/strategic-initiatives/documentation to see if consolidating contributors and tasks under one initiative would make sense?

We're now actively working on a new-improved Getting Involved Guide. I think this should be in that section of issues. If not, please feel free to move it back.

Also, adding a link to a guide that was written by svettes about onboarding for the Documentation Initiative.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/147oXhn2WaElQLjK8-YE-NjxWni8b9K51bx3C...

Seems like the issue summary may need an update here...

I think for the moment anyway, I am going to mark this issue as Fixed. The onboarding for Documentation contributing has been substantially improved:

a) https://www.drupal.org/community/contributor-guide/contribution-areas/do... lists a number of tasks and roles for documentation people, and points people to the Slack channel where they can get help contributing. The tasks and roles are also findable from the task, role, and skill browsers in the Contributor Guide.

b) Every documentation page now has a sidebar block suggesting what to do if you find an issue with a docs page. Since we deployed this new block, I have seen an uptick in new people editing pages.

c) We have plans to add more to the documentation contribution area section mentioned in (a). See #3109667: Create/migrate content for Contribution Area: Contribute to Documentation for more information.