So what will we do? (was [Zope] What causes the community to stall so often?

[Jon Edwards]

Thanks to Seb for starting a useful thread (and to Joel for trying valiantly
to keep it on-track! ;-)

A few thoughts, in no particular order -

1. A quick-n-dirty way to improve documentation might be to adopt the FAQ
system from the CMF Dogbowl - http://cmf.zope.org/doc/FAQ/ - after Tres
setup the basics, it took me a couple of hours to add them all, cos
basically they're mostly just links to relevant maillist-archives, how-to's,
and Zopelab entries.

...as many have said, the documentation is usually out there somewhere, no
need to re-invent the wheel. But it's often hard to find when you're not
quite sure what you're looking for.

(Of course, CMF is a much smaller topic than "Zope", but you could split
things into manageable topics and divide the workload)

2. If you've done some research/problem-solving in a particular subject, but
don't have time to do a full How-To, why not just post a list of the useful
links you found on your Member pages? I started doing this with
Windows-related stuff - http://cmf.zope.org/Members/joned/winstuff - updates
welcomed.

(Not trying to blow my own trumpet here, just examples of ways a lazy/busy
person can contribute without writing lots of docs :-)

3. When people answer a mailing-list question with "It's in the archives",
it's much more helpful if you also give a few clues (like "It was posted
last month", "by Joe Bloggs" or "try keywords x and y") - yes, everyone
should "do a Google" before posting questions, but often you're not quite
sure what you're looking for!

4. The ZMI Help pages are wonderful (and, I suspect, very underused). My
only suggestion would be to include more, short, syntax examples to help
dummies like me understand some of the API references more easily.

<tongue-in-cheek>
5. Windows users are not your enemies! ;-)

We're struggling valiantly to introduce the wonders of open-source into the
"belly of the beast" (MS-dominated organisations/markets). We're on the
frontline of the battle to diminish the global dominance of Microsoft - stop
shooting us in the back, and start passing us more ammunition instead!
</tongue-in-cheek>

Huge thanks to ZC for the Windows installer, which makes it a 5 minute job
to setup a new system. But in other areas, Windows-users are made to feel
like "second-class citizens", or gatecrashers at the open-source party!

Hope that's helpful

Cheers, Jon