[GRASSLIST:90] How can I help?

First, I just finished my Ph.D. I used GRASS extensively in my work.
The new r.rast.arrows feature in CVS alone was a God-send. Thanks to
all the developers who made it possible to do some pretty advanced GIS
in Linux!

So, now that I've settled into the post-doc life, I've got a few hours
in the evening to spend time giving back to the GRASS community. It
seems to me that one thing GRASS could really use is some better free
documentation. The link to documentation from the main page goes to a
"Help!" message and links to a list that hasn't been used much for
years. The GRASS WIKI might be a good place to do this, but the
organization of the wiki is not clear to me. Who is in charge of
documentation and where can I help?

--
David Finlayson

Hi David,

Congrats on finishing up.

In regards to contributing to the documentation, i htink that the
addition of figures - lots of figures to the standard manual pages
would be a tremendous help. That along with some extra examples.

Thoughts?

Dylan

On 3/14/06, David Finlayson <david.p.finlayson@gmail.com> wrote:

First, I just finished my Ph.D. I used GRASS extensively in my work.
The new r.rast.arrows feature in CVS alone was a God-send. Thanks to
all the developers who made it possible to do some pretty advanced GIS
in Linux!

So, now that I've settled into the post-doc life, I've got a few hours
in the evening to spend time giving back to the GRASS community. It
seems to me that one thing GRASS could really use is some better free
documentation. The link to documentation from the main page goes to a
"Help!" message and links to a list that hasn't been used much for
years. The GRASS WIKI might be a good place to do this, but the
organization of the wiki is not clear to me. Who is in charge of
documentation and where can I help?

--
David Finlayson

Do you know some PHP?
Ceck out my project:
www.freegis-wiki.it
Luca
Thx
Alle 17:21, martedì 14 marzo 2006, hai scritto:

First, I just finished my Ph.D. I used GRASS extensively in my work.
The new r.rast.arrows feature in CVS alone was a God-send. Thanks to
all the developers who made it possible to do some pretty advanced GIS
in Linux!

So, now that I've settled into the post-doc life, I've got a few hours
in the evening to spend time giving back to the GRASS community. It
seems to me that one thing GRASS could really use is some better free
documentation. The link to documentation from the main page goes to a
"Help!" message and links to a list that hasn't been used much for
years. The GRASS WIKI might be a good place to do this, but the
organization of the wiki is not clear to me. Who is in charge of
documentation and where can I help?

--
David Finlayson

--
"E' molto più bello sapere qualcosa di tutto, che tutto di una cosa (Blaise
Pascal)."

GENTOO-GIS Development Team
jabber: casagrande@jabber.linux.it

I agree. Lot's of images are essential. Cartography is visual.

I don't know if I can pull it off by myself. But what I had in mind
was something along the lines of PostgreSQL's documentation:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/index.html

or GMT's:

http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/

(Click the "Docs" link on the side bar)

Postgresql's in particular is nice because it is both a nicely
formatted online source as well as a pdf document that you can
download and print out.

There used to be something like this for grass too. A link to the old
4.0 version is available somewhere on the web site (I found it last
night at home, but can't find it on the web site now...grrr, the wiki
is a bit disorganized!). I was thinking there might be ambiguous
copyright problems with that old document however.

On 3/14/06, Dylan Beaudette <dylan.beaudette@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi David,

Congrats on finishing up.

In regards to contributing to the documentation, i htink that the
addition of figures - lots of figures to the standard manual pages
would be a tremendous help. That along with some extra examples.

Thoughts?

Dylan

On 3/14/06, David Finlayson <david.p.finlayson@gmail.com> wrote:
> First, I just finished my Ph.D. I used GRASS extensively in my work.
> The new r.rast.arrows feature in CVS alone was a God-send. Thanks to
> all the developers who made it possible to do some pretty advanced GIS
> in Linux!
>
> So, now that I've settled into the post-doc life, I've got a few hours
> in the evening to spend time giving back to the GRASS community. It
> seems to me that one thing GRASS could really use is some better free
> documentation. The link to documentation from the main page goes to a
> "Help!" message and links to a list that hasn't been used much for
> years. The GRASS WIKI might be a good place to do this, but the
> organization of the wiki is not clear to me. Who is in charge of
> documentation and where can I help?
>
> --
> David Finlayson
>
>

--
David Finlayson

On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 09:21:54AM -0800, David Finlayson wrote:

First, I just finished my Ph.D. I used GRASS extensively in my work.
The new r.rast.arrows feature in CVS alone was a God-send. Thanks to
all the developers who made it possible to do some pretty advanced GIS
in Linux!

Congratulations!

So, now that I've settled into the post-doc life, I've got a few hours
in the evening to spend time giving back to the GRASS community. It
seems to me that one thing GRASS could really use is some better free
documentation. The link to documentation from the main page goes to a
"Help!" message and links to a list that hasn't been used much for
years. The GRASS WIKI might be a good place to do this, but the
organization of the wiki is not clear to me. Who is in charge of
documentation and where can I help?

Do you mean writing docs? A couple of people, spreaded over the
internet.
Or the web site? Unfortunately almost me, but all developers have
write access to modify the Web site as well (it just rarely
happens).

I am still working on the new grass.itc.it server and thought to
install a content management system on it (maybe Joomla?). Then
"roles" could be defined and power users could easily contribute.
Sounds reasonable?

Markus

On 3/14/06, Markus Neteler <neteler@itc.it> wrote:

> So, now that I've settled into the post-doc life, I've got a few hours
> in the evening to spend time giving back to the GRASS community. It
> seems to me that one thing GRASS could really use is some better free
> documentation. The link to documentation from the main page goes to a
> "Help!" message and links to a list that hasn't been used much for
> years. The GRASS WIKI might be a good place to do this, but the
> organization of the wiki is not clear to me. Who is in charge of
> documentation and where can I help?

Do you mean writing docs? A couple of people, spreaded over the
internet.
Or the web site? Unfortunately almost me, but all developers have
write access to modify the Web site as well (it just rarely
happens).

I don't want to duplicate efforts. If there is already a plan in place
for documentation, how can I pitch in? If there is no plan, how do we
go about getting one in place?

My vision is for something more than just a description of the
buttons. Instead, something that would describe how to do things the
"GRASS way". Probably spread across of few documents:

1) Installation Manual
2) Tutorial
3) A Comprehensive User Guide (1 part text book, 1 part instruction manual)
4) Advanced Geoprocessing (Scripting, Batch Processing, Internet Mapping, etc)
5) Programmers API

I am still working on the new grass.itc.it server and thought to
install a content management system on it (maybe Joomla?). Then
"roles" could be defined and power users could easily contribute.
Sounds reasonable?

Yes, access to the web would be useful for "products" such as a master
volume of documentation. But for development of the document(s) the
Wiki is probably a better place since it has a lower barrier to entry.
Also, users of the documents in early stages will understand from the
format that it is incomplete.

The more difficult thing is getting a system in place that will scale
as the documents grow from a few pages to hundreds of pages. It is
probably also important to settle on a format that can be adapted to
the web or printed manuals from a single source. I know some FOSS
projects have sophisticated solutions to this problem, but I know
nothing about it personally. I don't want the format so hard to learn
that people with a spare hour feel like they cannot contribute.
Documentation is a good way for non-programmers to contribute.

--
David Finlayson