[ckan-discuss] 3. Documentation! (Seb Bacon)

Sun May 22 17:54:08 BST 2011

Hi Seb.
Sorry for the delay in responding to this post, been kinda busy lately.
Hoping that's going to change very soon.
But about the need for people to help with Documentation etc, I'd be glad to
offer my help in any way I could. Whether I could actually help that much
will be up in the air, but I did actually find this offering on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/FRED-FLINESTONE-GRAND-POOBAH-T-SHIRT-xl-/230623651999?pt=US_Mens_Tshirts&hash=item35b23da89f
 and am in earnest in my search to find a true Loyal Order of Water
Buffaloes hat,
to wear during the online meetups...

I used to work for a long time in graphics, so I could probably help
with interfaces etc
once we got the idea down of what was desred for adding to the ckan presence.

Am working on getting a blog going also about the idea of open information,
haven't gotten it up yet, but soon. Will be called "clearisthenewblack.org"
I like the name. Kind of like a "Zeldman meets openness" concept.
(Not that I compare with him in any sense, but J. Zeldman was always
an inspiration
to me in his capturing the early web, pushing for it, training of the
unclean masses, etc.
A lot of people who knew nothing about web got their start reading his
blog, uh, back then,
Web Site.)

But, just my two cents on what should be added or presented to the public etc.
I think the main thing I've gained about metadata or semantic web over
the years,
was stated a long time ago by Stefano Mazzocchi. He used to point out that
one of the main things to consider about semantic web was the importance of
creating systems, google or amazon were his examples, where the user's data was
captured and culled for usage in a social context, so examples
google's capturing of
user searches or amazon's of customer purchases, reviews etc. (And thus the
usefulness of Freebase nowadays).

So to make this short(er), I think  it's an important thing to keep in
mind early on in the
audience you're looking at addressing, is perhaps not the total end
user themself, but
persons who can figure out ways to have the average joe upload or add
their own data in
some format. Blogs and twitter are just two examples of this also.
So that it's not just the piping of data streams downward to
individuals, it's both ways.
The revolution hasn't happened just yet...

Or maybe I'm just not getting the point?
:)
Great week, all.
Dan Smith
Houston

On 17 May 2011 05:39, Seb Bacon <seb.bacon at okfn.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> In an attempt to kickstart the improvement of CKAN documentation,
> Rufus has (perhaps misguidedly) appointed me "Documentation Czar" (I
> prefer Grand Poobah of Description).  I think the idea is that I'm
> hereby given some authority to cajole or annoy people into writing
> some documentation and putting it in the right place, so watch out all
> ;)
>
> Rufus has suggested it leans towards the more enterprisey / business
> decision / non technical end of the spectrum, and I think I agree.
> Our developer-focussed documentation could always be better, but I
> think it's pretty good.
>
> Before I get started, does anyone have any opinions or ideas?  Which
> audiences should we prioritise?  What kind -- pretty pictures, howtos,
> topic guides, white papers, manuals?  Are there specific topics that
> should be tackled first?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Seb