Welcome

Regarding the questions under Get to know each other better:

your experience with Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) communities/ecosystems

• I have made small contributions to a variety of open source projects on GitHub.
• I am the lead developer on a (somewhat niche) open source project on GitHub, as well.

your background/skills:

• I have a bachelor's degree in computer engineering.
• I am passionate about technical writing. Other people find it dry, I find it satisfying to describe a technical topic in a way people can understand.
• I have been working in software development for about six years, doing:
  • Web development
  • Command line application development
  • Maintaining enterprise-level software
  • Large scale data migrations
• I use both Linux and Windows about half-and-half. My work computer is Windows, but all of the servers I interact with on a daily basis are headless Linux (these are RHEL based).
• I use Linux on WSL daily (this is using Ubuntu).
• I have two machines running Fedora Linux at home (one server and one laptop).
• For non-software development tools, my main one is Inkscape, which I use for creating simple custom graphics.
• For programming languages, I use:
  • Python (for all sorts of things, it's my main language)
  • Javascript (for web development)
  • Bash (for server maintenance scripts)
  • PHP (for web development)
  • PowerShell (for Windows-related things)
• Some other tools I use:
  • Ansible
  • Podman and Docker
  • GitLab and GitHub

your experience in communication platforms:

• I have not used mailing lists before
• I have no preferred real-time chat platform, I've used a bunch of them and can use whatever everyone else uses
• I have not helped with moderating or administering forums in the past

how much time are you looking to/are you able to spend on volunteering (approximate hours per week)?

• I am looking to spend about an hour every weekday evening on volunteering and maybe some time on Sundays, too. I'll estimate five hours per week

Hi Dan,
We have ben a bit lax in getting back to you!
I hope you are still interested in Fedora.
You have some great skills. We really need people in Fedora Documentation. Technical writing is so undervalued. People like me (Mat) absolutely rely on people with skills like your to make the Fedora ecosystem usable.
You have a lot of skills - and really could 'hit the ground running'. Is there any area or people in Fedora that we could connect you with? Anything else we can do for you?

Best Regards,
Mat

Hi Mat,

Thanks for reaching out. I am still interested in contributing to Fedora, yes. I got overwhelmed with the sheer amount of things that seem to be going on, and trying to find a niche for myself somewhere seemed like too much to try and figure out. I'm willing to give it another go, though.

I would love to contribute my writing skills to Fedora Documentation, thanks for that suggestion. Could you help point me in the right direction there?

Cheers,
Dan

Cheers Dan!

I have contacted the docs team on Matrix to find someone to give you their offical rundown. You can of course go there yourself if you want and link them to this (pagure) page or introduce yourself. https://matrix.to/#/%23docs%3Afedoraproject.org?via=fedora.im&via=matrix.org&via=fedoraproject.org

I think Peter is in Germany so will come online later - I don't know if he does weekends. So I will have a contact for you by Monday or Tuesday (timezone dependent?)

What timezone are you in? Feel free to PM me on Matrix @theprogram:fedora.im with anything at all - there are no stupid or small questions.

In the meantime, as you have noticed there is a lot of documentation. Some goes back over ten years! Try and find all! the docs sites, and an area of documentation tat you are technically versed in. That will make your introduction to the docs team go smooth.

All the best and talk to you soon.

Hey Dan,
I have some feedback from the docs team

From Justin (Fedora Community Architect): "it will help to understand what kinds of things someone wants to do with Docs. Is it documentation about Fedora Linux itself? Is it helping other contributors with using Antora, our docs tool chain? Or is it UI/UX work around the Docs site theme? There are many different pathways to go, and not all technical writing roads actually lead back to the Docs Team."

From Peter (member of the Docs Board): We have several projects in the works for which any support would be very helpful.
- Smaller UI project: Fixing several bugs in the CSS of the Docs pages and adding some features, e.g. configurable paragraph spacing for lists.
- Slightly larger UI project: Creating a new home page for Quick Docs that replaces the current rigid navigation system .
- Smaller writing project: Improve the quality of Quick Docs by focusing on specific documentation types
- Larger (and more urgent) writing project: Revise and restructure our outdated administrator guide.
I would very much welcome it if we could discuss this in more detail and realize one or the other.

So there we: there are four projects to consider in the Docs team - 2 UI and 2 writing based. I would suggest starting small, with things you already have in your skill set.
This sounds like the "smaller UI project" and/ or "smaller writing project".

Peter is available at pboy:fedora.im or you can send me your email (info put up here may well be public) or as you wish.

Best regards,
Mat

Hi Dan,
How did meeting the docs team go?

Cheers,
Mat