XTeam:

I hope you don't mind me giving you a name. :-) Sort of like the "A-Team". I hope it gives you a sense of pride. You are working on one very important software system. Why? Because Xwiki answers certain to needs that no other wiki does. In this respect, it is trully a unique system that has both great capability now and extraordinary promise for the future.

A few noteworthy facts:

• Siebel Systems is using XWiki. Siebel is a worldwide leader in customer relationship management systems.
• More than one team at  IBM leverages XWiki. IBM is a world leader in software, hardware, and business consulting services.
• XWiki has even taken life inside of the corporate offices of UPS, the worlds largest package delivery company.

Give yourselves a big pat on the back! But not too big; I need your help.

I have only recently joined the "XTeam" and my first goal is to fill a task that many do not often enjoy - creating and editing documentation. I do not necessarily enjoy writing documents, but I know that the importance of good documentation is too often overlooked. I believe that good documentation will help the evolution of XWiki more potently than most realize.

I believe that...

• People judge XWiki before even trying it based soley on the quality of the documentation.
• First impressions are critical. If administrators have a poor installation experience (due to poor docs, for example), they will be disenchanted immediately.
• Innovative developers who can bring powerful enhancements to XWiki can bring those improvements faster if we decrease the initial learning curve through solid documentation.
• Open source projects are typically poor in documentation. Thus, we can look at this as a lesson and strive to use this as a point of great differentiation.

My goal over the coming month is to play a strong role in transforming the User Guide and Administrator Guide. To achieve this goal, I pledge to work on documentation a little bit each day. Afterwards, I will probably roll into the usability and user interface focus. Until then, i hope you will accept me as a workhorse for you. Here's how you can help me (and the XWiki evolution):

1. Take a little time out to reflect on some things you have learned about XWiki and document them in the new guide areas.

DEV GUIDE: http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/DevGuide/WebHome
ADMIN GUIDE: http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/AdminGuide/WebHome

2. Feel free to send rough notes, comments, or thoughts to me and I will do the dirty work of cleaning them up and finding an adequate home for them in the guides,

3. Explore the organization of the new guides. Look for empty holes. Ask yourself what you might be able to contribute there and contribute something if you can.

I am sure that before the month is over, we may reorganize the guides more than once just to get them "just right", so expect to see some changes and some movement of documents. Ludovic has already gotten a reorg started; it isn't perfect, but it is better. Progress must be iterative. Expect frequent questions from me here as I struggle to learn and ensure accuracy of the documentation. At a minimum, please remember that source code documentation can be extremely valuable for other XTeam members. Otherwise, just keep up the great work on the software and do what you can to review and improve the accuracy of the new docs that will be going up over the month (as time permits).


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Cody Burleson
cburleso@us.ibm.com