Week Three
Community and documentation
Friday, May 29, 2020 12:30 ET / 16:30 UTC | 30 min
Description
In this session, learn why docs matter and how you can contribute. Good documentation is basically invisible. You have a question, you find an answer, and then you immediately forget the entire process. Bad documentation, though, is memorable. Documentation, at its best, should answer user questions before they are asked. The docs can set the context and help shape how software is understood and used. Docs should reflect common (and uncommon!) use cases. When questions are not answered, or answered poorly, the community reacts. This can be anything from silently seething to writing your own competing documentation to answer questions. There should be one source of truth. Competing sources cause confusion and are extra effort. The great thing about open source is that our docs are your docs. If something is wrong or missing, file an issue. If you see something that can be improved, file a PR and fix it. The team appreciates any help you are willing to give, and future users with the same question will be grateful.
Diana Payton, Senior Technical Writer, Grafana Labs
Diana Payton has been a technical writer specializing in software documentation for over a decade. Currently the lone tech writer at Grafana Labs, she lives in Oregon on the West Coast of the United States. In her free time, she enjoys martial arts, walking her dog, reading books, and writing fiction.