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Ask HN: Open-source projects that could use documentation help?

• alex_duf 12y ago
  MDN : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ All the new webrtc api need a refresh on their documentation. I'm sure there's other parts that needs to be updated. This is the collaborative bible for web developers, think of it as a wikipedia for the web apis. (edit : I'm saying that in case you or your friend does not know that already) There's also yunohost here : https://yunohost.org https://yunohost.org that would need some documentation.
• fergiwon 12y ago
  If the goal is to gain more experience your friend should look for projects that appeal to them or are in an area they wish to gain experience in. For example, if they want to do code-level work, find a dev library - if they want to do user-level work find that. Also, some of the more established doc projects might be better to learn from than a project that has no docs - like the gnome docs team, etc.
• collyw 12y ago
  Respect for taking on some of the less desirable work in the technical world.
• chadwickthebold 12y ago
  This is an interesting problem, because it's not unique to technical writers. Some suggestions: * Mozilla. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/ , https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/Getting_started https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/Getting_started Shoot them a mail and they can probably connect her with a project to work on. MDN in particular can always use someone to browse through the contributions and correct/improve them. They'll even connect you with a mentor to get you started if you ask! * Open Hatch. http://openhatch.org/search/?q=&contribution_type=documentation http://openhatch.org/search/?q=&contribution_type=documentat... I've tried to use this site in the past, it's a little rough around the edges but if you're looking for single bite-sized tasks you may find them here. Other than that, try browsing Github issue lists and seeing if there's anything that strikes your fancy?
• sciurus 12y ago
  From what I've seen from the Summer of Code and Outreach Program for Women, the GNOME project does a good job of mentoring new volunteers. I think there is a real need for technical writes to improve their various guides. https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/ https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/
• important 12y ago
  You can check out the Apache open source projects , they list the documentation requirement as a JIRA bug. Apache NLP which needs documentation https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?jql=project+%3D+OPENNLP+AND+resolution+%3D+Unresolved+AND+issuetype+%3D+Documentation+ORDER+BY+priority+DESC https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?jql=project+%3D+OPENN... UN Online Volunteering This is on the social contribution side ,may not be your choice , but its good to know. https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/vol/opportunity_search/?typ=8 https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/vol/opportunity_search...
• donniezazen 12y ago
  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join_the_Docs_Project https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join_the_Docs_Project
• tdicola 12y ago
  I'm not affiliated with the project, but I've used openFrameworks (http://www.openframeworks.cc/ http://www.openframeworks.cc/) and really liked the library but found the documentation is pretty lacking. It's basically just an API reference and a few small programming guides. Even as an experienced developer I still found myself stumbling over how basic things worked because the documentation didn't really give any guidance.
• hangonhn 12y ago
  AngularJS can really, really use some help there. https://docs.angularjs.org/guide https://docs.angularjs.org/guide https://docs.angularjs.org/api https://docs.angularjs.org/api
  • malux85 12y ago
    Another vote for this, at first Angular seems to have a lot of documentation, but when you try and use it, you find most of it is out of date, or no longer 'the angular way'
    • ldng 12y ago
      Google could really pay for it. After all they're the copyright holders. A lot of smaller OSS without coporate backing really need better docs.
  • rrrx3 12y ago
    Extremely good call.
  • joshschreuder 12y ago
    The docs are way, way better than a year or so ago, but I agree, they always need improvement. The only thing that may hold back some people is that the documentation is generated from the source with doc comments rather than being in separate files.
• T-A 12y ago
  This has been begging for bids for a while now: https://worklist.net/19870 https://worklist.net/19870
• devonbleak 12y ago
  OpenStack.
• npsimons 12y ago
  Just start reading manual pages; I've come across quite a few grammar errors that could use cleaning up, I just haven't had the time.
• larssorenson 12y ago
  OpenSSL
• currysausage 12y ago
  The manpages for GNU utilities are usually stubs that essentially say: The full documentation for XY is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and XY programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'XY invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. (This is, btw, one of the best reasons to love the BSDs.) This wouldn't exactly be a great training project for a technical writer since the content is essentially there and would need to be transformed into decent manpages. This is, however, an open source project that could use documentation help, and one with unmatched popularity, so this might be interesting for someone else who would like to acquire experience with open source documentation while doing something that lots of sysadmins will appreciate.
  • justincormack 12y ago
    In particular I think the official Posix manpages are available under a free license, which should be the basis for the portable parts, with the Linux parts being extras.
  • pixelbeat 12y ago
    Note newer versions of coreutils will have links in the man pages directly to online manuals through http://www.gnu.org/s/coreutils/ls http://www.gnu.org/s/coreutils/ls etc. BTW the coreutils man pages are a subset of the full manual, and I think that adding more information to man pages can make things harder to find. The thinking at present is that linking directly to a web page for the full manual is what most users would prefer.
• phillipuniverse 12y ago
  BroadleafCommerce at http://www.broadleafcommerce.com/docs http://www.broadleafcommerce.com/docs. Pull requests/changes are at https://github.com/BroadleafCommerce/docs https://github.com/BroadleafCommerce/docs
• chipx86 12y ago
  We're always looking for someone to help improve our documentation over at Review Board (https://www.reviewboard.org/ https://www.reviewboard.org/). As our support for third-party extensions grows, we're especially interested in writing a series of guides to help extension authors, as well as those using our API to do interesting things.
• flexd 12y ago
  While it may not look like it, in my opinion the uwsgi project desperately needs documentation help. http://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ http://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ There is just an endless list of features, and no clear red thread as to what you actually need to get going. It's hard because it just supports everything for some reason.
• marinaz 12y ago
  Your friend might like to check out what documentation projects are available for the next round of the Outreach Program for Women internships. https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/2014/DecemberMarch#Participating_Organizations https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/2014/December...
• js2 12y ago
  The git man pages are a mess. And not easy to fix. But it is a much needed task. One of the challenges is that the pages are constructed from from multiple files as an attempt to factor out the documentation of switches that are common to multiple git commands, but I think this makes a lot of the pages harder to read. I'd rather the man page for git log (say) document just its unique options and then at the end say "git log also accepts any of the rev-list options...see it for details."
• ibisum 12y ago
  MOAI - its a fantastic framework for all kinds of things, but it always needs more documentation: http://getmoai.com/ http://getmoai.com/ I'm willing to help you learn the framework so you can write the docs.
• RKoutnik 12y ago
  A great opportunity here is Bluebird, the JS promises library [0]. The current documentation is nice, but only covers the API itself, with very few use cases. A "getting started" guide is badly needed for newcomers to BB and promises in general. A well-written guide would be a great star on your friend's resume. [0] https://github.com/petkaantonov/bluebird https://github.com/petkaantonov/bluebird
  • inglor 12y ago
    As a docs contributor, we'd love more better documentation and will entertain pull requests improving the documentation.
• shazow 12y ago
  I'll throw urllib3 into the hat: https://github.com/shazow/urllib3 https://github.com/shazow/urllib3 -> https://urllib3.readthedocs.org/ https://urllib3.readthedocs.org/ There are tons of use cases and recipes littered in the Github issues and StackOverflow answers that need to make it into the official docs. Really there should be examples for how to do anything that another http library like Requests documents how to do. That said, I'd suggest your friend starts with a project she has an affinity for. Perhaps she has used it before, or plans to use it in the future.
  • pyre 12y ago
    requests sits atop urllib3.
    • shazow 12y ago
      As the author of urllib3, this fact does not elude me.
• perlgeek 12y ago
  The Perl 6 project is always happy about doc contributions. Currently we have a specification, which is aimed at compiler writers: http://perlcabal.org/syn/ http://perlcabal.org/syn/ and then the beginning of some user-facing documentation: http://doc.perl6.org/ http://doc.perl6.org/ "Translating" specification documentation into user-facing documentation would be very helpful. For questions, feedback and getting started, it's best to reach the community through IRC: http://perl6.org/community/irc http://perl6.org/community/irc
• xvilka 12y ago
  Radare2 project needs good documentation too http://rada.re/y/?p=documentation http://rada.re/y/?p=documentation
• obulpathi 12y ago
  I am working on a project called openstack-poppy For information about poppy: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Poppy https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Poppy https://poppy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ https://poppy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ If you would like to contribute, please let me know.
• stuaxo 12y ago
  Shoebot, a python based creative coding tool could really do with better docs. (Disclaimer, I am the leäd developer for the last few years).... [edit] Come find us at shoebot.net [/edit]
  • akbarnama 12y ago
    Clickable - http://www.shoebot.net http://www.shoebot.net
• skreuzer 12y ago
  Come join the FreeBSD documentation team and help improve what is already considered world class documentation https://www.freebsd.org/docproj/ https://www.freebsd.org/docproj/
  • justincormack 12y ago
    Its far too good to need help. Clearly they want to show a before after comparison...
• aktungmak 12y ago
  nimrod could really use better documentation... I am trying to get into it but unless you want to dig through the stdlib its quite hard to get up and running with a real project... esp GUI based
  • aktungmak 12y ago
    its a shame, because it is a really great language
• baudehlo 12y ago
  The biggest problem with this question is that to write good documentation for a project you need to really understand that project. So I would honestly suggest your friend takes on something open source that he/she knows really well already, and is interested in taking a deep dive into. There's not an open source project on the planet that would turn away better documentation, so it really doesn't matter what you choose. But choose something your friend CAN improve, with knowledge and understanding of how it works.
• lPrentice 12y ago
  Erlang could definitely use help by putting libraries into context and more user-friendly documentation of library functions. The Erlang community has done a great job so far as it goes, but still needs help.
• EmanueleAina 12y ago
  Depending on the type of documentation you want to write GNOME has plenty of options. Join the Documentation Project team and you can choose to work on user manuals, code tutorials, API docs for all the libraries in the stack (also used by EvolveOS, ElementaryOS, Cinnamon, XFCE, MATE) or even on the Human Interface Guidelines: https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/ https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/ https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/Contributing https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/Contributing Documentation is a sore point for the majority of FOSS projects, just pick the one you like most and I'm sure they will be happy to have someone willing to help. :)
• J_Darnley 12y ago
  Every project could use better docs. Everyone, including your friend, should contribute to one they know how to use. If you don't know how to use it how are you going to write docs for it?
• sergiotapia 12y ago
  The select2 library could use some lovin' with actual examples: http://ivaynberg.github.io/select2/ http://ivaynberg.github.io/select2/