News and announcements

The Return of the Great Documentation Dilemma

Written for Ares by Nighthawk on 2012-01-03

Good evening, everyone.
After months of hard work shaping our once-fledgling manual into a much more useful and complete creation, our Documentation Maintainer, SteelMirage, has decided to step down.

While his shoes will be hard to fill, they will need filled - as such, we're once again looking for a Documentation Maintainer.

So, to get to the point, here's what such a Documentation Maintainer is asked to do:
* Write new manual entries for features as they are added to Ares, using basic outlines provided by the development team.
* Update existing features' manual entries with changes or known long-term bugs as they arise.
* Ensure the manual itself is readable to the everyday modder, and is actually a useful resource.

And, as with any position in life, the job requirements are:
* A good command of English. The manual is written and published in English. Logically, therefore, a good level of competency in the English language is a necessity.
* Basic YR modding knowledge. While this isn't an absolute necessity, you're probably not going to particularly enjoy writing documentation for a modding extension DLL if you have no idea what you're writing for. Additionally, modding knowledge will only help you in being able to write successful manual entries.
* Time. This is not a show-up-twice-a-month job. The very nature of this job requires a frequent time commitment - the manual has to keep pace with the project. DLL revisions can be published very frequently, and the documentation cannot be allowed to fall behind in content.
* The ability to use or start using IRC. The project team's primary method of communication and discussion is via a public IRC channel. This will allow working in real-time, and will be a much more effective way to get any questions ironed out. The job can't be done by email, PM or forum topic. If you've never used IRC before, that's not a problem, we can get you online. But you will need to use it.

tl;dr: You need to be good with English; know your rules from your art from your string files; have the time to spare and be frequently active; and be able to communicate via Internet Relay Chat.

Not only will you be making Ares more accessible to each passing customer, but you will be helping to accelerate the release timescale. As it stands, without a Documentation Maintainer, the manual is updated on-the-fly by the developers and myself. This obviously isn't a very preferable arrangement, as it takes time away from actually developing and running Ares, and if done in a hurry can [and has] result[ed] in incomplete and incorrect articles.

If you think you're up to the task, please register an account here on Launchpad, and contact me via the "Contact This User" function on my Launchpad profile.

Thanks.

Nighthawk.
Project Manager.