User:Xephyr826/Recruiting Technical Writers

Technical writers focus on answering the question, "What makes good documentation?" Technical writer volunteers can help MediaWiki developers create great documentation and free up time and resources for more development.

Engaging tech writers won't solve all of MediaWiki.orgs documentation needs, but it is an avenue worth exploring. Many technical writers are eager to contribute to open source projects as a way to learn new technologies, increase their skills, and create a professional portfolio.

Recruiting Technical Writers

Engage technical writing groups like http://www.writethedocs.org/ and https://www.stc.org/. These groups have chapters all over the world which put on regular meetings. MediaWiki developers and volunteers can attend these meetings to meet technical writers and recruit writers interested in contributing to MediaWiki. They can also engage these groups online (twitter, slack).

These groups often need meeting locations and speakers. Where possible, the WMF could also host meetings and give presentations.

On-board Technical Writers

The challenges to a new tech writer contributor are the same as for a new developer contributor:

• Unclear what to work on first
• Unclear what the workflow is
• Difficult to get a documentation review

Removing the friction to contributing will encourage many more documentation-focused volunteers. One thing we can do is create documentation to guide new technical writing contributors through their first phabricator task. For example:

• How to become a MediaWiki hacker as a Technical Writer-documentation supporting How to become a MediaWiki hacker containing suggestions and resources especially useful to technical writers.
• How to Work With a Technical Writer-suggestions for current MediaWiki volunteers on how to best work with writers. Why should you have a writer on your project and what can you expect? What kind of tasks are best for technical writers?
• Projects Looking For Writers-curated list of projects particularly interested in working with a writer to improve their documentation.