Re: finally: new authors

Hmm, now this is one difficult topic :) > As the documentation license is changed, and the current authors agreed on > adding more contributors to the list of authors / editors, I would like to > ask everybody to think of proposing himself or anybody else to be an author > or editor. For now I think we can make this with voting, and in case of > anybody has objections against someone then we need to go deeper into that > questions. Is this ok? There are a few groups that come to mind: a) People who wrote the original manual in the late 90's and who are no longer active. This is the entire current list, for both authors and editors. Of course this group should remain listed there but whether we separate active and inactive members, not sure. But, "edited by" should all be active, Egon and Stig are not active editors for years now. I believe they should be moved into the inactive original authors list or whatever it's called. Also in the future some of these authors may come out of 'retirement', I can see Torben doing this :) So maybe there should be no separation as it could end up being misleading. b) People who have been consistantly active for at least a year or so. Who both edit the manual and implement changes/additions as PHP progresses. Difficult to define, see below. c) People who make the occasional commit and/or haven't been around very long. This group should not be on the front page, maybe we can have a "helper appendix" or similar? Might not be worth the trouble to maintain and worry about though. This can be its own discussion. d) Translators. Many times translators are listed on their translations front page, do we have a policy on this? e) Technical editors. Those who work on stylesheets, the manual generation, xslt/dsssl, etc. Behind the scenes. f) Editors. I don't think we have any of these except maybe Gabor. Most of us monitor/edit each other. Then again, I may not know what editor means. Is it someone who edits current text or is it like an editor of a newspaper? I assume the latter. > I would like to avoid proposing too much guys myself, as I would probably miss > some important figures, and would be shamed ;) So please don't be shy and > propose who you think deserves to be on the authors / editors list. Well I'm sure we all have similar feelings Gabor so you don't be shy either ;) Okay I feel the same way and will only nominate one person, myself, as part of group (b) above. If anyone disagrees with any nomination just say so, there is nothing personal here. Requesting a phpdoc resume of sorts could be appropriate. Raw numbers of commits, lines changed, and closed bugs, is only a small part of the equation. > I myself would like to propose a new role 'Technical editor' or something like > this, which would fit for me and Hartmut too (in case he agrees) and Jouni > can also be moved there (in case he agrees of course). This role would be for > those who work / worked mainly on the technical staff behind, and not > primarily on the content, which as far as I see is the case for me, Hartmut > and Jouni. I try to avoid this group :) But as for you Goba, you also monitor every commit and mention potential problems. So I guess you are both an editor and technical editor? Regards, Philip