[Mailman-Developers] Documentation for 2.1

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "TO" == Terri Oda <terri at zone12.com> writes:

    TO> I don't mind volunteering to write some up-to-date stuff for
    TO> 2.1.

Fame and fortune awaits you Terri!

A while back, I made a push towards writing the admin documentation,
and the incomplete results can be found in CVS, under
docs/mailman-admin.tex.  That's in LaTeX using Python's mkhowto
template.  I'd like this to be the standard for Mailman's
documentation because it's free, I already have the tool chain to
build it, and I actually know it (as opposed to something like DocBook
;).

You should be able to get all the mkhowto tools by either grabbing the
Python 2.2.2 source distro, or downloading the LaTeX version of the
Python documentation:

    http://www.python.org/doc/current/download.html

I get it by checking out the Python cvs.

My vision is that there be three separate documents, one for users,
one for admins, and one for site admins.  The former would describe
such things as subscribing and unsubscribing, viewing the archives,
editing user options, getting explicit password reminders, choosing
languages and digest modes, etc.  I agree that this is the most
important document to write -- even though I didn't start with it --
because there are many more users in the world than list or site
admins.

The second document would describe everything an admin needs to know
to run their lists, including email commands, approving posts and
subscriptions, etc.  This is the one I've started on.  This is the
second most important document.

The third is for the site admin and should cover such issues as
installation, integration, editing mm_cfg.py, etc.  Lots of this
material should be available in the various READMEs.y

If you want to tackle the user guide, that would be wonderful.
Definitely look at Chris Kolar's existing stuff, although I suspect
lots of updates for 2.1 are necessary.  Start by copying
mailman-admin.tex and whacking out the text you don't need.

Tell me what I can do to help.

-Barry