[SciPy-user] WTFM!

[Joe Harrington]

        SciPy Documentation Marathon 2008 Status Report

We are now nearing the end of the summer.  We have a ton of great
docstrings, a nice PDF and HTML reference guide, a new package with
pages on general topics like slicing, and a glossary.

We had hoped to have all the numpy docstrings in first-draft form in
time for the pre-fall (1.2) release.  The actual number of pages was
more than double our quick goal-setting assessment, so we won't make
it.  As of this moment, we have:

status                  %     pages

Needs editing 		52	430
Being written / Changed 27	226
Needs review 		18 	152 
Needs review (revised) 	0 	1 
Needs work (reviewed) 	0 	3
Reviewed (needs proof) 	2 	19 
Proofed 		0 	0 
Unimportant 		 	1531

Our current status can always be seen at:
http://sd-2116.dedibox.fr/pydocweb/stats/
Definitions of the categories are also on the wiki, but "being
written" is our first-draft category.

So, we're just shy of halfway there, and since the goal more than
doubled, we can say we have not failed our expectations.

But, we haven't succeeded, either, and we certainly haven't finished.
So, this being a marathon, we're not going to stop!  Please join us if
you haven't already for the...

		      PRE-CONFERENCE DOC BLITZ!

We can, quite realistically, get up to 60% for numpy 1.2.  We've had
several 8% weeks this summer and we've got several weeks to go.
Stefan will merge docstrings into the beta for 1.2 on 5 August, and
will continue merging from the wiki for the release candidates and
final cut.  However, Writing has slowed to a crawl in recent weeks.
Please pitch in to help those who are still writing so we can get to
60% by release 1.2.

Looking further ahead, I hope all the volunteers will continue writing
for the rest of the summer and fall, so that we can put 100% decent
drafts into 1.3, and a 100% reviewed set of docstrings into 1.4.  Then
we can turn our attention to scipy.

Enough stick, here's some carrot:  

This is the design for this year's documentation prize, a T-shirt in
Robert Kern black, designed by Teresa Jeffcott:

http://physics.ucf.edu/~jh/scipyshirt-2008-2.png

We'll hand these out at SciPy '08 to anyone who has written 1000 words
or more (according to the stats page) or who has made an equivalent
contribution in other ways (reviewing, wiki creation, etc.; Stefan and
I will judge).  So far, 11 contributors qualify, but several more
could easily reach that goal in time.  In fact, several of our
volunteer writers have produced 1000 words in one week.  The offer
remains good through the first-draft phase, though you'll need to act
quickly to get your docs into 1.2 and be recognized at the conference!
If you won't be at SciPy '08 or if you qualify later, we'll mail one
to you.

As always, further discussion belongs on the scipy-dev mailing list,
as does your request to be added to the doc wiki editors group, so
head over to the doc wiki main page, established an account there, and
give us a shout!

WTFM,

--jh--