TechCommNZ Webinar: Documentation patterns and anti-patterns - collated by open source documentarians
Open-source is an amazing social success story. It creates huge technical value which is shared with the world. However , incomplete and outdated documentation is a pervasive problem suffered by most open-source projects.
A bunch of us technical writers have gathered under the banner of The Good Docs Project. We want to tackle these challenges. While our initial focus was on open source software’s documentation, we’ve realized that the same documentation patterns and anti-patterns keep repeating themselves across all sorts of domains.
From our research, we’ve found pockets of awesomeness - spread across presentations, blog posts, forums, applications, and organisational specific practices. But there are holes as well.
In this presentation we’ll cover highlights from what we’ve learned so far and what is left to do. We’ll also touch on the business case for open source and how you might want to apply it to documentation.
Learning outcomes
You will learn:
- Where to find best practices in documentation patterns and anti-patterns.
- How tech writers are starting to re-define best practices in our domain.
- How you personally can help lift the effectiveness of technical projects through documentation and open source.
Date and time
The webinar will be held on Friday 14 August 2020 from 11:00m - 12 noon NZST, (9:00am - 10:00 pm AEST)
Note: If you are unable to join us on the day, don't worry. A recording of the webinar and related information will be available to download from our website within a couple of days.
Costs
The costs for this webinar are:
- TechCommNZ members - $30 plus GST
- TechCommNZ student members - free
- Affiliate members incl ASTC and NZATD - $50 plus GST
- Non-members - $150 plus GST. Sign up as a member and, once approved, you can register at member rates.
Please register through the website so that we can send you details about accessing the webinar session.
About the presenter
Cameron Shorter is a software engineer who has coordinated numerous open source software projects before falling backwards into technical writing. He is now a technical writer at Google.