Empower docs people to host docs sprints

Re-purposing this issue... I think that what we need to do is to empower people who have some experience as docs contributors to host sprints, because I think Ariane and I will burn out if we try to be there for every single possible docs sprint, and yet it seems like a sprint is a really good way to get people into becoming docs contributors.

We can dig up and polish some material on how to lead your own doc sprint (see above), and I think Ariane and I can commit to keeping up a document listing current priorities (which we already have, but it may be a bit out of date).

It seems to me that the skills necessary to host a sprint would be:
- Comfortable with the Docs issue queue (can lead others in issue browsing, posting, and commenting).
- Comfortable with the new Manage Docs page (can lead others in using that to find a page to work on).
- Familiar with our style guidelines.
- Know what our current highest priorities are (Ariane and I can inform -- maybe a week before the sprint the organizer can ping us to make sure they are up to date).

So we should maybe get that into the guide to hosting sprints.

Another thought: when we hear about a camp that might have sprinting time, we can post on the g.d.o page "Any docs contributors going to camp xyz? How about hosting a sprint?".

Thoughts?

In conjunction with this, we also need to decide where we should maintain the page that says "This is what we hope you will work on". In the past, this has been under:
http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/documentation

That page needs to be edited anyway, but maybe it would make sense to have a page under the contribute to docs section, maybe in the how to contrib section?

And by the way, I found we have:
http://drupal.org/node/424194
(a page on how to do docs sprints)

I just added a new "Current Documentation Priorities" page under Contribute to Doc, cribbed from our upcoming front page post. My thought is we can maintain this new page with shorter-term priorities, since it will be easy to find now:
http://drupal.org/node/1005304

Probably the sprint page should link there, once it's put together.

I also took a look at http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/documentation -- which says it's the place for longer-term priorites. That whole section seems to be out of date... information there needs to be edited, removed, etc. and probably the section from our front-page post about longer-term priorites should be included in some way?

So... Summary of To Dos remaining on this issue:

a) Consolidate http://drupal.org/node/424194 and http://drupal.org/node/540308 and http://groups.drupal.org/node/29226 and http://drupal.org/node/388470 and the thoughts in comment #2 above into one definitive guide to hosting a doc sprint, and put it somewhere in the How to Contribute section of contribute/documentatation. Make sure we have a link to this page in the Organizing Events http://drupal.org/node/247945 section too.

b) Edit the http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/documentation section so that it reflects our current longer-term priorites. Remove information about our shorter-term priorities (that page already points people to the short-term priorities page I just created).

OK, I've done some work on (b) from comment #5:
- Moved http://drupal.org/node/515870 (old page on D7 docs needs) as a temporary sub-page of http://drupal.org/node/1005304 (doc priorities). The relevant content on the old page still needs to be merged into the current priorities page.
- Archived/unpublished several pages in the Community Initiatives section that were no longer relevant, and changed titles/edited a few others.
- Edited the http://drupal.org/community-initiatives/documentation page and changed the title so it is clearer what it's about
- Added http://drupal.org/node/1005530, which is cribbed from the front page post, and explains what our current planning/longer-term priorities are.

Still To Do:
- http://drupal.org/node/517208 -- where does this belong? Probably not where it is currently.
- Merge http://drupal.org/node/515870 into http://drupal.org/node/1005304

Also, the original point of this issue:
Consolidate http://drupal.org/node/424194 and http://drupal.org/node/540308 and http://groups.drupal.org/node/29226 and http://drupal.org/node/388470 and the thoughts in comment #2 above into one definitive guide to hosting a doc sprint.

I'm not sure where this page should go right now. It seems like it belongs in the location of 424194 now (organizing events), but we definitely should make links from Contribute to Doc to wherever it lives as well, and even highlight hosting a sprint as a great way to contribute to documentation.

Another thought about what would be good for sprint docs:

a) We could suggest they get newbies up to speed on the docs management view page, and get them going on style or tech reviews. The gdo post for June 2011 describes this process:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/152739

b) We could suggest people check g.d.o for the latest "this month's doc tasks", as those would always be good for sprints.

So...

Still to do from this issue:

a) Find a home for http://drupal.org/node/517208 - I am moving that to its own issue #1188726: Find a home or archive a page

b) Consolidate http://drupal.org/node/424194 and http://drupal.org/node/540308 and http://groups.drupal.org/node/29226 and http://drupal.org/node/388470 and the thoughts in comment #2 above into one definitive guide to hosting a doc sprint. And put it somewhere sensible -- it seems like it belongs in the location of 424194 now (organizing events), but we definitely should make links from Contribute to Doc to wherever it lives as well, and even highlight hosting a sprint as a great way to contribute to documentation.

c) To (b), add other thoughts on doc sprint tasks:
- We could suggest they get newbies up to speed on the docs management view page, and get them going on style or tech reviews. The gdo post for June 2011 describes this process:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/152739
- We could suggest people check g.d.o for the latest "this month's doc tasks", as those would always be good for sprints.

I'm going to take this on today...

OK, I think this is done! There's now a completely rewritten, and hopefully fairly comprehensive and generic guide to hosting doc sprints at:
http://drupal.org/node/424194

I also archived the other pages referenced above, and made sure there were links from the Contribute to Docs section to this page.

I think I'll make a gdo post and a planet blog about this, to help get the word out, and call it good.