Thanks @MyriamBoure. @NickWeir and @lynne , I would love to hear what you are planning in terms of a UK user guide?
Is there an issue with different countries having different styles/quality user guides?
My thoughts- users will only ever see the user guide material of their country, so maybe it doesn’t matter if each is different and inconsistent. Some may be Wordpress, others discourse. Each instance should strive to have a basic user guide available, but if some are more up to date than others… this is probably inevitable, and not a big problem, so long is it meets basic standards.
Perhaps each time an instance is created they can have an existing guide imbedded in their site. Depending on if they want discourse or Wordpress, they can copy the Aus/French/Norway/Etc guide as a starting point (whichever is closest to what they want). This is a starting point and from here they must then customise it (content and translations). Or they can opt to make their own guide in a totally different place and just refer to existing ones as they build it.
Process for updating user guides if they are not interlinked
I was thinking, that while the ‘notification’ idea is great, if I get a notification that Norway has added a new page, I won’t be able to understand it anyway, so will need to ask you for a description. I think conversations around updates may be unavoidable? If we have independent user guides, we could have a group on the global discourse where all user guide maintainers can track and discuss content changes/additions? For example, at the end of each sprint I’ll add a post describing new features and link to my rephrasing in the aus guide. If in France you add a new page, you can put a description of it in the thread, in English, and a link, so others can also add this content if they wish. If the UK develops a feature, they can describe it here so other instances can add it to their guides. This way it is not centralised, anyone can offer additions. And if one country falls behind, they can always come here to see what they need to update.
The end of the global user guide?
This conversation has got me thinking about whether a global guide is necessary. Currently, an instance may use the global user guide in the very early stages, but my understanding is that as soon as they grow, they will need their own guide, as is currently occurring for Norway and the UK. Am I correct to say that we don’t really need the global user guide? Without it, instances who are just budding can refer to existing, up to date user guides (such as Aus, and soon UK, Norway, French), whichever is more relevant to them, and in a language they know. When they create a new instance, part of the setup will be making a guide.
Currently Australia’s user guide is the global guide. However, we try not to put Australian-specific content in here (although there is definitely some). This is not ideal for Australia, because it limits the Aus-specific content. Therefore, one day, we would like to move that user guide to our instance site (so it’s easier to find), and make it Aus-specific. This would probably be the end of a global user guide, because maintaining both is too much work.