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Kick-off WordPress 6.1 release docs

Thank you for participating in the kick-off meeting for the WordPress 6.1 release documentation team: @milana_cap, @femkreations, @mburridge, @bph (facilitator and notetaker). @webcommsat participated asynchronously and added input from the video. 

The meeting was recorded and is available on YouTube.

Updated August 11: refined the instructions to match the GitHub Tracking issue for Block Editor PRs.

TL;DR: Follow the progress

Links to relevant information.

Next Steps and process for 6.1

Triage Phase

DevNotes and Developer Documentation

End User Documentation

  • Add '[Type] User Documentation' or needs user-doc labels to Trac tickets and Gutenberg PRs and all will be tracked via the 6.1 Project for both (trac + GitHub)
  • GitHub Gutenberg [Type] User Documentation
  • 🙋‍♀️ Add labels to PRs on Gutenberg – Femy
  • 🙋‍♀️ Trac Tickets to be labeled with needs-user-docs: Milana

Tracking

  • Add ‘needs dev note’ / ‘needs dev docs’ tickets to the project – Milana
  • Create issues for pages once the scope of user-facing features tracked with [Type] User Documentation is determined – Femy
  • Track Gutenberg needs dev note via the Tracking issue on GitHub and connect with developers regarding delivery – Birgit
  • Reach out to the Component Maintainers for the “But Wait there is more” tickets – Birgit. Abha, if extra hands needed

Delivery and Collecting the Dev Notes Tasks

After Beta 1, it will be pretty clear which patch and PR will make it into the WordPress 6.1 release. It would help tremendously if dev notes are drafted between Beta 1 and Beta 2 (for 6.1, this will be between September 20 and 27, 2022). This will help the reviewers have more time to give it a fuller review.

Stand-along Post

If a dev note requires a separate post, the process is slightly different between dev notes concerning the Gutenberg project and developers who provided a patch on trac.
The instructions for dev notes on Editor features are listed in the GitHub Tracking Issue for DevNotes

For developers who provided commits via trac also draft the dev note on Make Blog, and once drafted, the developer should add a message to the docs channel, with the public preview link to let the team know it’s ready for review.

For small dev notes for a combined post

If only a small dev note is required, it will be published with other notes in a combined post (Miscellaneous Block Editor, or Miscellaneous Theme, Miscellaneous Caching). The developer assigned will add the dev notes as a comment to the particular PR or the Trac ticket.
Trac tickets also are then labeled with has dev note.
For the GitHub PRs the developer should post a comment on the GitHub tracking issue
The release documentation team will review and collect those for the Miscellaneous blog posts.

Tasks for release documentation team:

  • provide author privileges to developers who write dev notes
  • collect the small notes from the PRs and organize them on Miscellaneous Dev Note posts
  • collect snippets from the Component Maintainers’ responses
  • compile the Field Guide
  • assist in triaging, prioritizing and recruit writers for End User Documentation

How to get involved? 

End User Documentation updates

With new features coming to WordPress, the majority of help is needed in triaging, scoping and executing changes to the end user documentation for the block editor. Femy Praseeth @femkreations, a documentation team project rep and one of the co-leads of the 6.1 release documentation team, is the contact point if you can help with one of the areas listed below.

  • Triaging: join in on labeling user-facing Gutenberg PRs for End-User Documentation
  • Issue Gardening: once all issues are reviewed, create issues in Documentation Issue Tracker repo for End-User Documentation, adding information from the PRs to the description
  • Writing: add and edit identified pages of  End User documentation 
  • Taking screenshots (Training video)

Abha will support Femy in triaging, prioritizing and recruiting writers for End User Documentation.

Write and review 6.1 Dev Notes

In the next few weeks, Abha will co-ordinate additional steps to help those writing dev notes, including information on adding excerpts, a summary paragraph at the top of the post, the core style guide, and avoiding using ‘here’ for links which are difficult for accessibility, etc.

Developers of release features which will be relevant for other developers will write the dev notes or the relevant section to include into a collection of dev notes. If you are assigned a dev note, drafting it on the Make blog between Beta 1 and Beta 2 would be great. Please do not publish the dev note until it has been through its review stages. It will be published by the Release Documentation Team and the GitHub entry updated.

Each dev note requires two people to review, plus final review by the documentation release team. If you like to review other people’s writing, reviewing dev notes could be for you! 

Find out more

As the team is just starting to get all the pieces in place, they might not have all the answers yet.

Please don’t hesitate to comment below or send a message via the Make WordPress Slack #docs channel and ping either @femkreations, @milana_cap or @bph.

Props for reviewing the post: @webcommsat, @milana_cap, @femkreations, @audrasjb

#6-1, #dev-note, #meetings, #summary