There are a few things you have to realize:
- We're a volunteer force and can't operate without support. We
welcome everyone's suggestions and do our best to get them implemented;
but, we have to place people in the roles that make the most sense.
And, let's face it, people use DNN because of its features, not its
documentation - not that I'm saying it's not important. We all know the
importance of documentation, which is why we have all that we have.
- Most, if not all, of us have problems installing DNN - I myself
went thru a number of headaches. At the time, we are most interested in
getting it to work and try so many things, that it's hard to remember
what exact sequence fixed the problem(s). Because of this, nobody has
been able to document the fix(es) without starting from scratch again.
The problem with this is, once people have it setup, nobody wants to
re-figure it out.
- Unless someone has numerous clients with their own servers, it's
very rare (in my experience) that someone will create new installs of
DNN often. For this reason, you typically see the same topics brought
up by beginners. It's almost a growing pain. I'm not saying it's right,
I'm just saying that's how it is. Most of the time, after someone gets
thru these issues, future installs seem to work without all the hassles
because they know the steps and don't skip them as much. This is the
cause of most user problems - missing steps. Experience teaches us how
to get past some of these minor problems.
Bottom line is: If you are so disgusted with the docs, help us fix them! Join the team! Help us out; we could use it.
There are more than 275,000 registered users on the DNN site. I don't
have a good count, but I think there are 45 or so DNN members and even
less
actively involved. Let's just round that to 50 members and
250,000 users - that'd be a ratio of 1 member to every 5,000 users. If
even .1% of the community (~275 people) was actively involved in
improving DNN in various areas, then these types of problems would take
care of themselves.
With all the threads I see about people complaining, there are only 8
issues in Gemini regarding the documentation. If you are truly
dedicated to helping us help you, with respect to documentation, give
us an idea of what we're missing. And, better yet, tell us how you
think we should fix it. If we're missing an important install/upgrade
step, let us know. Submit some updated text for a specific document.
Anything is appreciated.
We all know DNN has a lot of room to grow. The problem is we're a
limited team with limited time to spend on our DNN projects. We all
have other jobs that require our attention. This is where we need our
users to help out. Tell us what's wrong. Tell us how we can fix it.
This will make all of our lives easier. Imagine, if every user
submitted 1 issue report with a fix, we could probably fill a year's
worth of monthly releases with just that. Instead, we have to balance
supporting the community with adding new features and fixing bugs. We
try to fix the most important bugs, but also have to focus a lot on
getting new features out. DNN may be hard to setup for beginners, but
once it's up, it's up. We do need to improve on this, but we need your
help. I'm sure I speak for the rest of the community when I say we would appreciate your help
