Documentation - Contributing

Contributing to documentation is an excellent way to support Koha, even if you are new to documentation.

We welcome your contribution with planning, writing, editing, reviewing, converting content to reStructuredText, and other tasks.

Whatever your background or experience, we are keen to have your help!

First steps

1. Join the koha-docs mailing list. Please send an email introducing yourself to the list.
2. Join the Koha IRC channel - members of the documentation are often available in the IRC channel.
3. Check out the documentation to do list (especially the EASY section).
4. Create an account on Bugzilla - we use Bugzilla to manage documentation tasks.
5. Attend the monthly documentation meeting in IRC. Meetings are on the community calendar and are normally announced on Twitter and the koha-docs mailing list.
6. Write documentation in any format, make it available online, and send a link to it to the koha-docs mailing list or the Documentation Manager. We will review your files, convert them to reStructuredText format and add them to the official documentation when they are ready.
7. If you are comfortable with Git and reStructuredText, you can contribute documentation directly. See Editing the Koha Manual.
8. Add yourself to the participant list if you have an Koha Wiki account (create a Wiki account if you don't have one).

Volunteer roles

If you interested in contributing, post to the koha-docs mailing list or email the Documentation Manager.

Things you could work on include:

• Writing – Producing the documentation (from scratch, and revising existing content). We're open to receiving content in any formats, such as Word or Open Office, but of course, we'd be delighted if you produced it in reStructuredText (a relatively lightweight markup language, similar to Markdown)!
  • reStructuredText Primer
  • Koha reStructuredText - Tips and tricks

• General review – Comparing the documents with the functions they describe (that is, testing the step-by-step instructions with the matching version of Koha)

• Editorial review – Ensuring the documentation is clear and follows the Koha style guide

• reStructuredText conversion – For existing files that are not already in reStructuredText, and new ones created by people writing in other formats

• Release notes – Add text for release notes to bugs pushed for the next release in Bugzilla, see the draft release notes for items that require summaries

• Wiki curation – Review and update content on the Koha wiki