Hi,
I’m a technical writer looking to build my portfolio in technical documentation. I’ve written technical blogs, how-to guides, and white papers for SaaS brands, but I want to gain experience working on back-end documentation.
I’m familiar with Python, HTML, CSS, C/C++ (to some extent), and SQL. Additionally, I’ve done considerable writing for cloud computing clients, so I have a solid understanding of cloud concepts.
I can work with Markdown, Git, or even Google Docs.
Please let me know if you’re working on an open-source project that could use some documentation. Alternatively, if you know of an existing open-source tool that could benefit from documentation, I’d be happy to contact the developer.
NixOS
😉
User perspective:
If you want something big I’d pitch nixos. As in the core distribution. It’s a documentation nightmare and as a user I had to go over options search and then trying to figure out what they mean more often than I found a comprehensive documentation.
That would be half writing and half coordinating writers though I suspect.
Another great project with mixed quality documentation is openhab. It fits the bill of more backend heavy side and the devs are very open in my experience. I see it actually as superior in its core concepts to the way more popular home assistant in every aspect except documentation!
That said: thanks for putting the effort in! ♥
Thank you. I’ll look into NixOS as we need Linux documentation to welcome more users from Windows.
If that’s your intend than it might be better to pick individual arch wiki pages or improve the entry documentation. Many people refer to there from all distro because of its volume.
A “how to read tech documentation” could add value for this target group.
I will go out on a limb and say FreeCAD and KiCAD specifically in examples. Right now you have to search forum posts and videos to find out how to make something work and it is always an older version completely irrelevant to the current version.
For other things that need note basic general and setup documentation:
Traefik: It is only decodable to experienced people right now. I tried about 15 tutorials a few years ago and SmartHomeBeginner was the only one that actually was able to connect to the internet and didn’t “rest of the fucking owl” it
Authelia could also use some documentation updates specifically around the area of integrations.
Libopencm3 also could use some more complete documentation instead of basic API descriptions, but the project is not very active anymore
Opensuse Aeon and Kalpa could also use some documentation love, especially Kalpa.
FreeCAD looks like a nice project because I’m a mechanical engineer as well. So, I’ll look into it.
It’s also on the cusp of a major upgrade release, so good documentation of the latest version’s features will be in high demand very soon.
I know 2 people have already said it, but NixOS is in very desparate need of documentation. It’s so immensely difficult and at a certain point the learning curve feels more like a vertical line than a curve, so that’s my top pick.
Other than that, I recently tried a project called Bluebuild and its docs are very incomplete (also the project doesn’t work for me but that’s another topic).
In fact, the topics of packaging software and creating (custom) live isos are both very underdocumented in general.
So packaging for deb and rpm is also quite difficult to find good and easy to follow docs and guides for.
Do you mean the user documentation, or code documentation for contributing to the project?
I’m referring to the user documentation.
Another suggestion to help on NixOs. There is quite some demand for what NixOs delivers so any work done should benefit from useful feedback.
if you don’t mind me asking, how did you become a technical writer?
I graduated as a mechanical engineer in 2020, but with corona and other economic factors, the job market wasn’t great.
That said, I was already working as a freelance writer for different brands via Upwork by then — since I had seen the writing on the wall after watching previous year’s graduates.
Fast forward to now, I’ve worked for different SaaS brands, web hosting companies, and manufacturing businesses.
I’ve written knowledge base articles, user guides, technical white papers, and faq articles.
However, I’m still not an expert as my experience with user manuals, software documentation, and so on is bit lacking.
My open source observability project could use some help https://gitlab.com/shiftsystems/shiftmon
Open Funk. I want more kitchen equipment that wont die when i give it a hard task, and i can repair myself if it does. But I don’t know where to begin
Nix
If you are looking to volunteer on a project, I’m currently working on documentation on an open source project. This one is not a paid job and I’m volunteering my own time for this. If you are interested we can discuss further.
It’s a project involving mainly JavaScript and a web based application for the end user.
I can’t post links and other details here, since it will directly doxx my account
Elsewhere in this thread, you mentioned that Immich has great documentation. Are there any other FOSS projects that stand out to you as having great user documentation?
I think that’s true for most the popular FOSS projects as great documentation is an essential ingredient for getting more users.
That said, if I have to name one, I love the docs of Plex Meta Manager (now called Kometa). It has step-by-step guides, reference pages, and even example code to help the users.
Maybe KDE?
Also I find Debian documentations are pretty lackluster.
Blender or GIMP? Idk.
