Get Ready for Writing Day¶

Write the Docs is almost here. As usual, we’ll kick things off with the writing day on Sunday, May 6. Join hundreds of other documentarians at the Crystal Ballroom from 9am to 5pm to write your own docs, join another project, or just hang out. After spending the day writing, stay for the welcome reception starting at 5pm.

Are you working on an open source or community-based project? Submit a pull request to the writing day page to let everybody know they’re welcome to join. Here are some helpful tips for getting others involved:

• Prepare tasks ahead of time. You can use a label on your issue tracker, add tasks to a wiki, or do whatever works for you. Just make sure people can find things to do.
• Remember that this is a one-day writing day. Don’t expect new contributors to rewrite your getting started guide in an afternoon. Look for bite-sized tasks.
• Be upfront about what people have to do ahead of time. Do they need to install your software? Do you use documentation tools they need?
• Think about things people can do without a lot of domain knowledge, and without additional tools. Reviewing language can be a great bite-sized task.
• Similarly, think about ways people can contribute besides writing. The Write the Docs community has more than writers. There are designers, developers, and lots of other people that care about documentation.
• Check out the list of projects to see who needs help.

We look forward to writing with you.