This page includes writings by Andy Oram about web pages, forums, and other media used by users of technology to educate each other. Major research includes (in reverse chronological order):
Growing participation, growing participants (a slideshow introduction, available in ODF, PowerPoint, and PDF formats)
Foreword to Anne Gentle’s Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation (August 17, 2009)
Programming techniques that can help you write (June 8, 2017)
Educating computer users: the need for community/author collaboration (February 6, 2008)
How to Help Mailing Lists Help Readers (Results of Recent Data Analysis) (July 9, 2007)
Do-It-Yourself Documentation? Research Into the Effectiveness of Mailing Lists (August 19, 2006)
Splitting Books Open: Trends in Traditional and Online Technical Documentation (September 23, 2004)
Methods and Mechanics of Creating Reliable User Documentation (October 1991)
API for Project Educational Tools (last revised January 31, 2009)
Smaller relevant articles include:
Challenges from a book sprint: the great things about ignorance and disorder (March 23, 2009)
Online documentation: what’s missing (January 15, 2007)
The case of GNOME: improving community-generated online documentation (December 6, 2004)
Andy Oram
Editor, O’Reilly Media
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