gistfile1.txt

Hi, I'm Angie, a Drupal developer playing around with WordPress for fun. :) Here's some feedback on the doc contribution process, in case it's helpful.

My goal was to write a simple "hello world" plugin in WordPress.

First thing I did was search 'wordpress plugins' in Google and came across https://wordpress.org/plugins/about/ (one of the sub-pages listed in the main wordpress.org google listing). This is a few too many steps ahead, when I'm ready to contribute my code back to WordPress.org.

Next I tried https://wordpress.org/plugins/about/faq/, but that's again about contributing back, and assumes I already know about how to write plugins. 

SUGGESTION: Add a link off to the plugin developer docs from one or both of these pages, since tweaking Google's SEO is hard. :)

Next query I tried was "wordpress plugins development". This brought me to http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin. Sweet This looks like the right spot.

SUGGESTION: Implement some kind of "single sign-on" thing for wordpress.org && codex.wordpress.org. For some reason it didn't pick up I was already logged in, and so I assumed I couldn't edit the pages here until I saw the tiny log in link.

*Except*... this is *not* in fact the right spot. :) Where I'm actually supposed to go (I found out a day or two later, after making some edits in this section) is https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/intro/ (I think).

SUGGESTION: In the same way there's a specially-formatted message in the plugin section of the codex pointing you to https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/, maybe point people to the handbooks as well.

In the Codex I didn't actually find what I was looking for, which was just a simple template I could copy/paste/modify with some best practicecs already established. I thought, "Hey, I could totally add that myself," but since that was a big change (as opposex to updating some links/commas here and there), I decided to join IRC and ask what the process was for contributing (I didn't get a response, but that's ok, it's IRC.. my expectations are low :)).

I don't actually remember how I found my way to https://make.wordpress.org/docs/ but I did. That's when I found out that all the cool kids are using Slack. ;)

SUGGESTION: In the topic of #wordpress, note that Slack is the official communication medium, and provide a link on how to set that up.

I asked my same question in #docs in Slack and it was answered almost instantly. It turns out the Codex is being deprecated, things are being moved to the handbooks in approximately this order https://docs.google.com/a/acquia.com/spreadsheets/d/1uXg9F_KFzOIgTERL2OK58sMSyIjwGAHFSv3ww3a35fM/edit#gid=0, and you need some special permissions to be able to edit the handbooks.

SUGGESTION: Add a link in the header of https://make.wordpress.org/docs/ about "How to contribute to docs". In #docs I was linked to https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/developer-resources/handbooks/ but I didn't find my way there. Instead, I went to "Helping out with the handbooks." -> https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/tutorials-and-guides/handbooks/ and then "List of Contributor Handbooks -> Docs" which took me to https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/ and is basically a stub page.

Hope this helps! :)