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Documentation contributions
Thanks for looking into ways to contribute to Mattermost! Updating existing information is a great way to get started contributing, and the writing team is here to help. The hardest part is where to start.
For the documentation available at https://docs.mattermost.com/, we recommend starting anywhere where you've found content in the documentation that's inaccurate, outdated, or could benefit from more detail or context.
If you're reading a page of the documentation and thinking to yourself "that's not how that works!" or "I wish there was more detail on this page", that's a perfect place to begin! Simply select Edit located in the top right corner of any docs page to open the source file in GitHub directly.
Note: There's a different process to follow for the API documentation, so if you're interested in contributing to the content available at https://api.mattermost.com/, please let us know!
Some additional ideas on where to start contributing to Mattermost product docs:
- 1.If you've started using specific Mattermost features, one way you can contribute is to review the docs on a given feature. Are the docs complete? Is anything missing? Would a screenshot or an animated GIF help others learn this feature faster?
- 2.If you've been learning how to install, configure, or integrate with Mattermost -- your experience with installing Mattermost is hugely valuable, especially when it comes to the install documentation. There are many installation topics that could benefit from a review and update.
- 3.If you found it challenging to find specific information from the homepage, through the left-hand sidebar, or by searching, that's also excellent feedback for the internal writing team. If you're having trouble finding something, others will too. Together, we can figure out how make that content easier to find.
- 4.And one final idea: In GitHub, you'll see a number of Docs issues you can contribute to here: https://github.com/mattermost/docs/issues. Any issue marked as Help Wanted and/or Up For Grabs is something the writing team would love to incorporate into the product docs. If there's something in that list that appeals to you, please let me know, and we can discuss the request in more detail together.
We really appreciate the time taken by contributors to help us, and want to help every contributor submit meaningful content that adds value to our documentation. We refer to these types of contributions as valid contributions.
A valid contribution is one that isn't done just for the sake of submitting a PR, but one that:
- Fixes an error (anything from a typo to a grammatical error to incorrect instructions).
- Improves existing content by adding context or use cases.
- Proposes improvements to processes, tech stacks, and workflows.
- Solves a known problem.
- Fills an existing gap.
- Offers a fresh perspective.
- Clarifies, expands, supplements, illustrates, corrects, or updates existing content with imagery, examples, or recommendations based on real-world experience.
- Includes new screenshots, diagrams, workflows
- Addresses an issue or request in the docs repo.
All that said, we don't expect greatness from every contribution! One of the best and easiest ways to get started is with copy-editing. It's extremely helpful, and will provide a stepping stone to get used to our processes.
We also really value ideas that we've never thought of. So, if you're contributing to our documentation with your own ideas (i.e., not based on existing GitHub issues) that's great! Please clearly describe the problem space you're addressing in your PR. This context is important and helps us evaluate incoming PRs effectively.
We're a small but mighty team, and we really look forward to engaging with you. Come join us in the DWG channel and start a conversation.
Last modified 2yr ago