Rails Guides aim to improve the Rails documentation and to make the barrier to entry as low as possible. A reasonably experienced developer should be able to use the Guides to come up to speed on Rails quickly. You can track the overall effort at the "Rails Guides Lighthouse":http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/16213-rails-guides/tickets. Our sponsors have contributed prizes for those who write an entire guide, but there are many other ways to contribute.
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h3. How to Contribute?
* We have an open commit policy: anyone is welcome to contribute, but you'll need to ask for commit access.
* Guides are written in Textile, and reside at railties/guides/source in the docrails project.
* All images are in the railties/guides/images directory.
* Sample format : "Active Record Associations":http://github.com/lifo/docrails/blob/3e56a3832415476fdd1cb963980d0ae390ac1ed3/railties/guides/source/association_basics.textile
* Sample output : "Active Record Associations":http://guides.rails.info/association_basics.html
* We need authors, editors, proofreaders, and translators. Adding a single paragraph of quality content to a guide is a good way to get started.
* The easiest way to start is by improving an existing guide:
** Improve the structure to make it more coherent
** Add missing information
** Correct any factual errors
** Fix typos or improve style
** Bring it up to date with the latest Edge Rails
* We're also open to suggestions for entire new guides
** Contact lifo or mikeg1a in IRC or via "email":mailto:MikeG1@larkfarm.com to get your idea approved
** If you're the main author on a significant guide, you're eligible for the prizes
h3. How to Commit
* If you have a small change or typo fix, just ask lifo for commit access and commit it to the project.
* If your change is more significant, post a patch or a message on Lighthouse, and commit after you get a +1 from lifo or mikeg1a.
* If the guide is already marked done, you should get a +1 before pushing your changes.
* Put [#<ticket number>] in your commit message to enable GitHub/Lighthouse integration.
h3. Prizes
For each completed guide, the lead contributor will receive all of the following prizes:
* $200 from Caboose Rails Documentation Project.
* 1 year of GitHub Micro account worth $84.
* 1 year of RPM Basic (Production performance management) for up to 10 hosts worth 12 months x $40 per host x $10 hosts = $4800. And also, savings of $45 per host per month over list price to upgrade to advanced product.
* If you're not sure whether a guide is actively being worked on, stop by IRC and ask.
* If the same guide writer wants to write multiple guides, that's ideally the situation we'd love to be in! However, that guide writer will only receive the cash prize for all the subsequent guides (and not the GitHub or RPM prizes).
* Our review team will have the final say on whether the guide is complete and of good enough quality.
All authors should read and follow the "Rails Guides Conventions":http://wiki.github.com/lifo/docrails/rails-guides-conventions and the "Rails API Documentation Conventions":http://wiki.github.com/lifo/docrails/rails-api-documentation-conventions.
h3. Translations
The translation effort for the Rails Guides is just getting underway. We know about projects to translate the Guides into Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and French. For more details or to get involved see the "Translating Rails Guides":http://wiki.github.com/lifo/docrails/translating-rails-guides page.
"Ruby on Rails: Documentation":http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-docs is the mailing list for all the guides/documentation related discussions.
