= Google Season of Docs =
Google are starting a new program for technical writers in 2019 called Google Season of Docs. This is a chance for technical writers to "gain experience in contributing to open source projects, and to give open source projects an opportunity to engage the technical writing community." You can read more about it for yourselves here: https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/
This program runs for approximately 3 months from 2nd September 2019 - 22nd November 2019 and there is additionally the option of a "long-running project" which goes on for approximately 5 months, from 2nd September 2019 - 21st February 2020.
2019 Application Form
=== Open source organization information ===
The information in this section enables the program administrators to properly identify your open source organization.
Open source organization's email address
This email address is used for contacting your open source organization about Season of Docs and is published on the Season of Docs website. It is used by the Google program administrators and technical writer participants to contact your organization. You are strongly advised not to use a personal email address as the email address for contacting your open source organization.
Open source project name
Enter the name of the open source project that is participating in the Season of Docs.
Tor Project
==== Link to the open source project ====
Enter the URL of your open source website or repository.
Open source project description
This description is published on the Season of Docs website.
We are the Tor Project, a 501(c)3 US nonprofit. We advance human rights and defend your privacy online through free software and open networks.
The Tor Project is a free-software non-profit project to build an anonymity toolkit used by individuals, companies, governments, and law enforcement around the world. The Tor network has grown since its start in 2002 to several million active users pushing over 60 Gbps of traffic. The Tor Project has a staff of 45 developers, researchers, and advocates, plus several dozen volunteers who help out on a daily basis.
==== Link to your organization’s page about Season of Docs ====
If your organization has a web page or blog post dedicated to Season of Docs, enter the URL here. You can supply this link later too.
https://blog.torproject.org/tor-google-season-docs-2019
Organization administrators
_ You must have at least two organization administrators to manage your organization's participation in Season of Docs. For more information about the organization application phase, see https://goo.gl/TFtVfk. _
==== Primary organization administrator ==== The primary organization administrator is responsible for communicating with Season of Docs program administrators and managing tasks for their organization related to the Season of Docs program.
Primary administrator's full name This name is used in communications between the Season of Docs program administrators and the primary organization administrator. It is not published on the Season of Docs website.
Maria Pilar Guerra Arias
Primary administrator's display name This name is displayed publicly on the Season of Docs website. You are strongly advised not to use your real name as your display name. You may use your GitHub, Twitter, or community handle as your display name. Pili
Primary administrator's email address This email is not displayed on the Season of Docs website. It is used to communicate with you and to share program resources on the website. pili@torproject.org
Are you participating as a mentor in Season of Docs? _ If you are participating as a mentor, you must agree to the terms of the mentor participant agreement at https://goo.gl/Ej3rSZ._ Yes
Alternative organization administrator
The alternative organization administrator is the secondary contact if the primary organization administrator is unavailable. DIRECT THE ALTERNATIVE ADMINISTRATOR TO REGISTER AT https://forms.gle/tsEsiNYB57WG4Ebz6.
Alternative administrator's full name This name is used in communications between the Season of Docs program administrators and the alternative organization administrator. It is not published on the Season of Docs website
Alternative administrator's email address This email is not displayed on the Season of Docs website. It is used to program communications and to share program resources on the website.
Organization's previous experience
This section provides the Season of Docs program administrators with information on your open source organization's previous experience with mentorship and working with documentation or technical writers.
What previous experience has your organization had in documentation or collaborating with technical writers?
If you or any of your mentors have worked with technical writers before, or have developed documentation, mention this in your answer. Describe the documentation that you produced and the ways in which you worked with the technical writer. For example, describe any review processes that you used, or how the technical writer's skills were useful to your project. Explain how this previous experience may help you to work with a technical writer in Season of Docs.
- pili
During my previous job working in technical support at a small start up, a significant part or my role involved writing documentation to explain how the system worked. Although I've never trained as a technical writer myself I like to think that I understand the need to transmit information whilst expecting limited or no prior domain knowledge from the reader.
More specifically at Tor, a number of us have been recently working with a technical writer to document the current state of censorship circumvention at Tor. This has required input and coordination from a number of teams and individuals, communicating over irc and email. We specially valued the way they were able to bring all of the different sets of documentation from different teams into a coherent report. Overall, we're really pleased with how this has worked for us as well as the outcome from this collaboration.
- arma
As the original developer of the Tor software, I did some of everything,
including writing up the design document (as a published paper at Usenix
Security 2004), and writing up specifications to describe how we believe
Tor functions. I've played a role in transparency for Tor over the
decades, documenting everything from Tor's financials to howto's guiding
people on how to volunteer their computers to set up Tor relays to help
grow the Tor network.
Most recently, we worked with Kat Hanna, a technical writer previously
at Rim (Blackberry), to document the "state of things" in the Tor world
in terms of anti-censorship: how people can reach the Tor network
despite government censorship in some countries that aims to stop them
from using Tor.
What previous experience has your organization had mentoring individuals?
If you or any of your mentors have taken part in Google Summer of Code or a similar program that mentors individuals, mention this in your answer. Describe your achievements in that program. Explain how this experience may influence the way you work in Season of Docs.
We have participated in GSoC most years between 2007-2017, mentoring a total of students during this period. Most of our mentors have previously mentored students both inside of the GSoC framework as well as through other programs such as Outreachy as well as our own Summer of Privacy program which we have ran during the years that we were not accepted into GSoC.
We are committed to mentoring new people to help us to contribute to the Tor Project and making them feel welcome in our community. As a result, we've been able to retain a number of these individuals both as full-time Tor employees and core Tor volunteers.
We hope to bring any lessons learned during GSoC to Season of Docs and we are looking forward to improving the way that we are able to engage and collaborate with technical writers through this program.
- arma
I helped get Tor accepted into GSoC back in 2007, and I've been a backup
administrator each year we've participated (2007-2014, 2016, 2017). I
mentored students directly in our early users, and several of those
students have become full-time core Tor employees. Now much of my role
is mentoring core Tor contributors, on how to approach hard research
questions, the institutional memory of "what Tor used to do and why",
and strengthening our connections in the free software world and the
internet freedom world.
I'm especially excited about the opportunity to participate in Season of
Docs, because I'd love to help bring the two worlds of free software
developers and technical writers closer together: there's a big overlap
in ethos and vision and goals for improving both communities, and I
think the Tor community has a key role to play in helping both sides
come together.
In terms of concrete lessons learned from GSoC, as backup administrator I
plan to make sure that we have not just a primary mentor for each writer,
but also we have multiple backup mentors for each, so there's always
somebody nearby to help answer questions and to make sure we can make
the writer feel welcome in our community.
Mentoring capacity
''Your organization must have at least two open source mentors for each technical writing project/technical writer that you plan to accept for this year's Season of Docs. You need the mentors to help during the technical writer exploration and application phases, as well as during doc development. Season of Docs 2019 plans to allocate one or two technical writers per organization. Your request for one or two technical writers won't affect whether we choose your organization, but we need to know how many technical writers your organization wants to mentor so that we can accept the correct number of organizations to fill all the available technical writing slots. ''
_ Mentors who are not also organization administrators must register independently._
_ DIRECT THE MENTORS TO REGISTER AT https://forms.gle/a1x26WQGzURLerv66._
How many technical writers does your organization want to mentor this year?
2
=== Technical writing project ideas ===
''Work with your mentors to create a project ideas list. This list should include one or more documentation projects that you'd like a technical writer to tackle during this year's Season of Docs. You should publish your project ideas on a public web page, in a blog post, or in some other publicly visible document and include a link to the document in this section. '
See the detailed guidelines on creating your project ideas list at https://goo.gl/cF7zRt.
Link to project ideas list
Enter the URL of a publicly accessible list of your organization's project ideas.
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/GoogleSeasonOfDocs2019
Organization Participation Agreement
By clicking on the "Submit" button, you agree to the terms of the program rules at https://goo.gl/Kxih1D and the organization participation agreement at https://goo.gl/STPDs6, shown on the Season of Docs website.
Acceptance of terms
I agree to the Organization Agreement.