goodbye, docs team

posts/inside-rust/2020-03-27-goodbye-docs-team.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Goodbye, docs team"
+author: Steve Klabnik
+description: "The docs team is winding down"
+team: the core team <https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/teams/core>
+---
+
+I'll cut right to the chase: the docs team no longer exists.
+
+Back in [August of 2016](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1683), we
+formed a team to work on documenting Rust. Here's the original description
+and motivation:
+
+> The Rust documentation team will be responsible for all of the things
+> listed above. Specifically, they will pertain to these areas of the Rust
+> project:
+> 
+> * The standard library documentation
+> * The book and other long-form docs
+> * Cargo's documentation
+> * The Error Index
+> 
+> Furthermore, the documentation team will be available to help with
+> ecosystem documentation, in a few ways. Firstly, in an advisory capacity:
+> helping people who want better documentation for their crates to understand
+> how to accomplish that goal. Furthermore, monitoring the overall ecosystem
+> documentation, and identifying places where we could contribute and make a
+> large impact for all Rustaceans. If the Rust project itself has wonderful
+> docs, but the ecosystem has terrible docs, then people will still be
+> frustrated with Rust's documentation situation, especially given our
+> anti-batteries-included attitude. To be clear, this does not mean owning the
+> ecosystem docs, but rather working to contribute in more ways than just the
+> Rust project itself.
+> 
+> We will coordinate in the #rust-docs IRC room, and have regular meetings,
+> as the team sees fit. Regular meetings will be important to coordinate
+> broader goals; and participation will be important for team members. We hold
+> meetings weekly.
+
+At the time, all of this was sorely needed. There weren't as many people working
+on Rust, and there wasn't that much documentation.
+
+But documentation is a funny thing. It's really a cross-cutting concern. One
+team of folks writing docs for tons of other teams of folks doesn't really
+*work*, long-term. In the short term, it was an absolutely necessary and good
+strategy. Today, it doesn't make as much sense. Let's look again at those original
+resources:
+
+* The standard library's documentation is pretty much filled out, and when new APIs
+  are added, the libs team writes some initial docs.
+* The book is maintained by Steve and Carol.
+* Cargo's documentation is the responsibility of the Cargo team (and the docs
+  team never really helped here. I always wanted to, but years later, it just
+  hasn't worked out.)
+* The error index describes compiler errors, and so that's the compiler team's
+  job.
+
+We've also added way more stuff:
+
+* Rust by Example
+* The `rustc` book and `rustc` guide
+* The reference
+* The nomicon
+
+The list goes on and on. And all this time, the membership of the team didn't
+really grow; I tried several times to get folks involved, but most people
+just plain don't like writing docs. At this point, the only person really
+writing docs is me, and I haven't had a ton of time lately either. So we
+haven't had a docs team meeting since August of 2018. There also aren't
+really docs RFCs these days. As such, this blog post isn't really announcing
+the end of the docs team as much as it is describing what is already true
+today.
+
+I will still be doing my work on core, and the book. And I plan on submitting
+some more docs PRs in the future.
+
+I would like to thank everyone who's been on the team in the past, and
+everyone who's submitted documentation PRs over the years. A lot of people
+really love Rust's documentation, and that wouldn't have been possible
+without all of you.