Modern technical writing - Andrew Etter 2016
Help others write
Basics
However you decide to write and distribute your documentation, you should do it in a way that encourages others to contribute. The reality of the profession is that even a large team of writers cannot possibly know everything worth knowing about an application, and most companies do not have a large technical writing team. The open-source software movement, mod scene in PC games, and birth of a million obscure wikis have proven that people will happily share their expertise and passion if an easy, hospitable way of doing so exists. Strangers will do it for free, and coworkers will do it even if it isn't in their job descriptions. I've had colleagues argue this point with me, but no, people really will contribute if you just let them.
Even if you only have 500 unique visitors to your site, a 1% contribution rate works out to five extra people helping with the documentation. I'll take that help. You likely have more readers and a higher contribution rate, so don't dismiss this idea as something that only applies to larger projects. It applies to all projects.
Ultimately, the job of a technical writer is to ensure the quality of the documentation. Hopefully you create a lot of it yourself5, but whether you write it or not is largely irrelevant to the end product. Quality is relevant. With quality as the objective, the contribution system should not be so open that people can just insert half-baked additions. A review process must exist.
Admittedly, the easiest way to help strangers contribute is to just create a wiki and be done with it. Wikis have some real appeal, but I don't believe they're the best option in most cases. We'll discuss why later.