not sure if writing a manual is the right way to go Mike. nobody reads a manual their car comes with - why should a person read a manual to shitpost ?
actually my Volvo has an on-screen manual. you can just search it for anything for example i didn't know how to enable windshield wiper rain sensor so i searched the manual and found it. unfortunately the manual can only be used while parked which is extremely frustrating.
my mother's Bernette sewing machine has a smarter solution - it has a high resolution color screen and it shows step by step instructions on what to do WHILE you are doing it. so for example when you go to insert the thread it shows you on the screen how to insert it.
if Gossip should have a manual it should be integrated INTO the Gossip interface like on the Bernette sewing machine. that is clicking on any given part of the interface should pull up a page related specifically to that feature.
nobody is going to read a 50 page PDF and remember everything in it just to be able to post.
nor are you going to update it every time you change something in the client.
ideally you should just have things work intuitively, but you software engineer guys are incredibly bad at this.
maybe test the clients on normal people i am sure you will discover they all stumble in the same spots and then simply redesign those parts until they don't stumble there anymore.
Temple Grandin famously redesigned facilities for cattle such that instead of cattle constantly needing to be beaten to go where it is supposed to go the cattle went there voluntarily - reducing injuries by order of magnitude.
Temple did this by thinking inside the minds of cows, which made her ( an autistic ) genius. but believe it or not Mike you can actually speak to humans using language - you don't need to read their minds - you can literally ask them things. Like you can ask " why you did this and not that ? " and so on ...
