Documentation is missing for users without seeds

[sinaeftekhar]

The document is missing for the case where the user does not want to add seeds, and wants to get the application up and running with minimum requirements. Obviously the user and password mention in documentation won't work in this case, and the user is being left clueless how to proceed. The followings are suggested:

• Clarify what is an organization and why do we need organizations
• Document adding an organization to begin with
• Document what to do after creating an organization
• Document creating an example participatory space (for example, a process)
• Document adding a component to the space (e.g. proposals)

[andreslucena]

@sinaeftekhar sorry for the delay!

I agree that we should improve this on how to continue if you don't want the seeds. A good starting point is this: https://docs.decidim.org/en/admin/system/

[ahukkanen]

@andreslucena I think the main issue here was that it was not clear what is the system panel. When creating a Decidim instance for the first time, the developer can confuse the system panel with Decidim admin panel, as there is no instructions what is an organization and what to do after creating an organization. E.g. where to go after the organization is created?

The current "getting started" guide just instructs to start with the default seeds but we feel this can be extremely confusing experience for new developers because then they have everything at their hand what Decidim provides which can feel overwhelming to begin with. We think a better way to start "fresh" with Decidim is to learn how to setup a participatory process by yourself for a specific purpose, e.g. for PB, for initiatives, for assemblies, etc. (pick one that fits your use case the best)

[sinaeftekhar]

@andreslucena Thanks for the reply. I've added some points to wrap up the issue with couple of steps to be checked later on.

[andreslucena]

Great input, thanks guys! I remember that on my last sprint on this repository, I found about the Documentation System . While learning about that, I realized that:

1. we were mixing How-to guides with References
2. we only had an implementer/installation Tutorial, but we didn't have a full explanation on how to tackle a clean installation (an Admin tutorial).

I have doubts if the Documentation System is 100% applicable to Decidim, but I think there are lots of ideas that we can implement from that. For instance, while writing the docs I differentiate a lot between a Sysadmin/implementer/developer and an Administrator user, and the Documentation System seems to be only applicable to developers.

Maybe we can start with a top level "Tutorial" section so it has more visibilty, put it before the Admin section, and link it after the installation guide? Something like

• Getting started
• Configure
• Tutorial
• Admin
• Contribute
• Develop

[ahukkanen]

I think some of these issues were already addressed at decidim/decidim#9349 which added this page to the documentation:
https://docs.decidim.org/en/install/empty-database.html

This section also has a link to that page:
https://docs.decidim.org/en/install/manual.html#_6_initializing_your_app_for_local_development

@sinaeftekhar Could you update the OP of this issue and check what we still need to add to the docs?