Contributing to documentation is an excellent way to support the TriCats, even if you are a beginner. In fact, beginners have a distinct advantage over the experts, because they can more easily spot the places where documentation is lacking.
A good habit to get into is whenever you seek help from the handbooks and get stuck, take that as your cue to start taking notes. Note down everything you try in order to solve your problem as you go along. Don't do it later because you'll forget the all-important details. Then, once you find the solution, use your notes to make the handbook better. Once you develop the habit, this is an almost effortless way of helping!
Join the documentation team if you would like to do a lot of contributing to the documentation handbooks, particularly editing. This will allow you to easily fix typos when you come across them, or clarify a confusing sentence. The documentation handbooks use the Drupal Book module, which provides easy wiki-like editing functionality using HTML. It also allows the content to be easily organized, and provides a navigation block automatically.
But you don't have to be a member of the documentation team to contribute! The ways listed below are available to everyone after creating an account. Everyone's contributions and suggestions for maintaining and improving the documentation handbooks are welcome and encouraged. Here are the different ways to actually put your improvements into the handbook:
Comment on existing pages. You must be logged in (authenticated user) to do this. The principle limitation is that comments are not rigorously reviewed by the documentation team the way an issue submission is. See the linked page for more on commenting on handbook pages.
E-mail the documentation list. If you have a general comment or proposal on the handbooks, then start with presenting it to the documentation team. Note that if you can suggest specific actions, it would be better to submit an issue.
Submit a forum topic. This might be the best venue for general observations and discussion if input from the entire community is sought. Vetting it through the documentation list first will help better define your discussion. The documentation forum is also a good place to ask the location of a documentation topic. See also Tips for posting to the TriCats forums.
Add handbook pages. Presently, all authenticated users can add new pages. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the Documentation writer's guide and the Style guide.
Edit handbook pages. Editing existing pages that you didn't create requires the documentation maintainer role. For this, join the documentation team. The documentation maintainer role will allow you to edit most handbook pages, including their hierarchical location (the parent).
Delete handbook pages. The site maintainer role is required to delete handbook pages, remove comments (once they have been incorporated into a handbook page), unpublish and publish pages, change page weight (order), and edit certain pages. Only a few members of the documentation team have this responsibility.
