> The current "1-add_clones_setup.diff" patch mixes things by including 
> info on applying, committing, and merging a patch under the section on 
> setting things up.

The goal of that section is to provide an overview of all the steps that a committer has to follow, starting from the beginning (getting a clone) till the end (the patch is applied on all the branches and pushed).
The "Clones setup" section is not about "how to set up a clone", but "how do I do these steps depending on the specific setup I'm using" (single or multiple clones).


> For example, an issue can be created for adding to the docs a section on how to set up multiple clones. 

This is not the goal of this issue.
How to create one/multiple clones is already covered in:
 1) http://docs.python.org/devguide/#quick-start (single clone)
 2) http://docs.python.org/devguide/setup.html#checkout (single clone)
 3) http://docs.python.org/devguide/committing.html#using-several-working-copies (multiple clones without share)
 4) http://docs.python.org/devguide/faq.html#i-want-to-keep-a-separate-working-copy-per-development-branch-is-it-possible (multiple clones without share)
 5) http://docs.python.org/devguide/faq.html#how-do-i-avoid-repeated-pulls-and-pushes-between-my-local-repositories (just a link to the share extension)


After all the patches are applied:
 * the quick start and the setup page will still explain the single-clone approach (intended for contributors, but valid also for developers);
 * the committing.rst page will only explain the multiple shared clones approach (for developers) and just link to 2) for the single-clone approach;
 * the faq will still explain the multiple non-shared clones approach in 4) as an alternative, but also suggest the shared version and link to committing.rst;

The reason why (almost) all the patches should be applied together is that once the multiple shared clones approach is explained as the default approach (patch 1), the instructions about the different branches (patch 3), merging between the same major version (patch 4) and between major versions (patch 5) must be updated.  At the same time, the section about using multiple unshared clones is no longer necessary so it has to be removed (patch 6).  Finally there's no reason to mention the share extension in the faq (patch 8).

Patch 2 could indeed committed separately, and patch 7 reflects the separation between single-clone/contributors and multiple-clones/developers by dividing the FAQs in two groups.

After this is done I was planning to update the "developers" FAQs, but this issue is currently blocking that.