Welcome to the "ubuntu-doc" mailing list

[Matthew East]

On Sat, 2007-03-10 at 10:46 -0700, TMulgrew at stpetes.org wrote:
> Hello ubuntu-doc team :)

Hi and welcome.

> My thoughts are to create a few pages and was wondering how you would like
> me to categorize the pages ? Start a new beginners category ? Use an
> existing one and if so which ?
> 
> I don't know if you would feel it would be constructive if I joined your
> team, but at a minimum I joined your mailing list ;)

Beginners to Ubuntu are our main userbase. As a result, I tend to think
that the focus should be on making all the entry pages to the wiki
suitable for beginners to follow, rather than setting up a separate
category. So when a user lands on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ he
should be able to quickly see the right answer to his question, and can
progressively learn more as he browses the pages.

The problem with creating specific pages for specific users is that it
means that it can make it harder for all users to simply search for the
answer to one specific task, and find the right section of the
documentation.

I personally believe that documentation can be made accessible to all
types of user. It's not easy, but there are some tricks to enable it to
be possible. One is to ensure that the main landing pages are really
easy to follow for all users. The next is to include references to pages
which explain specific concepts which are required in each document. For
example, when explaining how to set up a particular program, frequently
it will be necessary to include links in the guide to other guides which
explain (for example) how to install software, what repositories are,
and so on.

One thing you and your colleagues might be interested in working on is
making the commonly used pages more usable for new users in this way. As
I mentioned on irc, you also might be interested in the attempt to
incorporate information from the forum and UDSF into the documentation
wiki, which is documented here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/forum
and which would really be a great project to try and get going.

In any case, welcome aboard and we look forward to seeing your work on
the documentation wiki! Feel free to ask any more questions here.

> FYI I have had difficulty accessing your wiki pages for editing. I get
> caught in an endless loop at login, stuck on the user profile page just
> after login. I can change/save preferences, but I can not leave that page
> without being logged out ???

This is a bit odd. Try this:

1. Delete any saved passwords in your web browser
2. Clear your cookie
3. Try to log in again and tell your web browser not to save any
passwords

If that works, you can merge all those launchpad usernames (see the link
at https://launchpad.net/people)

HTH

Matt
-- 
http://www.mdke.org
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