Help Wiki Improvements

[Eddie Martinez]

Is there a way to put a simple 'Ubuntu version' box on every wiki and
help page to clearly identify the version name/number that it applies
to? I have to believe that there is and that seems to be fastest way
to do that.

-Eddie Martinez

On Nov 5, 2007 7:44 AM, Jonathan Jesse <jjesse at iserv.net> wrote:
>
>
> > Hi Matthew,
> >
> > On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 12:33 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> >> Hi there,
> >>
> >> Thanks to Alan for starting this discussion. His original email is
> >> below for reference, since I'm adding the docteam mailing list and
> >> Matt Nuzum to cc.
> >
> > I've been following this too and it has highlighted that not only is
> > there confusion between wiki and help but that many are unaware of
> > either.
> >
> >> 1. Relationship with wiki.ubuntu.com. This is still confusing, as
> >> evidenced by the discussion Alan has described at the summit. The
> >> following spec attempts to address this -
> >> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ImproveWebsiteStructure. I'm keen to get more
> >> feedback on the spec and more ideas about how to improve the
> >> situation.
> >
> > Definitely think a name change from wiki to teams would be a good start.
> >
> >> 2. Quality assurance - we need a solid way to demonstrate how reliable
> >> documents in the help wiki are, and what version of Ubuntu they apply
> >> to. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpWikiQualityAssurance for ideas and
> >> initial proposals to address this.
> >
> > We could introduce a template for adding howtos. Such as specifying
> > versions etc.
> >
> >> 3. Relationship between https://help.ubuntu.com and
> >> https://help.ubuntu.com/community. This is also confusing - there is
> >> no obvious way to search between the two and once number 2. above is
> >> implemented, there will be no obvious reason to distinguish between
> >> "official" and "non-official" as above. The wiki contains lots of
> >> perfectly reliable documents. There should be a single wiki with all
> >> of our documentation in it, access control can be used to "lock down"
> >> the system documents, if appropriate. We probably need a separate spec
> >> for this.
> >
> > Going back to point one, why not move the community addresses to wiki
> > and wiki to teams? That way the system documentation can stay seperate
> > and links can be given where necessary to the community docs.
> >
> >> 4. Relationship with the forum. Trying to eliminate duplication of
> >> documentation resources is probably the single activity which I've
> >> spent more time on than anything else since I've participated in
> >> Ubuntu. I've spent countless words on attempting to encourage more
> >> efficient workflows between the forum howto section (and other
> >> documentation websites) and the help wiki. Ideally such initiatives
> >> would work directly on the help wiki, but unfortunately it just
> >> doesn't happen. At the moment we have the following resource for
> >> importing material from the forum to the help wiki, and I suspect that
> >> this is the best we're going to be able to achieve unless someone
> >> tells me otherwise - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/forum. Better
> >> visibility of the documentation team on the forums would probably
> >> help, and I've requested that the documentation team mailing list be
> >> mirrored on the forums in the past, although this has not yet come to
> >> fruition. If Mike can help chase this up, that would be appreciated :)
> >
> > I share your frustration, as soon as I recommend a page of the system
> > help or the community docs someone else pops up saying that either
> > Psychocats site or any of the other howto sites has one that they used.
> > I know they mean well but it does imply an inferiority in out
> > documentation.
> >
> > Our visibility could be improved simply by adding a link in our
> > signatures or perhaps even a team such as already exists for absolute
> > beginners etc.
> >
> > Once we have established processes and layout, community participation
> > could be boosted by holding another wiki weekend. I spoke with Phil
> > about this just after Gutsy's release. If we could advertise it enough
> > and perhaps get some giveaways or such like from canonical we could
> > really promote this. If such an even drew enough people to incorporate
> > their own howtos or invest the time to improve the site then I'd think
> > they'd be more likely to recommend it.
> >
> > Also, as an aside perhaps it is possible for users of the forum to have
> > a system such as the unanswered post team's canned responses linking
> > directly to community pages. Th
> >
> >> 5. Look and feel of the help wiki. This needs love, and I've asked
> >> Matthew to send me the latest theme so that it can be hosted in a bzr
> >> branch and we can encourage contribution to improve the theme of the
> >> wiki. Upgrading the software would also be really helpful in terms of
> >> working on good new features for users and editors, although there are
> >> currently some technical issues with this.
> >
> > Look and feel is an issue, granted but lets concentrate on getting the
> > structure correct first.
> >
> > --
> > Dougie Richardson                         //         dougie at lynxworks.eu
> > ========================================================================
> > "Stop breathing down my neck!"          //             blog.lynxworks.eu
> > "My breathing is merely a simulation!" //              wiki.lynxworks.eu
> > "So is my neck, stop it anyway!"      //            gallery.lynxworks.eu
> >
> >
> > --
> > ubuntu-doc mailing list
> > ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-doc
> >
> >
>
> Matt and Dougie,
>
> A lot of the items on this section are things we talked about both with
> Ubuntu Training Team and also the Ubuntu Server team.  Especially the
> server team who will be focusing on documentation this release cycle.  One
> of the concerns they are trying to work with is how to get "approved" docs
> on the help.ubuntu.com.  The problem they see is that someone writes a
> document and it is on h.u.c and it crashes the server then it will be
> "ubuntu's fault".
>
> I'm curious as how this will work out.
>
> Jonathan
> --
> Jonathan Jesse
>
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-doc mailing list
> ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-doc
>



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