A Loco Directory Review

[Daniel Holbach]

Am 19.08.2010 15:27, schrieb YoBoY:
> Today i want to make a review, a point of view on the Loco Directory
> http://loco.ubuntu.com/ . Sorry it's a long post, and my English is not
> easy to read. I presented that like I think a visitor discover the site.
> The narrative part are quoted, my reflections not.

Thanks a lot for this review.


> *What is Loco Team Directory *: "The LoCo Team Directory is a place
> where you can find information regarding LoCo Teams."
> 
> *Case 1:* I'm a beginner, no LP account, i just want to find my Local
> community.
> 
>     Ubuntu on Google.fr > cool i found directly my community
>     ubuntu-fr.org > no link to loco.ubuntu.com
> 
>     OK, let's try Ubuntu on Google.com > I'm on ubuntu.com official site
>     > Join the Community > at the end of the page finally I found the
>     "Local Ubuntu Teams" link to the wiki page.
> 
> 
>  -> We should be able to let community sites link to the loco directory,
> too earlier now, not well translated I think. Perhaps a way to let teams
> make some loco.ubuntu-XX.org direct link, integration, make the
> different LD instance automatically share items...
> 
>  -> Something's wrong, no loco.ubuntu.com link in the official
> ubuntu.com site ?

We don't have loco.ubuntu.com as a useful site for people for very long,
but I agree that it makes sense to get it linked in a lot more places.

Which places can you all think of?


> *Case 2 :* I'm a beginner, no LP account, I heard about loco directory
> and I can found information on loco teams on this site.
> 
>     Ok, I'm on loco.ubuntu.com, great design, I love this big world map.
>     But what's in the bottom ? events ? that seems cool. And English
>     microblog stream ? ho... English... fear... Talking about
>     frightening things, why it's written everywhere "LoCo team"? What's
>     a "LoCo Team" ?
> 
>  -> I think the home page should be a neutral language page. Including a
> twitter (identi.ca ?) streamline here is breaking this neutrality.
> Event's can also break this neutrality but they are just "short titles",
> so it's fine. I think also the events could be at the same level than
> the teams, teams on left, events on right. We have these two elements on
> the menu, so they have the same importance.

What do you mean by "neutral language page"? Make it less geeky? Explain
what LoCos are?

Where do you think the microblog stream should be instead? I like it
very much to see what people are saying about their locoteams, so I
wouldn't really like us to get rid of it. :-)


>  -> Using acronyms in a community is pleasant and funny. Each community
> develop their own type of acronyms. But outside the community, these
> acronyms are the opposite, unpleasant "words" making harder to
> understand what we are talking about.

Can you suggest where we should talk about what LoCo teams are and how
to get involved? Can we file a bug for that and all try to explain it a
bit better?


>     I click on my continent, and can see the list of loco teams on this
>     part of the world. Not funny, who the hell make this list. Some
>     teams start with an ubuntu, some teams have a country name, some
>     others don't have. It's a mess. Ho wait that's not all. What's that
>     "Team without country" at the bottom. They are stateless ? Finding
>     my team in this list is a challenge. I try the search bar. Type my
>     country name. No result.

All Launchpad team owners and admins should go and
 - visit their Launchpad team page and change the display name
   of the team to "Ubuntu <Country/State/City>" (don't change the
   launchpad ID of the team)
 - visit their team page in loco.ubuntu.com and select the country
   they are doing their lion share of good work

Please let's all make and effort to get this right!


> -> We have to standardize these Loco-Team list items, and we have to put
> a small link in front of the continents to send the visitor also on the
> last list where he can perhaps find his loco team in it. My team uses
> ubuntu-fr for is name, a user who don't know the conventional
> ubuntu-XX(iso code) is lost also. But we can't change this name. Not all
> the teams have one state limited activity. It's very complex I know.
> Perhaps organising the list by country name, or placing the teams on
> continent maps.

Placing them on the map or splitting up the map is very hard. I suggest
we try everything else before.


> -> I try several words on the search bar, I don't understand why
> sometime it returns a blank page, and sometimes it returns the entire
> team list page. This search bar can do search by country and team names
> I think, but something is broken.

Can you file a bug or tell us what you searched for and what didn't work?


>     Before going to my Loco Team, lets see the events page. "Ubuntu LoCo
>     Global Events" ? It's local or global ? Ok I see, it's more like
>     type of events. This should be more explicit, it's appear more like
>     the other events. Not easy to make the difference.

I agree. Can somebody file a bug for that and suggest a piece of text to
make it clearer. We can translate that content as well to make it more
obvious.


> -> I think the Global Events should be more highlighted, with a complete
> separated presentation on the page, like a box with the name, a short
> description, the dates with a more natural form like "all the year" "the
> 27th,28th and 29th august 2010", a link "learn more...", and a link
> "show me only these events". These are special type of events, give them
> some eye-candy.

Sounds good to me.


>     It's amazing how many events are listed here. And I can search on
>     country name, city name, team name, month name, but not in my own
>     language. And I can see the past events. This list is even bigger. 
>     But it seems I can't yet filter it.

Searching in your language might be a bit hard to implement. Where do
you see the past events?


> -> Same localisation problem on the search field.
> 
>     Let see what's a global event. Great, all I need to know is here but
>     in English. I can add the hashtag for twitter and identi.ca, and
>     read the stream directly,  it's in English but it's fine, it's a
>     global event, so it's normal. But why the events are listed by
>     country here. I can't see anymore the dates, and the teams
>     organizing them. And why some events appear so many times? Ok, I
>     know, they don't have the same date, but I can't see it.

A bug for adding the dates there makes sense.


> -> Like I wrote before, global events should be treated differently.
> These "type" of events need to have translated content. The list of
> events under a global events should appear like the other list of events
> also. Having too much way to present the same elements is disturbing.
> And only seeing the title is more disturbing when they appear more than
> once without reason.
> 
>     Lets go to the Local Community team page I think it's for me, to
>     know more about this community, what they do, what they offer, who I
>     have to contact, where I can talk with them, where I can follow them
>     on my social networks. Ok I'm on the page, reading it. Location,
>     language, well I already know that. Launchpad page, Launchpad Team
>     Owner, what's that, I keep that for later. Expires date, hum it's
>     some kind of milk bottle ? Provides local support, yes, I don't know
>     what it is but seems great. Launchpad Team Admins, another "strange
>     word" field in relation to the administration. Resources, finally,
>     some interesting information presented with strange icons. And to
>     finish, the more interesting part, Events. Well, having to pass on
>     top of the icons to know what they stand for is boring. I chose the
>     first one, a link to an English wiki, on a page with more
>     informations on it. This team seems great, I click on the "Join this
>     team" link. Crap, this Launchpad thing again. Seems to be an account
>     service, in English. Let do the registration. ok, an email, a
>     validation, a password, ... what the hell, I can't join the team.
>     It's restricted. But I'm on the Launchpad English thing. Overview,
>     Code, Bugs, Blueprints, Translations, Answers. I go back where I
>     came from seems better.

I like the "milk bottle". :-)

It'd be nice to have some kind of mouse-over tooltip or explanation of
what all these items are. That could be translated as well.

Maybe we can have a separate discussion about Launchpad LoCo teams being
restricted teams.

Also having a bit of content about why we use Launchpad and why it might
be confusing, but why it isn't scary would help. Where would we best put
that?


> -> We need to put more information accessible to the team pages, the
> icons are great but not everyone understand what it's a puzzle piece, a
> pen, a world, some text should be added. On some field, some teams need
> to add more than one entry, like in mailing lists, or irc channels. The
> official website of the team should be the first link, not just an icon.
> All the Launchpad stuff is impossible to understand when you don't know
> what it's launchpad and it's appearing 3 times.
> 
> -> The systematic use of Launchpad is a big fail for me. This is not an
> account provider. This is not a localised tool.

I agree that it's hard to understand, but we can't move away from it.
It's what we use for shipit.ubuntu.com, for wiki.ubuntu.com and loads of
other places. Plus we use it for noting down who is member of which
team, who takes care of the team's planning, etc.


> -> The join this team link should only be present when you can
> effectively join a team.
> 
> -> The "Launchpad Team owner" is one of the field I dislike the most.
> Nobody can own a team.

Do you think we should just list them all under "team admins" and make
no distinction between admin and owner?


> -> Provides local support. Lot of teams say Yes. But what is local support ?

It might make sense to be able to add a link explaining where to get
that local support.


>     Looking the event list is great, I can search for an event near me
>     to assist and meet other users. It's cool on the team detail page I
>     can see the city hover the title. Let see all the events. I can't
>     see the city in this list. History, same problem, no city
>     information. Going to an event page to have more informations, I
>     can't go back to the last page with a menu like before, the go back
>     is for the events page, not the team events page where I was before.
>     OK, looking at this page event, like for the team page, no link to
>     social networks, very basic informations. I can go to the venue
>     detail page, to see same basic informations. Same problem, I need to
>     use the prev of my browser to go back, the menu link "back to the
>     venues list" is not where I came from. It's strange, some people are
>     registered to attend to the event.
> 
> 
> -> The informations presented are too basic, and having to go to 2 pages
> to have all the information of an event (the description and the
> location) is not fun. Like dedicated web page / sites, some events have
> hashtags, a social network integration like the one for the global events.

I have no objection on merging venue info into the event page.

What do you suggest in terms of "social network integration"?


> -> The venue page should provide more information, first one the
> accessibility of the venue. Transportation information could be good
> also. These information can appear or not on the event page. And where
> is the address of the venue? (it's a bug)
> 
> -> A reminder to log in, or a link to register to attendance should be
> great on the top of the Attendees list if the visitor is not logged in.

I totally agree. We should always show the link for attending or
commenting on an event, even if folks are not logged in yet.


>     Ok, let see the other menu entries on the top of the window. LoCo
>     Council. Seem to be the people behind the "LoCo"s. Talking about the
>     members of this council, but no list, and no link to know who they
>     are. Next, the classic About, this one talk about the tool, and the
>     guys developing it. And finaly the log in menu. Great he want to use
>     my freshly created account from Launchpad. I'm logged in. I have new
>     entries on the menus. But they are not all working. I can't add an
>     event. But I can now put some comments on an event and register to
>     it. Great.
> 
> 
> -> We have to be more careful to the links we present to the users, a
> registered user can't add events, but he can see the link to do that.
> 
> -> The loco council page need some work.

I agree, it needs work. If somebody can file a bug and provide some
content, we'd appreciate it.


> That's all for today. Some of the reflections are already bug reports /
> whishes reported by others. Thanks you for reading me.

Merci beaucoup pour l'analyse. :-)

Have a great day,
 Daniel