A bit of ranting about Ubuntu.com

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Andreas Lloyd wrote:
> Support:
> But, as others have pointed out, "Support" seems to be the
> near-universal category for Documentation, Help, Guides, Manuals,
> HOWTOs, what-have-you. It seems obvious to have Support link directly
> to user help and documentation that is the help.ubuntu.com page -
> which is basically where (I suppose) we want people to look first.
Except that every single example in there is actually some form of
documentation. I really think that people think of support as "something
given to be in real time by someone else" though it could include both
community (free-of-charge) and commercial (for-fee) support. Because of
this, I think we should distinguish between Docs and Support in the
major tabs.

> Services:
> Centralizing the free community help directly through the "Support"
> tab necessitates another main tab called "Services" which contains the
> Canonical, paid support and the Ubuntu Marketplace pages and links.
>
> I don't know if that would make it sound like Ubuntu is selling 
> commercial services, but it will make good sense to visitors who care
> little about who delivers the support services - as long as they're
> available. Of course, there should still be a link to the Services
> section from the Support section front page so as to make it clear to
> people that there is professional support to be had.

I like the idea of a Services tab, because this could include not only
services provided by Canonical but those provided by the whole ecosystem
of companies and communities that work with Ubuntu.
> Participate!:
> Dennis has made some excellent suggestions on how to develop the
> Community page. Still, since Ubuntu is so community-driven, I'm afraid
> that it is simply too big a category for just one tab. Since it is so
> central to Ubuntu to have contributors, it might well be necessary to
> have another tab called "Participate" (or maybe "Contribute!" or "Get
> Involved!") leading directly to the pimping descriptions of the teams
> and other good stuff that Dennis has suggested.
> As far as I can see, most Open Source projects have a category called
> "Developers", but since Ubuntu spans wider than that (and that title
> isn't as intuitive as you'd hope), it would be good to have something
> similar as a tab on the front page.
With nested pages, we currently have the problem that you have to CLICK
on the top-level page ("Participate!") in order to get a sense of the
other pages that are available below it.

How do you guys feel about those drop-down menus that some web sites
have. When you mouseover the top tab, it shows a list of the
sub-sections that are part of that tab.

> Community:
> That would in turn unclutter the Community page to some degree. On
> most webpages, having a category called "Community" signifies a forum
> of some sort - or at least some sort of contact with other users or
> fellow travellers. That means that the Fridge, the forums and
> PlanetUbuntu should be featured prominently there. When visitors click
> on the "Community" link, my guess is they want to see other people.
> Not stuff about governance. At least not at first glance. Of course,
> this may vary between geeks and non-geeks. But it seems to me that
> most geeks have already heard of Ubuntu, and are more forgiving about
> this sort of things than non-geeks are.
Yes, good point. This was how we structured it when we were brand new
and had governance but no Forums :-)


Mark