more of an observation about the wiki and less of a rant

[Carthik Sharma]

On 2/7/06, Mark Shuttleworth <mark at canonical.com> wrote:
>
> Hey guys, how about a doc-team sprint in London, in March (late-ish)?
> I'll cover costs for the 5 most productive contributors to the doc team
> (that's shooting from the hip, if there's a less divisive approach let
> me know doc-team) and I'll participate myself. I want us to create a doc
> strategy that can handle Dapper AND lay the foundations for the next
> cycle of development.
>
> Should cover (and this is just a first cut, it will grow):
>
>  - the web site
>  - the materials we create for reviewers and testers
>  - the true onboard built-in documentation
>  - ubuntu and kubuntu (and other -buntu's)
>  - wiki
>  - help.ubuntu.com
>  - books that are done and those in the pipeline
>
> In short, the literary scene at ubuntu.com.
>
> I think we have great enthusiasm but we need to get the players round a
> table to get real face time, high bandwidth, visual planning.
>

A virtual "sprint" on a specific IRC channel with discussion
_focussed_ on just defining a strategy for documentation and websites,
including layouts might just be better. Just one won't do - the first
one would at least help the doc team leaders identify users with
useful inputs, following which a group of 7 or less (I believe that a
committee of more than 7 is just asking for a disaster :) ) can define
strategy and write it down for the rest of the team to work towards.
Without a goal, random documentation leads nowhere (I am talking about
the wiki here).

The structure-free nature of the wiki needs to be combatted with a
good strategy, and a good way of organizing existing pages, and
defining new pages that may be needed.

Carthik.
> Mark
>
>
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>


--
Ph.D. Candidate
University of Central Florida
Homepage: http://carthik.net