Spec for Edgy: Community Communication

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Thu, Jun 01, 2006 at 09:58:23PM +0100, john levin wrote:
> Example 1: The demise of Ubuntu Traffic; proliferation of random 
> newsletters.
> Ubuntu Traffic just couldn't keep up with the growing number of posts, 
> or even the number of mailing lists. It was, for a while, the best 
> overview of the ubuntu-world, and did a very good job of it. In its 
> place, there have been a number of newsletters, each covering one small 
> area of Ubuntu. There's been 2 Ubuntu Doc Team newsletters (last issue 
> at the beginning of March); Ubuntu Desktop news (last issue Feb), and 
> just recently, a Kubuntu and Edubuntu newsletter have popped up on 
> ubuntu-news. By combining these resources, something regular could be 
> produced.

The original plan was in fact for a single weekly newsletter; it's just
getting started.

> !!Late breaking news!!
> From a post to ubuntu-docs:
> 
> Jerome Gotangco, Jonathan Riddell and myself [Matt Galvin] have started 
> up a weekly Ubuntu newsletter to consolidate our efforts and create a 
> one-stop article about each weeks events including developments and any 
> other news in and around the Ubuntu community. This is just a heads up 
> to the Doc Team and an invitation to anyone who would like to help out.
> Check it out at:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter
> 
> Great minds etc.

...as you noticed, the doc team is off and running with it.

> The main ubuntu-users is just such heavy traffic, that it's impossible to
> keep up. The same questions get asked over and over (especially: upgrading
> from Breezy to Dapper); sometimes questions don't get answered.  The
> developers list is suffering a bad noise/signal ratio, with bug reports
> being filed there, and telling people to report bugs elsewhere is adding
> to the noise.  There's been a rapid expansion of mailing lists, so that
> important ideas/info/debate can easily be missed.

None of your suggestions seem to be intended to address this.  There are a
lot of Ubuntu users, and they have many questions.  The most common are
quite explicitly answered in documentation already, but many users prefer to
ask than to look up the answer.

The only proven solution that I know of to off-topic posting is moderation,
but we'd need quite a team and infrastructure to do that efficiently enough
for this scale.

> Example 4: The Ubuntu Hardware Database.
> The application menu for this seems to have disappeared with Dapper, and 
> the webpage itself is (still) interim, not giving out any stats and 
> digested information. Great idea, that gets people involved, without 
> drudgery, but really needs some love.
> (Launchpad is buggy and user-unfriendly as well. I get the shakes every 
> time I try to report a bug; I would have filed many more if it wasn't so 
> daunting an experience.)

It was on my todo list for Edgy to start doing something with this data, but
thankfully others beat me to it, namely Dario Rapisardi and Maxim Alt.  They
gave a presentation on it at DebConf 6:

https://debconf6.debconf.org/comas/general/proposals/113

> So I propose:
> 1: Sort the fridge. Open up the fridge mailing list. Get people 
> involved. It doesn't have to be a free-for-all; just a team taking and 
> sifting submissions.

Seems reasonable to me; have you talked with the existing Fridge staff about
it?

> 2: Enhance the automatic feedback from installations. Pop-con, hardware 
> database, automated bug  reports. Display this data: when people can see 
> what they're doing actually gets registered, they take it more seriously.

popularity-contest: http://popcon.ubuntu.com/ (what we will not do is enable
this by default, for privacy and security reasons)

hardware database: see above

automated bug reports: this is a major undertaking, though it is a proposed
project for Edgy

> 3: Revive Ubuntu Traffic / have one ubuntu newsletter. A regular
> weekly bulletin is really important for keeping people up to speed with
> what's going on. Debian can do it, so can we.
> *Note: see above, this is already under way.

Was already in the works well before you posted this. ;-)

> 4: Introduce people to bug reporting, and make it easier and more 
> useful. Whilst the documentation for Ubuntu-the-linux-distro has come on 
> in leaps and bounds, the docs for Ubuntu-the-infrastructure need to be 
> written. Give instruction in how to use launchpad, rosetta etc, and 
> improve those apps.

How and where?  We have documentation for most of this already; how do you
suggest we increase awareness of it?

> 5: Make it easier for people to drop in for a casual cup of tea.
> Not everyone wants or is able to devote hours to Ubuntu. But they are 
> very much involved, simply by using Ubuntu, and do want to help out and 
> see bug #1 squashed.

Sounds great, but how?  We need a concrete approach.

-- 
 - mdz