Imagining a development news web site (for end users of ubuntu+1)

[Dylan McCall]

Hello!


One big issue I noticed with the testing community in a development
release of Ubuntu is that misinformation has a habit of spreading. For
example, with Karmic, when the rules changed behind where icons get
displayed, lots of users did not know what was going on. Some either
thought it was a bug or a dumb change (when in fact it was a smart
change :P). Similar situation with the changes to notify-osd. Angry
ranters had to be told individually, almost, what the actual situation
was and to please file bug reports or constructive feedback where
applicable.

Reading the changelogs, GNOME and Ubuntu Planet helps to that end, but
both involve a lot of reading (and in the latter case some additional
technical knowledge + a lot of patience). I think we could improve the
experience for our testers and the quality of our bug reports if they
were immediately aware of particularly important changes as they
happened at the point they became available, from the perspective of
Ubuntu+1. (Not months before they land downstream, not too much
later). As far as I am aware, there is not really a definitive place
to look for that type of information.

So, I think a nice route about that is to create a web site in a news
blog style, linked to from the Ubuntu Start Page for the development
release (during its development until the release candidate) and as a
live bookmark in Firefox's default setup. It should be reasonably low
traffic but provide testers with big things that are changing, that
need feedback or need help.

I was poised to make a blueprint + wiki page for this, but I think it
would be best to ask for feedback first. Please, fire away :)


Dylan McCall