[proposal] Split User Guide (was: The "It's Just a Desktop Distro" Problem)

[Sean Wheller]

On Wednesday 05 January 2005 19:50, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> We discussed exactly this issue during the Marketing BOF at December's
> Ubuntu conference.  The notes are sparse on this particular subject, but
> they can be found here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/UbuntuMarketing
> We identified a couple of concrete things that we could do to try to
> address this misconception:
>
> 1. Rename the 'custom' install to 'server' (Colin has already done this)
>
> 2. Create an Ubuntu "server edition" for Hoary, which (as I recall) would
> essentially default to the server installation, rather than the desktop

In light of the original message posted by Matt (in its full length), I would 
like to resubmit my proposal to split the User Guide into User Guide and 
Admin Guide. 

My reasoning:
-----------------
1. Audience
 There are two audiences:
 a.) User = Desktop
 b.) Admin = Server

 These audiences have different information requirements.

2. Alignment with marketing
 I quote from Matt's message:

    "This sounds like an area where the documentation team could get involved;
this kind of "marketing", I think, boils down to documentation (howtos and
the like) which happen to be targeted at server configuration and operation."

Problems I foresee:
----------------------
1. At present we have one book we need to decide what to split and redress the 
outlines of both books.

2. People have had many changes in the past two weeks. My fault but I think it 
was for the better.

Way forward:
---------------
1. If people agree then I suggest people finish of any User Guide work they 
are currently doing and commit. 

2. In the interim I and anyone who wants to help should hammer out proposed 
outlines for User Guide and Admin Guide taking into consideration the current 
User Guide.

3. We should then invite comment from marketing and devel. This will help us 
better define the outline and hence create better targets for us.

4. We should agree on these outlines and prepare the Admin outline for when 
people have finished their current work.

5. When everyone has finished their current work and done their last commit, 
we will split the content in User Guide that should be in Admin Guide into 
the relevant sections.

6. We should then realign ourselves so that we each know who is going to take 
what. I envision a list of the docs and their outlines with peoples names 
next to those sections people are or will do. Any sections without an owner 
can then be seen as places for new contributors, or current contributors who 
want to take on more or another section, to take ownership.

What do people think?

-- 
Sean Wheller
Technical Author
sean at inwords.co.za
http://www.inwords.co.za
Registered Linux User #375355
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