Ubuntuforums

[Andrew Zajac]

On 5/12/05, Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik at canonical.com> wrote:
> Andrew Zajac wrote:
> 
> >
> >I'm no fan of wikis (really not!)  But I am willing to explore any
> >avenue if this can offer the kind of ressource that can help out users
> >with questions.
> >
> >
> Me too, including a wiki :) Let's just brainstorm a minute on this: How
> could we tie the forum and other websites together better? Would the
> forum community be happy to scrape information out of the forums and
> into a wiki if it was clear that this information was gradually being
> moved to a more accessible format?

That is the sort of thing that the documentation team worry about. 
Forum users only need to be shown where to click to cut and paste
their clever solution to a problem and add it to the pool.  Likewise,
that collection of information can be drawn on to provide the base for
the technical support that the forums offer.  Just like the unofficial
ubuntu starter's guide.

It is really not my place to comment on what software to use to acheive this.

> 
> Are there any technologies that are more suitable for this than a wiki?
There are many contributers on ubuntuforums that are a lot more
quilified to answer that question.
What are the criteria?  If we use the Canonical servers, PHP is not
allowed, correct?
Ubuntuforums is privately owned and run.  One person pays for it out
of his own pocket (UbuntuGeek)  Is this an intersting precedent?

> Could the forum itself be used in some way do bring forward good
> documentation? Can we build a bridge between the two systems in any way?

The number of contributers to the forums is staggering (over 20 000,
with about 200 new users every day)  Moderators steer threads to avoid
inappropriate content as well as help find solutions.  My personal
opinion is that many people can be influenced to contribute to the doc
team by a number of means.
1.  Setting a precedent.  I think there could be a snowball effect
just by getting this started.
2.  Rewarding the behaviour, either by keeping count of how many items
a person has contributed to the documentation pool and having that
displayed, just like the current user profile display post count.
3.  Asking people to scour individual sections and contribute new
ideas to the pool.  Much in the way that moderators can take care of
one or more particular sections, users can be recruited and given an
offical title (Ubuntuforums documentation team, or whatever...)  Users
are already attributed titles such as "vip" to promote forum
ownership.


The only thing stopping the building of the bridge is that there is no
obvious place to put the things we would bring across.

> 
> .henrik
> 
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> ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
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> 

You started a thread on the forums rearding this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=170330#post170330

Like I said, I am a big fan of the documentation team.  It would seem
that there are differeces of opinion regarding the software to use to
build a portal or documentation pool.
I am hopeful that It is not a question of picking sides.  Perhaps the
use of a wiki would not preclude the eventual transition to a
different technology when that is up and running?
I think the forum use is peaking right now.  I think over the next few
months, the number of contributers will drop until the next Ubuntu
release.  I think that waiting just a few weeks for something would be
missing out on the activity that is going on right now.

I am just this guy, you know.  I do not represent the forums any more
than any other forum user.  Perhaps we can continue the discussion on
the above mentioned Ubuntuforums thread so that more forum users can
be involved?

Regards,
Andrew.