https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Software/ProjectHome

[Duncan Lithgow]

2008/8/6 Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com>:
> Hi Duncan,
>
> While browsing I recently came across the above page. While I'm
> pleased to see that there is enthusiasm around for improving the help
> wiki, I'm slightly concerned about a few aspects of it.
>
> The first is that it seems to be setting up as an independent project,
> rather than simply being part of the general Documentation Team's
> drive to improve the help wiki.
It's specifically about Community Ubuntu Documentation on the h.u.c
wiki. So it does have a

> It has a separate irc channel, and
> seems to be intended to have membership.
Membership only in the sense of taking ownership of some aspect of the
Community Documentation, yes.

> That's not a good idea -
> separate projects existing with similar goals for the same website is
> bound to cause confusion, inefficiency and lack of communication.
If they are working on the same thing yes. I will reassess the issue
of overlap. I have already begun incorporating parts of the work into
the WikiGuide page(s). basically you're right in that it should be a
part of the documentation team effort, but I think it can benefit from
a narrower focus on the Community Documentation. personally I hope it
will improve the flow of documentation and improvements between the
wiki and the official docs.

> Can
> you please rewrite the page so that it is clear that it is not an
> independent project
Yes
> and discuss your ideas on the documentation team
> mailing list (cc'ed).
<may offend>Sort of. I don't feel that the documentation team should
take ownership of the Community Documentation. Encouraging activity
and participation and improvements on a wiki is not the same as
coordinating official documentation. A wiki should be allowed to
evolve naturally. Trying to tell people all the time "Don't do it that
way" just kills their interest. I think many pages on the wiki an
examples of great starts that never got further.</may offend>

I'm waiting to hear back from the list admins about why I'm not
getting mail from ubuntu-doc.

> It would probably also be a good idea to make
> the page a specification on wiki.ubuntu.com or at least a subpage of
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WikiTeam rather than an independent
> page on the help wiki, so that users looking for help aren't confused
> by it.
Yes.

> Also, it overlaps in content rather heavily with
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HelpWikiQualityAssurance (especially the stuff
> about page banners). I'm concerned to see that you've gone ahead and
> transferred your own ideas about page headers and other ideas directly
> to the wiki guide at
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WikiGuide/PageHeaders rather than
> discussing them with the documentation team first. Had you done so, I
> would have certainly encouraged you to contribute to the discussion
> around HelpWikiQualityAssurance and to help implement that
> specification.
See my comments about the nature of a wiki. <may offend>Too much talk,
was time to do something and I had a week spare. The age of that
discussion should itself be an indication of the success of such
prolonged ruminating about ideal solutions. A wiki is hard to break
and quickly repaired. The vast majority of pages have so few
relationships with each other that any structure is an improvement in
my opinion.</may offend>

By the way. I now agree with you about keeping a flat structure for
(almost all) pages.

> The WikiGuide page is for implemented and approved
> ideas, not ideas which are still in the process of being developed and
> discussed. For that reason, I've removed the links on the WikiGuide
> page until the ideas can be properly discussed and finalised.
I will then reinstate that link, a wiki is an evolving website, not
one bound by deadlines and procedures. The type of website suited to
'implementation of approved ideas' which have been 'properly discussed
and finalised' is the online version of the Official Documentation.
And those pages are very good at what they are there for: a
structured, formal documentation site. A wiki is an evolving loose
structure of user content, not a "did you get permission to do that!",
"not like that!", "check your punctuation before you click save!" kind
of place.

> I'm pleased to see you (and others) coming in with ideas for improving
> the help wiki, it certainly needs those ideas and people willing to
> contribute, but we need to make sure that contribution is channelled
> in the right way and doesn't overlap with existing projects. I'll be
> happy to work with you to make sure that is the case, and look forward
> to hearing your thoughts.
Hmm, I don't know. All the wrong alarms go off for me when I read "we
need to make sure that contribution is channeled in the right way"
without an explanation of who defines what's right. I'm kinda tired of
trying to explain what needs doing when there's almost no-one actually
willing to implement any of it. Sometimes a bit of action is good to
shake things into life. And really we agree on so much can't just get
on with it? Can't we share a bit of trust instead of pulling out the
rule books?

I look forward to starting to receive list emails when I've sorted
that little email problem out. For now I'm going to keep cleaning up
the bits I've started and better integrating what I've written with
existing content.

Hopefully that reply gives an idea of what I'm about. I'm actually
very cooperative (it might not sound like it in this email), but only
when I'm working together with someone, not just because they have an
untested opinion.

Duncan