Status of doc.ubuntu.com

[Neal McBurnett]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 06:33:35PM +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> > Great.  At the same time, I think it should indicate what version it
> > is on each page ("Draft Hardy Serverguide, dated x y z version 419 or
> > whatever)
> 
> I think that is overkill to be honest. The doc.u.c website always
> shows the latest development version of everything.

Most people who find it from the web won't know that.  This is the
nature of the web.  People find it from other links, word-of-mouth,
books marks, search engines, forum posts, etc.

> > and include links to other versions, e.g.
> >
> >  https://help.ubuntu.com/7.10/server/C/
> 
> The front page of doc.u.c makes it relatively clear where "released"
> docs can be found, I would hope that's enough, combined with the
> header of the website.

I think most people don't look there.

> > At any rate the top google hit is still
> >
> >  http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/serverguide/C/index.html
> 
> We certainly should do something about this, maybe even by excluding
> doc.u.c from google at all... linking to it from the docteam wiki page
> may well be good enough.

The latest version is valuable since it often includes documentation
that is applicable to previous versions, and the updates can be slow.
Not indexing our latest versions would just drive folks to
far-less-well vetted sources like various web forums.

An xml site map could be the best way clarify all this for search
engines.

> > Also, all of those need updates to the copyright dates.
> 
> If you could file a bug about that and indicate what pages you are
> referring to, it will ensure that we don't forget it.

OK: see
 https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu-doc/+bug/192202

Note also that this bug is up there:

 Server Guide draft has higher Google rank than released version

 https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu-doc/+bug/122297

with related comments.

Thanks!

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/