searching docs

[Matthew East]

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for jumping into this. For reference, a discussion of Dustin's
spec is here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2008-April/010767.html

I posted my own thoughts on it at
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2008-April/010774.html -
I'll try not to repeat myself too much below!

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 6:55 PM, Matthew Nuzum
<matthew.nuzum at canonical.com> wrote:
>  First, do we need more than one search results page:
>   1. A help results page that weights results as listed below - people
>  use this when search for help
>   2. A general results page people use this when searching the other
>  areas of the website

For me this is absolutely essential.

If we are seeking to provide a useful search for users looking for
help, then a number of websites should not be included in the search
results: the development wiki, the brainstorm website, the main
website and bugs.

If we are going to provide a useful search for those interested in
Ubuntu as users or potential contributors, then the main website and
development wiki are the key resources to index, and I think that at
least some (if not all) of the help websites should be excluded.

The two search features could then be plugged in to appropriate
places, depending on which type of results is required. I can't think
of any reason to have a single search.

>  Second, tell me what you think about the weighting:
>
>  Think of the weights as a percentage. 1 is the highest, 0 is the lowest.
>
>  help.ubuntu.com     1

A distinction should be made here between "official" documentation and
community documentation (help.ubuntu.com/community) - the latter
should be weighted slightly lower.

>  forums.ubuntu.com 0.8
>  lists.ubuntu.com   0.8

That works, although I would weight the forum slightly higher, because
its threads will be simpler for the average user to understand via a
web interface.

>  wiki.ubuntu.com   0.6
>  www.ubuntu.com   0.6

Not to be indexed for help - see above.

>  answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/   0.4

Can be indexed with the same weight as mailing lists, I would have thought.

>  packages.ubuntu.com    0.3
>  bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/   0.2
>
>  Site's that aren't listed will be excluded from the search results,
>  can you think of any I've missed?

Upstream help websites such as library.gnome.org should be included here.

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF