Replace wiki.ubuntu.com with help.ubuntu.com/commmunity

[Marc Kaplan]

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 2:34 AM, Dougie Richardson
<ddrichardson at btinternet.com> wrote:
> Hi Marc,
>
> Bryce has a valid point, since the wiki is team oriented, any changes to the start page should perhaps be offered to a wider audience than our mailing list and this is something to consider for the future. Not everyone is subscribed to every page, especially when visiting other team's pages.
>
> Could a change like this be mentioned in a banner or such like on the start page?
>
> Regards,
>
> Dougie
>
>  I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it.
>
>
> (George Carlin)

Dougie,

Yes, I do agree that a banner or comment on the actual home page
itself might have been a good idea, and is certainly a good idea for
future modifications

I would like to point out to that I did send out the email listed here:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2008-October/011886.html

And that I sent a notification of this change to the various mailing lists.

Should I have followed up to make sure that the message got through to
the various recipients by checking on their archives?  Yes.

Might the contacting of the teams require me to sign up for every
mailing list if the message gets rejected?  I would ask why should a
team say to contact them by mailing list if only to reject messages
from non-mailing list members without any form of review (but that is
a discussion for another time).

Even if I put the change in bright, big neon colors that were flashing
and said "This page is being considered for change" and I waited a
month, there would still be people who would come out of the woodwork
two/three/four months later saying, "What did you do to the Home
Page?", etc.....

To my knowledge, there is absolutely no way of contacting each and
every member of every team.  No "community-wide" mailing list.  The
closest thing I can think of, which I only recently discovered, and
comes even remotely close, is Planet Ubuntu.  But, even there, it is
not a guarantee that everyone affected would see the communication.

Please keep in mind that most people who are coming to the team wiki
are already members of a Team and are going directly to their own
team's home page.  This Home Page was optimized for new visitors who
have absolutely no idea where they are, or where to go, or stumble
onto wiki.ubuntu.com when they really need help.ubuntu.com.

The Team listings from the Home Page were moved to the page
wiki.ubuntu.com/Teams to streamline the information and centralize
them.  The reactions I have been getting for that page from Team
Leaders has been nothing short of rave reviews.

The release schedule is maintained on its own page, so that was a duplication.

The same is true for the community information regarding the different
councils as the official documentation was moved out of the wiki and
is now maintained on the website.

Is everyone going to be pleased?  Unfortunately not and my getting
defensive about this is not going to that.  Please know that I am open
to listening to comments and criticisms, as well as explore new ideas
and compromises.

Perhaps we need to come up with an SOP for changing the Home Page to
prevent this from reoccurring, and display it prominently on the page
to prevent this in the future.  But, then....who makes that SOP?  How
would a community-wide vote like that take place?  Maybe the Home Page
should be set so that only Administrators and/or Team Leaders can make
the changes to it.  Again, these are good ideas, but who makes the
final determination?  Is this something to be offered up to the
Leadership Council?

I'm open to suggestions.

Marc K.