Collaboration between the Ubuntu Manual and Docs Team

[Phil Bull]

Hi Benjamin,

On Thu, 2010-01-14 at 22:05 +1300, Benjamin Humphrey wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback. I know it may seem like we are trying to do
> the same thing as you, but in all reality we aren't.

I think that this whole matter could be put to rest if you explain
exactly how what you are doing is different to what the Ubuntu system
docs are doing. All I can see when I read the wiki pages is that you're
doing exactly the same but in a linear (book) format. Look at the table
of contents for your manual [2] and compare it with what has already
been written in the system docs [3]. The topics are almost exactly the
same, they're just organised differently! Even the name, "Ubuntu
Manual", is virtually indistinguishable from "Ubuntu System
Documentation".

In the "Justification" section on the wiki page [1], you say "The
Community Docs are excellent, but unfortunately are not structured for
complete beginners and do not necessarily follow one guideline". I
assume, by Community Docs, you mean the system documentation which can
be found by clicking System -> Help and Support. We try hard to
structure them for beginners, and we follow pretty stringent style
guidelines. In what ways are we failing? I don't think we're doing so
badly that a complete rewrite in a different style is required.

I'm also extremely confused about who your intended users are. You said
in an earlier email that "We're aimed at a different user base than the
docs team", but all I can find on the wiki pages is that you're
targeting "complete beginners", "absolute newcomers migrating from
Windows/Mac". This doesn't define a user base. A seasoned Windows system
administrator, a professor of linguistics and a six-year-old child could
both be absolute newcomers to Ubuntu, but that doesn't mean that they'll
understand the same documentation!

Please make sure you have good answers to these questions. I'm extremely
concerned that you're making the same mistakes that everyone always
makes, hence the proliferation of not-so-great documentation in the open
source community.

(As a matter of note, I'd like to encourage people to criticise our
current documentation offerings. Constructive criticism leads to
improvement. I don't mind people advertising for contributors or
discussing other documentation on the ubuntu-doc list either.)

Thanks,

Phil

[1] - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual#Justification
[2] - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual/TableOfContents
[3] - https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/index.html

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/people/philbull