Communications 2.0

[Jasper Backer]

Dropping in some 2 cents again for what it's worth.

Greets,
Jasper

On 03-05-16 03:03, Tim wrote:
> I suppose part of that might be that people who have grown up with the modern web find IRC and mailing lists archaic and a steep learning curve?
Yeah, might actually be. However for mailing lists I suppose it's 
something that is really unavoidable (more or less mandatory for any 
involvement).
>> IMO (unfortunately) IRC is still a main communication tool and somewhat directly related with being in these (OS/dev/test/etc) circles.
> IRC is critical for the development team and to a lesser extent QA, and we will always continue to have a presence there, since that is where
> all the developers are, if you want to talk to other Ubuntu/Debian/Upstream teams, they are all there (albeit on different servers). Its really
> outside these teams, that people just seem avoid it, in fact a number of our core team members refuse to use IRC and it is really this group
> that has embraced Slack. Then you also have the 20odd random users per day that come onto IRC ask a question and then leave after 30s, because
> they did not get an instant response!
Just for clarity's sake, with "unfortunately" I meant that I really 
think people should be up there among the others of the community / open 
source project world. It's the most open platform you can have, although 
indeed people hop in, expect instant answers and are gone after a 
minute. Takes some time (years) to get some netiquette down maybe.
>>> Mailing Lists – Generally work well if you constantly follow the messages, many complain about it being hard to catch up with past discussions,
>>> which I guess is particularily true if you use the web interface.
>> However, again, this is "classic" to any distro - How come we can't utilize this properly?
> The Mailing lists work great for the medium term type conversations, and again we wouldnt be about to replace them. However it is not exactly
> easy to find past messages, the web interface for the archives is anything but easy, sure you can use google foo to find message, but then you
> are back to the web interface trying to follow one by one a long thread.
I myself never use the web interface - I just filter down any e-mail to 
this mailing list to a separate folder and check that from time to time. 
Then again, I still am very much for using decent desktop e-mail clients 
(Thunderbird and the likes).
>> IMO the wiki is a huge non-organized mess. Same would go for the website which is unprofessional and unclear. Luckily the distro speaks for
>> itself, but the website and wiki do no good as it lowers the quality perception on the product.
> The website is being redesigned now, although this has taken way to long, we have a great design lined up by the marketing guys. The content
> however at this stage remains largely unfinished (we have the home page and download page and that is about all). We certainly need to improve
> the wiki also, but at the same time think about what information goes on the website, what goes into the wiki, do we duplicate some of the info?
In the current situation, I'd link the website straight to the wiki and 
be done with it, as even the wiki looks more 'this is going to be 
something I'd like to use'. The quality perception difference between 
the website/current "project look" and the actual distro is honestly day 
and night (where the distro is doing very well, not so much for the rest).
>>
>>
>> Even I gave up to for example try and translate the release notes as the path is super unclear. For example for Fedora I wanted to change some
>> Dutch translations and literally was able to do so in an hour with the translation being online the next day.
> That is a limit of MoinMoin really. Ubuntu are planning eventually to migrate the wiki to MediaWiki which I believe has a build in localisation
> system.
Ack. Something more easily accessible would be great. There is a very 
steep 'contribution wall' that looks quite hard to get through, whereas 
the teams in my Fedora example look much more relaxed (and I perceive 
that doesn't have a large influence on quality as it's somewhat 
self-controlling).
>>> Do the other teams use Discourse? If so, why don't we? More accessible to everyone than slack imho.
> Slack and Discourse are really orthoganal, Slack is really an impoved IRC, Discourse is more like fusion of mailing-lists and forums, more for
> those medium/long term conversations. Ubuntu did setup a Discourse instance, but it was more aimed at being a social site. There are certainly
> FOSS teams using Discourse, although I am not aware of any of the Ubuntu flavours using it, a number of them have a fairly strong presence on
> ubuntu forums which would kind of fill that gap. Most also still use Blueprints, but often its just the team lead writing down some plans for
> the cycle, then that is it.
>
> I am not saying we use Discourse, and I havent really tested it. One interesting feature it has however is a WIKI mode, where the OP can be
> collaboratively edited and then user can provide comments seperately just like a forum.
Hmm, I know for certainty that Discourse can work decently for 'long 
stretched discussions' - It's just not for us I think. It's also a bad 
development I think that some refuse to use IRC or 'traditional methods' 
in favor of something much less easily accessible (Slack). I do quite 
like Slack and Discourse, but I doubt if they're for us do their more 
closed nature (well, Slack more than Discourse, the latter still could 
be feasible for e.g. newcomers, assuming we can get a lively community 
there).
>
> Either way I am certainly not suggesting we rip everything out and start from scratch, more what can we do to improve and fill in the gaps? If
> you strip it right back to the basics we have two areas that really could use improvement:
>
> 1. New Contributors find it really hard to get up to speed. They want to know things like what has been going on, what are the plans, not just
> things like how do I test Ubuntu GNOME or sit down and work out the team structure. Many potential contributors have come along and just given
> up, we need to make it easier for them to get involved.
I very much agree with that. I consider myself one of them. I'd like to 
contribute where I can, but as said, I perceive the path to that very 
steep and 'unwelcoming' in a way, as if every step you take is carefully 
monitored not to harm the project (Which in the end makes for no 
contributions at all).
>
> 2. There is a real lack of co-ordinated, centrally located and easily discoverable planning amongst the teams, this tends to get scattered
> across email lists, blueprints and IRC discussions. Try and find a list of tasks that are needing to be completed by each team, you probably
> wont because there is nowhere central and easy to record these. The closest you will come is the list of bugs that need fixing, if you can even
> find that.
I am not in those circles, but I assume this is true. Other teams seem 
to manage this (and not just in Ubuntu, but everywhere) using various 
ways. I guess that really could work for us as well, as long as we all 
give things a chance.
>
> Tim
>
>