Communications 2.0

[Tim]

On 03/05/16 17:16, Narcis Garcia wrote:
> I imagine Patrik Bubák's mockups are pending of some kind of approval
> process?
I think Gauruv is coding up the wordpress templates currently, there will of course likely be further tweaks to the menus and content after that
is done.
>
>
> El 03/05/16 a les 03:19, Tim ha escrit:
>>
>> On 03/05/16 01:04, Narcis Garcia wrote:
>>> About website, I suggest 2 measures:
>>>
>>> 1. Better appearance theme
>> These are the mock-ups for the new theme (not sure if they are the lastest versions but should be close)
>> https://www.behance.net/gallery/35183935/ubuntugnomeorg-the-redesign-V2
>>> 2. More menu options. My proposal for menus structure:
>>>
>>> 1. About/Discover
>>> {What is Ubuntu-Gnome, features, license, requirements, screenshots}
>>>
>>> 2. Install/Download
>>> {Downloads, install guides, more resources}
>>>
>>> 4. Get help/Participate
>>> {Documentation, Bugs tracker, Forums, Mailing list}
>> Some of those are covered by the mockups, however mostly the content still needs to be written, for which we could really use help with!
>>>
>>> El 02/05/16 a les 16:09, Jasper Backer ha escrit:
>>>> On 02-05-16 12:56, Tim wrote:
>>>>> Many people over recent times have complained about our communications
>>>>> channels. It seems the established staple diet of IRC and Mailing lists,
>>>>> that just about every established FOSS teams use doesnt work so well,
>>>>> particularly for the newcomers in our community. I am hoping to create a
>>>>> UOS[1] session to discuss some of these things, but lets get the
>>>>> discussion started before that.
>>>> How come other teams can use the traditional methods just fine and we
>>>> don't?
>>>>> Apparently every time we raise this stuff on the list, it gets taken
>>>>> way off topic by trolls and their politics. So let me start with a little
>>>>> warning, if anyone tries to derail this thread with proprietry vs FOSS
>>>>> politics, I won’t hesitate to ban you from the email list. This is about
>>>>> finding solutions that work for improving communications for our users
>>>>> and core teams.
>>>>>
>>>>> The current situation is basically:
>>>>>
>>>>> IRC – Real time messaging, it is great in that everyone is there (most
>>>>> ubuntu/GNOME/debian developers etc), but it can be hard for people that
>>>>> aren’t used to it, timezones are a challenge, particularily when you
>>>>> cant stay connect 24/7. Also so far no one outside of our development/qa
>>>>> areas has really embraced IRC
>>>> IMO (unfortunately) IRC is still a main communication tool and somewhat
>>>> directly related with being in these (OS/dev/test/etc) circles.
>>>>> 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?
>>>>> Launchpad – Bug tracking, it handles tracking individual bugs really
>>>>> well, but the shear volume of bugs makes it hard to track/find specific
>>>>> bugs. We are not about to move away from that, but we could find
>>>>> better ways to tag/track Ubuntu GNOME specific bugs in a centralised
>>>>> location.
>>>>>
>>>>> Wiki – has lots of useful information, but many find it hard to
>>>>> navigate. Also generally most people are too scared to try and edit
>>>>> it, since
>>>>> MoinMoin markup is a bit of a learning curve.
>>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think we need a better seperation of information between the wiki and
>>>> the website. The wiki has loads of useful information on it, but
>>>> newcomers find it hard to navigate. The website is really meant to be
>>>> the portal for new users, but largely just links to the wiki. Of course we
>>>> will try improve this with the new website, once it arrives, but either
>>>> way the wiki could use some improvements. I did a little experiment
>>>> today pretending to be a new user, and think I got up to about 10 links
>>>> without my questions answered (simply what is involved in testing Ubuntu
>>>> GNOME)!
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>> I think some sort of central hub for planning would be useful, maybe
>>>>> that would just be a page that aggregates information from the various
>>>>> existing channels or an entire new platform. We are very much lacking
>>>>> in the collaborative documentation section and in particular that is
>>>>> discoverable. Blueprints cover things to an extent, but not that well.
>>>>> Maybe Discourse would work here, though we would need to make sure it
>>>>> doesnt get overrun with support/general questions otherwise it seems
>>>>> it would be pretty ineffective. We need an easy way for teams to manage
>>>>> release planning, TODO lists, track release notes etc
>>>> Do the other teams use Discourse? If so, why don't we? More accessible
>>>> to everyone than slack imho.
>>>>> I have wondered if simplifying the team structures would help, I know
>>>>> Ali went to a lot of work to setup all the different sub-teams, and it
>>>>> seemed like a great idea at the time, it just hasn’t worked out that
>>>>> great. In my opinion, sandboxing users in micro managed teams, limits
>>>>> their
>>>>> contributions to that niche. We already merged a couple of teams
>>>>> recently, however I think we should strip it right back to about 3 teams,
>>>>> Technical (dev/qa), community and marketing or something like that.
>>>> Would seem like a logical step. Less clutter = more better.
>>>>
>>>>
>>