[Ubuntu-manual] Releasing manuals less often, ditching translations

[Tom Davies]

I think you have a good point but i think we could try to restrict it to major 
changes in the UI?  Would that be a good compromise?  Does Unity already have 
some documentation which we could use&adapt?
Regards from
Tom :)




________________________________
From: Ryan Macnish <nisshh.ubuntu at gmail.com>
To: Hannie Lafeber-Dumoleyn <lafeber-dumoleyn2 at zonnet.nl>
Cc: Ubuntu-l10n-nl at lists.ubuntu.com; Ubuntu-translators 
<ubuntu-translators at lists.ubuntu.com>; Benjamin Humphrey <humphreybc at gmail.com>; 
ubuntu-manual at lists.launchpad.net
Sent: Mon, 1 November, 2010 12:02:19
Subject: Re: [Ubuntu-manual] Releasing manuals less often, ditching translations

One other thing i forgot to mention is that if we release manuals only for LTS 
releases, that means we wont be including major UI changes (like Unity) until 
the next LTS, which is years away. It would be crippling for the user to be 
looking at screenshots and reading manual for a previous LTS on say a release 
before the next LTS. It would be a negative experience, which is not something 
we want or need. I think that if we refine our workflow and eliminate some of 
the more major hurdles, we can easily release every six months, the Ubuntu Devs 
can do it, so why not us?

Ryan Macnish


On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Hannie Lafeber-Dumoleyn 
<lafeber-dumoleyn2 at zonnet.nl> wrote:

Let me react on this as a translator (Dutch). I totally agree with your proposal 
to release the manual once a year, or even only for the LTS versions. To us 
translators every 6 months is also a bit too much. The lucid version is a very 
good manual for people who are new to Ubuntu, even if they are using Maverick at 
the moment. We are about to release the lucid version in Dutch (waiting for the 
quickshot server to work again).
>Regards,
>Hannie Dumoleyn
>
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Benjamin Humphrey" <humphreybc at gmail.com>
>To: "Manual mailing list" <ubuntu-manual at lists.launchpad.net>
>Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 10:50 PM
>Subject: [Ubuntu-manual] Releasing manuals less often, ditching translations
>
>
>
>
>Hey guys,
>>
>>I don't have much time to write a lengthy email so this is going to be
>>to the point. As everyone will know, the last 4 months in this team
>>have been terrible - we've been getting nothing done, the manual for
>>Maverick is still not out and we're not moving forward. This is
>>combination of a few things, myself and a lot of the core contributors
>>have been extremely busy in the second half of 2010, we've been
>>pushing hard for the Lucid manual and some of us might be a bit burnt
>>out, our barrier for new contributors is way too high and the demand
>>for a new manual every 6 months, plus translations and screenshots is
>>just too much for the team to handle without full time contributors.
>>
>>Rather than see the team disintegrate, which would be terrible, I
>>figure we need to slim our goals down a bit and perhaps give us a
>>greater time span to work in. Hence I propose one (or both) of the
>>following:
>>
>>* Not releasing the manual for every release, but perhaps only .04
>>releases (yearly) or only LTS releases (every two years).
>>* Releasing only in English, at least until we have a better
>>infrastructure for translations
>>
>>My preference would be the first option. I feel that it's not
>>necessary for us to have a new manual every 6 months, what with the
>>large amount of documentation and support elsewhere and the fact that
>>not enough changes every six months to justify a new book. I think
>>that having our material in other languages is important, but it's
>>difficult to coordinate such a mammoth task when we have very limited
>>infrastructure for translation this amount of text.
>>
>>I believe if we toned down our lofty release goals, we'll have more
>>time to work on things like the Support and Learning Center, the
>>personas, quickstart booklets and other things, giving us a better,
>>more complete and concise product overall, even if it was released
>>less regularly.
>>
>>Please let me know your thoughts. We should also have a meeting soon.
>>
>>-- 
>>Benjamin Humphrey
>>interesting.co.nz
>>ohso.co
>>
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