Xubuntu.org Website Review - Part2

Wed Jul 27 06:22:15 UTC 2011

On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 10:09 AM, Phil Whitaker
<xubuntu-devel at beardygnome.co.uk> wrote:
> As promised, here are my comments on the rest of the website:
> Advocacy, Support and Documentation
> (http://xubuntu.org/contribute/advocacy_support_documentation)
> In the Advocacy section, the first line reads "The easiest way to give back
> to the Ubuntu community is by telling others about Xubuntu and become a
> Xubuntu advocate:".  This should read "... the Xubuntu community ..." and I

Fixed.

> don't think this is grammatically correct; it should say either "... is to
> tell others about Xubuntu and become a ..." or "... is telling others about
> Xubuntu and becoming a ...".

Indeed, fixed.

> The second and fourth bullet points in the Advocacy section refer to talking
> about Ubuntu - should we change this to Xubuntu?

Yes, fixed. I also added "and Xubuntu" to a couple places in the first
bullet point - LoCo teams are about Ubuntu but there is plenty of room
for Xubuntu too (I do Xubuntu testing at Global Jams :)).

> The first bullet point in the Documentation section suggests creating a page
> in the wiki to document solutions to issues, but doesn't tell you how to do
> this.  The info might be available else where on xubuntu.org, but I think we
> should detail it / link to it here.
>
> The fourth bullet point links to WikiToDo, but this page simply reads "a"
> and hasn't been updated since 2008.  I suggest we drop the sentence "You can
> help get an idea of useful tasks in the WikiToDo for more information.", or
> update the WikiToDo page so that it actually offers some suggestions of
> things to do (if this is a page that "belongs" to us).

Can someone chime in here? I'm not familiar enough with our
documentation framework to have a clear picture of what to suggest
here.

> Marketing and Promotion (http://xubuntu.org/contribute/marketing)
> In the Marketing section, it says "plase contact us at #xubuntu-devel on
> freenode"; this should read "please ..."  and I think the reference to
> freenode makes sense if you've read the rest of the website, but could too
> vague if you haven't.  I suggest "please contact us in our development IRC
> channel: #xubuntu-devel on irc.freenode.net".

Agreed, fixed.

> In the Artwork section, it says "If you are more artistic than literary, you
> can express that talent and improve the style and feel of the Ubuntu desktop
> by contributing artwork and helping design the next release of Xubuntu."
>  This should read "... the Xubuntu desktop ...".

Fixed.

> Also, it says "If you have skills with wallpapers, Inkscape, icons and
> themes you should contribute to the Art team."  "Should" implies obligation,
> so I suggest "could" instead.

I agree, changed.

> The line "You can create and share Ubuntu backgrounds and other artwork. You
> can upload these to any of the following places:"  should not be bullet
> pointed and should perhaps read "... share Xubuntu backgrounds ...".

I dropped the reference to "Ubuntu" and just went with "share
backgrounds" since the actual resources defined aren't all Ubuntu

> I think the first bullet point should read "The Xubuntu Community Artwork
> wiki page" (linking to the Xubuntu Artwork page).

Done.

> The third bullet point is irrelevant - why are we promoting GNOME here?  If
> anything, we should be promoting xfce-look.org.

Good point. Any thoughts here anyone? Should we keep the GNOME link
and link xfce-look.org too? Or drop the GNOME one entirely?

> Translation and Localization (http://xubuntu.org/contribute/translating)
> In the first sentence, I believe that the phrase "home language" should read
> "native language" - home language isn't a phrase used in British English,
> but I'm not sure about other forms of English.  I guess you could argue that
> "home language" is more likely to be understood by someone whose
> native language isn't English, although most Western European languages
> would use the phrase "mother language" or "mother tongue".  I leave the
> decision open for discussion.

You're right. I switched to "native language" - we can discuss further
if there are issues with this wording.

> The sentence also refers to "... the Ubuntu applications ..." and I would
> suggest that any non-native English speaker who has "really good English
> skills" doesn't just "happen" to have them.  This turn of phrase is also
> unnecessarily complex for non-native speakers.

Agreed, fixed.

> I suggest: "If your [home / native / mother] language is not English but you
> have really good English skills and are comfortable using software in
> English, you can make a huge contribution by helping to translate the
> Xubuntu applications into your [home / native / mother] language."

Caught another Ubuntu rather than Xubuntu in there, thanks :)

> In the second bullet point, the link to the Rosetta translation system is
> broken; it gets redirected to https://launchpad.net/launchpad.

What should we be linking to here? I'm not familiar enough with translations.

> Should the third bullet point be double-indented?

I don't think so, removed additional indentation.

> The fourth bullet point should link to https://launchpad.net/xubuntu-docs,
> not https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-docs.

Indeed! Fixed.

> The fifth bullet point should link to the wiki in question
> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu?).

I don't think the wiki in question is Xubuntu and I really don't know
how wiki documentation translations work. Can someone else chime in
here?

> In the sixth bullet point there are two links to the LoCoTeams wiki, but the
> second one results in the message "Redirected from page "LoCo"" being
> displayed at the top of the page.  I suggest that we use the URL from the
> first link in the second one as well.

This is a recent change for that link, it now redirects to
loco.ubuntu.com - I've put that link in instead.

> Programming and Packaging (http://xubuntu.org/contribute/development)
> In the third bullet point, it refers to both "... an Xubuntu developer ..."
> and "... a Xubuntu developer ...".  Which is correct depends on how you
> pronounce Xubuntu (is there an official way to pronounce it, I didn't see
> anything on the website?), but we should stick to one or the other, as they
> can't both be correct.
> I pronounce it "Zoo-buntu", so would say that "... a Xubuntu developer ..."
> is correct, but I've also heard people call it "Ex-ubuntu", which would make
> the other one the correct version.....

Good catch! It's "Zoo-buntu" so "a Xubuntu" is correct.

> In the fifth bullet point, the list of bounties linked to
> (http://www.ubuntu.com/community/bounties) doesn't exist any more.  We need
> to update the link or drop the bullet point.

As far as I know these don't exist anymore. Does anyone else have an
update on this? I'm thinking we just drop it but I haven't yet in case
someone else has something to add.

> Other
> Is it right that Canonical own the copyright to the website's content?  I
> know they own the copyright to the name Xubuntu, but do we have to assign
> copyright for the website content to them, or could we hold it ourselves?

Good question, Kubuntu uses:

So I'm inclined to do similar.

> Hope that helps.

It helps a ton! You rock! Thanks so much for doing this :)

> I'm happy to proof-read the WordPress version of the site
> before it goes live, if that's needed.

Excellent. Once we have the theme completed we'll start moving content
over (most of it will just be duplicated verbatim) and will have a
big, formal review then.

-- 
Elizabeth Krumbach // Lyz // pleia2
http://www.princessleia.com