launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Karl Fogel <karl.fogel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew Revell <matthew.revell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> The Ingres DBMS wiki does a really good job of helping visitors,
> particularly first-time visitors, find the information they want.
>
> It has two tables. The first is headed:
>
>   "I am a"
>
> and the second is headed:
>
>   "I want to"
>
> Each table then has options, with icons, such as "Application
> developer" or "Translator" in the first table and "Download source" or
> "Migrate to Ingres" in the second.
>
> I think we should adopt and adapt this approach for our dev and help
> wikis. Let's look at the dev wiki first.
>
> I'd suggest we go along with the two sections used by Ingres: "I am a"
> and "I want to". In the first, I think we probably want:
>
>  * developer: find out about contributing to Launchpad
>  * tester: help QA Launchpad
>  * writer: help with Launchpad documentation
>  * project owner: bring your project to Launchpad (link to the
> relevant help wiki section)
>
> For the second, I'd suggest:
>
>  * submit a patch
>  * join the community
>  * get the source code
>
> Clearly I'm probably missing something from both of those.
>
> Any thoughts?

+1 on improving the dev wiki.  But I have to admit, I actually don't
find the Ingres wiki very compelling, mainly because it's not clear what
the point is of identifying/categorizing myself as a visitor.  For
example, suppose "I am an Application Developer" and "I want to Help".
So should I click on Application Developer, or on Help?  They go to two
different places.

(Also, the images link to enlarged versions of the images, instead of to
the obvious destination page, which is an implementation detail we
wouldn't have to emulate but egregiously wrong nevertheless.  Also, they
bury their most important links beneath a mountain of news items that
the average visitor probably isn't looking for.)

I think the second part of the Ingres formula is good: organize things
by what people want to do.  So something like:

  * Getting Launchpad   (we have this one already)
  * Building Launchpad
  * Submitting a Patch to Launchpad  (we have this)
    - Fixing a User Interface problem
    - Fixing an XYZ problem...

That's more or less the direction the wiki is headed in, I think.
Probably we don't need an item for "join the community", though?
Joining the community is something that happens on the way to some more
specific goal -- people (usually) don't show up with the purpose of
joining the community; they show up with the purpose of fixing a bug, or
something like that.

-Karl