lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Michael Rawson <michaelrawson76@xxxxxxxxx>]

I will offer to be "official proofreader"-I'm a bit of a pedant.

On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 11:20:04 -0800
Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 11/25/2011 04:02 AM, Martin Olesen wrote:
> 
> > I am showing this to more people than the ones who are registered
> > users of the wiki page. If I demand that they begin with a
> > registration I will lose half of the responses.
> 
> 
> OK, please at least link to the demo site and response page from the
> wiki page, so people who know about the wiki page find the other one.
> Maybe do the reverse too, so those who read the comments on Google Docs
> can easily go read the other comments on the wiki page?
> 
> I think real beginners will find it hard to ignore the lack of pretty
> graphics and theme, so you might want to mock up something using
> Raphael's proposed "simple blue Ubuntu" theme before exposing this to
> large numbers of real newcomers.
> 
> >>  (1) Seven tabs is too many; let's keep it simpler than that.
>  
> 
> > Fine with me, but that does not help me much. Which tabs do you
> > want?
> 
> 
> Rafael's first three choices borrowed from the ubuntu.com site (Home,
> Download, Support) are nice and simple, and self-explanatory.  Their
> purposes are each very clear.  His next two were Community and Wiki,
> which may also be appropriate, but seem slightly less "obvious" for real
> newcomers ("what exactly will I find under Community, a live chat with
> Lubuntu people?  When do I need to use Wiki, and what *is* a wiki?").  I
> think things like "Modify Lubuntu" are potentially a bit too scary for
> newcomers to be top level items ("you mean I have to hack on it??") and
> so should be avoided :)
> 
> So maybe just Home, Download, Support, Community.  Then have links to
> wiki-based information as needed within the site, and discuss the
> concept of a set of online documentation that all in the community can
> easily add to and improve, under "Community" (and, with emphasis on what
> it contains, rather than on editing it, under "Support")?
> 
> I like the idea of differentiating between "Trying out Lubuntu" and
> "Installing Lubuntu"; these could be sub-pages under Download (so we
> encourage people to download it, try it, install it, in that order), and
> the Installing one could be linked from under Support too.
> 
> Incidentally, have you considered documenting use of a VM for trying out
> Lubuntu without removing your "old" operating system?  More techie than
> booting from a LiveCD, but also much closer to experiencing "the real
> thing".  For users with decent PC hardware, it may be much less scary to
> set up Lubuntu in a VM than to repartition their hard drive or remove
> Windows!  Once you find yourself needing to ask "what if the computer
> has four primary partitions already?", you are not meeting the needs of
> newcomers any more!  Are you going to explain UEFI booting and
> configuration, for those with modern motherboards, too? :)
> 
> >> (2) Proposed site home page is basically content-less, and so not 
> >> useful. Not even a button to download the most commonly wanted
> 
> >> Lubuntu ISO!
>  
> > Correct, this is an early test. You will see more and more content
> > being added over time.
> 
> 
> OK, but getting the front page correct is really important.  Deciding
> what should be there, and what should be on subsidiary pages, can make
> or break a site (cf. your comments on all the videos that used to be on
> the front page of the old lubuntu.net!).  So this should be thought
> about (and tested) early in the design process.
> 
> >> (3) Proposed site content (and look/feel/theme) does not connect at
> >> all to (or address the whole issue of how it relates to) existing
> >> online Lubuntu documentation at wiki.ubuntu.com and help.ubuntu.com
> 
> 
> > As I wrote, "please give suggestions regarding text, layout and
> > navigation. Pictures, colours and the like come at a later time."
> 
> Never mind how it looks, for now.  Your proposed pages include things
> like hardware requirements, which are already documented elsewhere; are
> you proposing that the new site will ignore the wiki and so we end up
> having to maintain that information in two different ways on two
> separate pages?  If not, how does the new site "blend into" the existing
> wiki pages?  Once browsing within the wiki, how does a user "get back"
> to the lubuntu.net site?
> 
> For theme and navigation, I like Rafael's "make it look like a simpler
> blue Ubuntu site" concept, but the graphical look is less important to
> me than ability to easily find information, and to know that information
> is likely to be correct and up to date.  For that, the basic principle
> of how and when the lubuntu.net site links to the existing wiki pages,
> and vice versa, needs to be clearly established, and then consistently
> implemented.
> 
> >>  (4) In English, we say "operating system" not "operative system".
> 
> >> There are a couple of other places where the English needs tidying up.
> 
> 
> > Sure, we need a native Brit to proof-read. I'll correct this one when
> > I get home. Did you find any more of these?
> 
> 
> I am a "native Brit" (born in England, although now living in
> California); my father is a (now retired) schoolteacher with an M.A. in
> English from Cambridge University... so he made sure my English was
> pretty good :)  I'm not volunteering as an official site proofreader,
> though.
> 
> Here are a couple more: "run as a live boot" feels awkward; "run live,
> directly from a CDROM or USB stick", maybe?  "way different" feels
> unnecessarily "California slang" in style; "very different" or "much
> faster" might be clearer?
> 
> Jonathan
> 
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-- 
Michael Rawson <michaelrawson76@xxxxxxxxx>