ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Phil Bull <philbull@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Benjamin,

This project is still worrying me, because I think you're making the
same mistakes that lots of people have made in the past.

      * I worry that the project is not defined very well. It covers so
        many different topics, and I can't find any thorough definitions
        of who you are writing for. My guess, based on the level of
        writing, is that it's written for moderately advanced Windows
        users, people who know what the registry is etc. These people
        tend to be interested in computers already, so have additional
        knowledge. The average Windows user will NOT understand a lot of
        what has been written so far. See this link [1].
      * There is an immense amount of duplication with other
        documentation. The manual covers almost exactly the same topics
        as the system docs, circa two years ago. Click System -> Help
        and Support to see what I mean. If we ship the manual with the
        Ubuntu CD, then we'll have two different document sets
        discussing exactly the same things. This will confuse users.
      * I worry that lots of contributors will lose interest after the
        first release, that you'll have a very large, complex project to
        maintain, and that you won't have enough people to do the work.
        Maintaining documentation is a thankless task.

I wish you all the best, but I'm anticipating problems.

Thanks,

Phil

[1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/people/philbull