ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Jim Connett <jimandmarcy@xxxxxxxxx>]

   - Replies in line...


On Sun, Jul 1, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Kevin Godby <godbyk@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello, everyone.
>
> I intend for this message to start a mailing list thread and
> discussion to review how things worked (and didn't work) during the
> process of creating Getting Started with Ubuntu 12.04.  This is a
> general discussion thread, but I'll include some questions to get
> things started. You're welcome to answer any, all, or none of the
> questions as they apply and to speak generally about any other topics
> that come to mind.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> What did you think of the process overall?
>
>
Fairly smooth.  Communication seemed to wane toward the end as it was
released in beta form.  Did we receive feedback from the public? Was
anything changed because of their feedback?

Was this your first time contributing to the manual project?


Yes


> If so,
> how did you hear about the project?


Hannie had put out a call on one of the RSS feeds I regularly read.


> Why did you decide to get
> involved?


It was an opportunity for me to give back to the overall Ubuntu community
for the years of a wonderful OS that keeps getting better with time.

Did you have trouble getting started with the project?
>

No issues at all.


> Were the other team members helpful enough?
>
>
Yes, good give-and-take. Since this was my first iteration, I needed to
lean on others, and all my questions were usually answered within a day of
posting to the email group.


>
> How did you like your role (author, editor, translator, etc.) in this
> cycle?  Do you think you'd like to take on that same role again?
> Would you like to try a different role in the future?
>
>
I did authoring and editing. I like both roles and will do the same next
iteration.  I'd also like to do more in managing and coordinating resources.


> Did you find it difficult to use any of the tools for our project
> (e.g., bzr, LaTeX)?
>

Installation and use of bzr and LaTeX was relatively painless (save for the
VERY LONG installation process of LaTeX).

>
> What did you think of the release schedule?  Did it take too long to
> release the manual?  Did you feel rushed in your work? Did you have
> enough time to do everything you wanted to do?
>

I think we should always try to be releasing this manual as close to the
final release date of each iteration as possible. It seems a little bit too
much "after the fact" that we are releasing our manual two months after the
software release date.  We have access to all the beta releases of the
software...and very little actually changes (from a manual's perspective)
once the betas is released.  We really should be releasing this manual no
more than a month after the software is released, and we should always
target a manual release date as close as we can to the software release
date.

>
> How well did the other team members communicate with you? Did you know
> what you were expected to do at each step of the process?  Were you
> ever lost or confused about what you could work on?
>
> I think the only "confusion" came when we were trying to all agree on the
LaTeX tags to use for menus, the Dash, Launcher, etc.  We've resolved this
(and will continue to resolve this) with a dynamic "formatting" document
available to all authors and editors.


> Did you feel that you had sufficient knowledge and skills to do the
> work that was requested of you?  Do you think that training or
> teaching by other team members would help?
>
>
To the last question....not necessarily.  If you're going to be an
author/editor of the Ubuntu Manual Project, you should be fairly adept at
getting your authoring/editing environment set up.  The only thing that may
be helpful is a bzr cheatsheet specific to the manual project. Even with my
experience using CVS, I got tripped up by a few things, and I think having
a cheatsheet would be helpful to those who've not experienced or used
versioning systems.


> What do you think the team should do to improve the process for 12.10?
>
>
> Ah...you saved the best for last.

Here are my recommendations:

--recruit and ask for assistance early.  We should have notifications out
for authors/editors for 12.10 NOW, since the software is released in beta.

--during these minor iterations (read: non-LTS releases), we really need to
work to organize the group around a usable, common interface for
authoring/editing.  Whether it's WineFish, or Gummi, or any of the other
LaTeX editors available, I think it would be unifying for us to all be on
the same page with regards to the IDE. We can implement better controls
over tagging and formatting and really improve the development process.  I
know that it's good to allow anyone to use anything to write documentation
(that's sort of the open-source way), but it seems like the documentation
is coming in from a variety of sources (even open office and google docs
now!).  The tools need to support and advance the process, not trip up the
process, and I felt with this being my first experience in this project
that the tools sort of got in the way of progress. They got in MY way as I
was trying many different development environments and not finding ANYTHING
that really worked well for what we were doing.

--have (continue with) a dedicated screenshot team. I think this was
already beginning to form at the end of 12.04, and I think it needs to
continue. This creates uniformity in presentation, and really, if done
right, should only take a couple of people a few days (if that) to get the
screenshots done.


> --Kevin Godby
>
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