ubuntu-manual team mailing list archive

[Patrick Dickey <pdickeybeta@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to divide this up into two sections. The first is the UMP, and
the second is merging with the docs-team.

UMP:

How about we just do one edition every April? This will do a few things.
First, it will keep everyone involved. Second, we'll hit every LTS
release, and the middle interim release. And third, since the changes
between LTS releases are way more drastic than between an interim and a
LTS, we'll already have some of the changes incorporated for each LTS
release. That should make it less hectic trying to revamp the manual
each time.

Plus we'll reduce the stress caused by constantly having to finish this,
so we can start the next one.

Merging with the Docs-team:

I see some potential issues here. Not rehashing the things that I've
mentioned in other emails (I hope) though.

1. We could potentially create more stress. I say this because if we're
writing a section for two separate publishing formats, then we have
twice as much work. That will drive people away, instead of bringing
more in.

2. I've read two different accounts of what might happen. In the
channel, they were essentially saying kill this project and join theirs.
Elizabeth said that's not what they want. I think someone else (Kevin,
maybe) said the same thing. Until we know exactly what will happen in a
merge, I don't think it will happen. The biggest thing is we don't want
to stop our project, and they might not be open to continuing it.

3. How does this solve the problem of lack of contributers? I realize
we'll be adding to the teams, but instead of it being six more or less
active contributers, it might become six active and six more or less
active. Is there going to be an active (and coordinated) push to get
more people involved? The main fear that I have is that twelve people
won't be enough for two projects (which might be why they were talking
about disbanding the manual in the channel). So either one or both will
suffer, or one will be dropped.

I'll admit that I'm one of the less active contributers now. Between
working and teaching part-time in the Fall/Spring, I tend to just veg
out when I've got free time. Hopefully I'll be able to change that. But
you might want to take my questions/concerns with a grain of salt.

Have a great day.:)
Patrick.



On Tue, 2014-07-15 at 17:32 +0200, Hannie Dumoleyn wrote:
> A few more thoughts on this:
> 
> In my previous email I explained why I became a member of UMP and not 
> Ubuntu docs. Much has changed since a handful of enthousiastic people at 
> Ubuntu docs have revived the team. I have a lot of respect for them, 
> because they have worked really hard to get things back on track.
> Whether UMP should become part of the the docs team or not, the most 
> important thing is that we start working closely together. We have the 
> same objective, write documentation for Ubuntu users all over the world, 
> and the same struggle to get more contributors.
> Like Jim, a while ago I suggested to publish only LTS versions of the 
> manual. So yes, Jim, I totally agree on this. The only disadvantage may 
> be that, when there is a two year gap between the versions, our 
> contributors lose interest. We will have to do our best to keep 
> contributors motivated.
> How about planning a meeting with members of both teams? If we decide 
> that we should meet, let's first see to it that we are well prepared by 
> discussing what is best here.
> Hannie
> 
> op 15-07-14 12:22, Elizabeth K. Joseph schreef:
> > On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 6:25 AM, Jim Connett <jimandmarcy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> Finally (and please receive this last point with my highest respect), both
> >> projects appear to be in disarray, but for different reasons. It seems the
> >> docs team has been under the control of just a few people with no real push
> >> (that I've seen) for new volunteers, and the UMP is always welcoming to new
> >> volunteers but is lacking a focused and sustained recruiting effort. I think
> >> it's good to consider if the docs team even wants to merge with the UMP. If
> >> they are not actively seeking help or don't support new volunteers (as
> >> seemed to be the case when Hannie tried to get involved), then the UMP would
> >> be seen as hostile rather than complementary. Additionally, the
> >> organizational structures of the two teams seem to be less defined than
> >> before. In order for any merger to work, I believe one of the two parties
> >> has to be dominant, organized, and confident. I really don't see either of
> >> these teams in that position right now. Given this opinion/perspective, I
> >> think it would be disastrous to merge the two projects.
> > Just to quickly chime in here - on the Ubuntu Documentation side we've
> > spent the past year working very hard to document our processes, grow
> > the team and start welcoming new members again. All administrators of
> > the project are now active contributors, and while there are still
> > only a few, that's only because recruiting volunteers is hard and is
> > no longer because we're just telling people to read a wiki and leaving
> > them on their own. We still have work to do, but the team is in a much
> > better place than when UMP was started and it was near impossible for
> > folks to get involved. Feel free to join #ubuntu-doc to chat with us
> > :)
> >
> > We also don't *want* the Desktop guide to be difficult for newcomers
> > to read, it's just that it's historically been hard to contribute to
> > so only highly technical people have made contributions - translated:
> > they tend to write at a higher technical level. So I don't know that
> > our goals are really that different.
> >
> > That said, I'd love to see UMP become a part of the Ubuntu
> > Documentation team, but not merge the Desktop docs with the Manual at
> > this stage. Simply joining the team would result in the Documentation
> > team being a structure looking something like this:
> >
> > Ubuntu Documentation
> >   - Ubuntu Desktop Documentation
> >    - Shipped with Ubuntu
> >    - Published at: https://help.ubuntu.com/14.04/ubuntu-help/index.html
> >   - Ubuntu Server Documentation
> >    - Published at: https://help.ubuntu.com/14.04/serverguide/index.html
> >    - Also a .pdf version:
> > https://help.ubuntu.com/14.04/serverguide/serverguide.pdf
> >   - Ubuntu Community Help Wiki
> >    - Lives at https://help.ubuntu.com/community
> >   - Ubuntu Manual
> >    - Published at ubuntu-manual.org as a PDF and available as printed book
> >    - We could perhaps add a link to a page like this:
> > https://help.ubuntu.com/14.04/index.html
> >
> > This cycle the Documentation team has been working hard to get
> > feedback from Ubuntu Developers about new features, so it would be
> > helpful if we were all together to accept that information for the
> > updates to Desktop docs and Manual :)
> >
> > Maybe some day we could talk about merging the Desktop guide and
> > Manual more officially, but given they are written in different
> > formats and seem to have different aims, this would take some amount
> > of work and some major decisions.
> >
> 
> 
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