I could not say any better. Phil, you are the master of the words.
Alex. On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Phil Bull <philb...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Benjamin, > > On Thu, 2010-01-14 at 22:05 +1300, Benjamin Humphrey wrote: > > Thanks for the feedback. I know it may seem like we are trying to do > > the same thing as you, but in all reality we aren't. > > I think that this whole matter could be put to rest if you explain > exactly how what you are doing is different to what the Ubuntu system > docs are doing. All I can see when I read the wiki pages is that you're > doing exactly the same but in a linear (book) format. Look at the table > of contents for your manual [2] and compare it with what has already > been written in the system docs [3]. The topics are almost exactly the > same, they're just organised differently! Even the name, "Ubuntu > Manual", is virtually indistinguishable from "Ubuntu System > Documentation". > > In the "Justification" section on the wiki page [1], you say "The > Community Docs are excellent, but unfortunately are not structured for > complete beginners and do not necessarily follow one guideline". I > assume, by Community Docs, you mean the system documentation which can > be found by clicking System -> Help and Support. We try hard to > structure them for beginners, and we follow pretty stringent style > guidelines. In what ways are we failing? I don't think we're doing so > badly that a complete rewrite in a different style is required. > > I'm also extremely confused about who your intended users are. You said > in an earlier email that "We're aimed at a different user base than the > docs team", but all I can find on the wiki pages is that you're > targeting "complete beginners", "absolute newcomers migrating from > Windows/Mac". This doesn't define a user base. A seasoned Windows system > administrator, a professor of linguistics and a six-year-old child could > both be absolute newcomers to Ubuntu, but that doesn't mean that they'll > understand the same documentation! > > Please make sure you have good answers to these questions. I'm extremely > concerned that you're making the same mistakes that everyone always > makes, hence the proliferation of not-so-great documentation in the open > source community. > > (As a matter of note, I'd like to encourage people to criticise our > current documentation offerings. Constructive criticism leads to > improvement. I don't mind people advertising for contributors or > discussing other documentation on the ubuntu-doc list either.) > > Thanks, > > Phil > > [1] - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual#Justification > [2] - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual/TableOfContents > [3] - https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/index.html > > -- > Phil Bull > https://launchpad.net/people/philbull > > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: > https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-manual<https://launchpad.net/%7Eubuntu-manual> > Post to : ubuntu-manual@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : > https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-manual<https://launchpad.net/%7Eubuntu-manual> > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp >
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