Discussion - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PopularPages

[BlinkinCat]

Hi,

As the title suggests I was wondering if it would be possible to create an alphabetical listing within a Contents Wiki for available Community Ubuntu Documentation. Such a Wiki could include appropriate links to Documentation Pages.

As it is now, users can search for answers or ask questions on the forums, which can yield reasonable results, however I consider a Contents Wiki could aid learning considerably. If members were to get used to looking things up on a Contents Wiki, I feel their general knowledge base would be enhanced.

Anyway Ladies and Gentlemen, it is over to you.

With kind regards,
BlinkinCat -

Edit : I believe there are several advantages which can be discussed further.

[BlinkinCat]

As I have an appointment to got to, I thought I would enter further information sooner rather than later :

I am by no means an expert however I see the situation as being -

1. First and foremost, a Documentation Contents Page that could be considered a learning medium.

2. A Contents Wiki Page could readily be bookmarked allowing for a considerable space saving.

3. As all the entries in the page are linked, then only one bookmark is required to hold references to all the documents.

4. Individuals could be encouraged to install the Contents Page and to bookmark it.

5. If necessary, items on the Contents Page could be numbered to allow easy referral by responders to posts in the forums.

6. Disadvantages arise as and when Documentation Pages are out of date.

Cheers -

[oldos2er]

You mean an index of the current documentation? I would find such a thing useful, myself.

I think the reason you haven't had any replies is not that your idea has no merit, but rather that no one's sure how much work this would be, for you or any other potential volunteers.

If I'm way off base understanding your OP, please advise.

[BlinkinCat]

You mean an index of the current documentation? I would find such a thing useful, myself.

I think the reason you haven't had any replies is not that your idea has no merit, but rather that no one's sure how much work this would be, for you or any other potential volunteers.

If I'm way off base understanding your OP, please advise.

Hi Ann,

Yes, I meant just that, an alphabetical index to the current documentation, with links to the actual documentation pages. I have no idea how many documents would need to be involved - I have seen other sites where the alphabet is shown on the first page with links to the appropriate section further down the page - I don't know if such an arrangement would be possible or practical on a wiki page.

Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 in my second post I think sum up my main thoughts on such a project. I am prepared to put in time if such a project was considered feasible.

I consider that for such a project to succeed the following would be necessary.

If no central list of Documentation was available - suggestions from individuals of which pages may be overlooked - of course it would be relatively easy to compile a basis of a list. Even my Bookmarks hold dozens of pages. The main point was to compile a collection on a central index which would only require one Bookmark.

Regarding my time if I was to become involved, there would be a learning curve for me to learn the mechanics of creating the Wiki. Initially I may need some guidance but once I had learnt the procedures I would be prepared to put in quite a bit of time. I would appreciate any views on my additional thoughts.

Thank you -

Edit : I could start a thread in the Cafe requesting assistance in compiling a List if that was considered a good idea.

[Elfy]

Like this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/TitleIndex

[BlinkinCat]

Like this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/TitleIndex

Hi Elfy,

For a minute I thought such an index page already existed. But I assume that is just the basis for a Community Wiki page of the type I am suggesting.
I would like to be involved in setting up such an index - As an example I presently have 62 Documentation Bookmarks on my computer. No doubt there are many more available.

1. What do you think of the idea Elfy ?

2. Could I accumulate all the names from a thread in the Cafe or would the names been listed elsewhere ?

I have started reading up on the System and Wiki Documentation and am now on the mailing list.

Cheers -

[tgalati4]

Going forward, using the 80/20 rule may be helpful in maintaining NewDocs. Once a month, review the statistics of hits on NewDocs pages. Summarize and post the top 20% (of total hits), or just publish the top 10 pages that get hits in NewDocs. Compare this top 10 to the total community documentation top 10 to make sure we have those pages. Any new pages that show up in the overall top 10, but not in NewDocs could then get pulled into NewDocs. With this monthly posting, ask the community to review 1 or 2 of the top 10 pages for errors/clarifications, and that will focus the community efforts to clean up pages that get frequently accessed. Over time, the "hot" pages will get reviewed more frequently, as that is what the community is using as a help resource. The monthly publishing of the active list will act as a bump for the post and keep the community involved.

It took about an hour to pull in the statistics from the Community Documentation, put them in a spreadsheet, then rank order them, take the top 20% of hits, and post the results. It would be nice to have a more automated process. Perhaps there are some tools within the documentation wiki to do this already, I don't know.

Perhaps someone could write a script to query the NewDocs tree for "Last Edited" greater than 2 months as a bubble up for documentation that could use review. It would be really trick to put the Top 10 documents (links) automatically in your signature once a month.

[BlinkinCat]

Hi all,

The Monthly Updates for NewDocs for the First of March 2013 included some interesting additions.

Firstly, "Get Lubuntu" entered the Top Ten Page Hits in position Five.


Additions :

Having looked over the TitleIndex listing, I had noticed that there were 36 entries associated with "Forum". Wishing to come up with a more relevant group, I approached nothingspecial to see if there were any additions in his view that should be listed in NewDocs from the "Forum" group. He came up with four pages.

They are :

Forum Council

Ubuntu Forums (listed twice)

Forums / Membership

Forum_Staff (As yet incomplete but will be interesting to observe)



I added the following :

Ubuntu Home (listed twice)

Basic Security

DemystifyingUnityGraphicsHardwareRequirements

Error Tracker

Lubuntu / Get Lubuntu

Mobile Wireless Broadband

Quickly

Unanswered Posts Team / Solved Threads (Being observed)

Uncomplicated Firewall



Removed Page : Radeon HD



Top Ten Page Hits Over Past Month :

1. Installation / From USB Stick

2. Grub2

3. Using The Terminal

4. Java

5. Lubuntu / Get Lubuntu

6. Apache My SQL PHP

7. Windows Dual Boot

8. Root Sudo

9. Boot-Repair

10. Burning Iso Howto


How You Can Help :

There are dozens of pages on the TitleIndex list that simply shouldn't be there. There may be some on the NewDocs list too. The correct and helpful approach in dealing with obsolete pages is the addition of tags. Read about tags here -
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Tag
One clue to checking for obsolete pages is by checking the last edit date (generally on the lower right corner of page)




I would like to acknowledge the continued support of NewDocs by tgalati4


With kind regards,
BlinkinCat -

[BlinkinCat]

Eliminating the NewDocs numbering system has provided a welcome sleekness.

It was not intended to post so soon but I wished to announce several changes publicly.

The original method of numbering listed pages was ugly and in the end impractical. Wiki edits were awkward and time consuming. Bypassing the numbers system makes amendments far easier to conclude. The added bonus is the much improved appearance of NewDocs.

Additionally, I have added eleven pages to the NewDocs list as well as updating two others. The pages are -

Documentation For Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Laptop Lid And Dock Scripts

Lubuntu / Documentation / Remove Lubuntu Desktop (Updated)

Mutt And Gmail

Support

Ubuntu Desktop 12.04.2

Ubuntu Desktop Guide

Ubuntu Pastebin

What is Unity ? (Listed twice)

What's New ?

Windows Dual Boot (Updated)

Xubuntu

Xubuntu 12.04



The current number of pages in the NewDocs List is 704 with an additional 67 Links.




I also wish to thank MG&TL for his recent edit to NewDocs.


With kind regards,
BlinkinCat -

[meteorrock]

I think this wiki is a good idea <blinkingcat>. Been looking for newer documentation for the little used commands in the terminal like the <aufs> commands and the <grub> commands. Most information on this is outdated on the internet. Most of the documentation I had to find on <stackoverflow.com> and for the mid to lower grade developer that site is a tad overwhelming. I had to research different linux and development sites for weeks just for learning path variables and switches used with commands through different linux archives on the internet.

Some instructions I had to dig bit by bit through archived forums. While you can find this information on checking out books from the library, or in student books for those in computer development looking into a degree in that field, I feel these instructions should be available all in one site online for research purposes. To me it just seems like a secret art you have to spend TONS of time into surfing all over the internet.

I see in the forums here questions on patch commands and the switches used for them, from even the most dedicated posters here. While there are tools now to do some of this for linux and android, you must learn the basics on these tools if you have trouble compiling your projects. Younger developers like myself are not taught these skills even in the advanced computer classes in high school. And most will not suffer the time and dedication on constant searching with varied key words inputted into the google search bar.

Most of the old school coders uphold these standards because they want to keep "cowboy" coders out of their projects. I feel on some projects this should be encouraged, small projects using linux kernels , for example older android devices for rooting and development.

Good luck. I will keep an eye on this site you are developing.