Ideas and Plans for Improving Ubuntu Documentation

[matthew]

Meant to say so before, but I have noticed how much work you are doing mattheweast. Great job!

[Xian]

I've been away for a little while and I noticed that the UserDocumentation page has progressed very nicely. I'm very excited to see that the doc team is growing and working on establishing Ubuntu as a distro that provides superior user tutorials and other written resources. It makes supporting new users so much easier, takes a lot of pressure off the mailing lists and forums, and provides a way to really ramp up the reputation points among our peers.

[maruchan]

Okay, I'll admit I had no clue about past wiki criticism. So that's enough prodding from me. Good work to those who have contributed.

[poofyhairguy]

Yes, it is disorganised, however if this bug is fixed, the situation will improve.

Agreed.

[rwabel]

It's good to see, that people start "accepting" the wiki. I, by myself had the same problem with the wiki. I then came across the UserDocuementation and talked with several of the people to help out.

UserDocumentation really looks good now

I hope even more people will check that site out for information or even contribute to it

[Pragmatist]

First of all, I've been using Linux for about 6 years now, and this is BY FAR the best forum I've seen; both in terms of content and organization as well as features and a great GUI.

This is why I'm spending time here, and why I have a couple of ideas that would, IMHO, make it even better.

My philosophy is that this forum, and Ubuntu in general, would improve not just by providing solutions to problems, but by educating its users as much as possible in general methods and problem solving skills. The advantages are innumerable. There would be an overall raising of the bar, there would be more people able to solve newcomers problems, less dropout rate, frustration level, savings on bandwidth, etc...etc...

Here are a few ideas:

1.) A way to tag posts as solved or unsolved (or other statuses)
2.) Providing posters with "solved" threads related to their question.
3.) A way to tag posts with meta info such as topic (hardware, software, install, etc..)

4.) Ultimately a kind of host/hostess "bot" that walks the user through a series of questions. They wouldn't have to use this, but if it was designed well, it would be in everybody's interest to do so. It would save time. The "bot" could ask simple, pointed, questions like "does this have to do with hardware or software" "What is the brand and model of the device" etc...
Then, the "bot" could return to the user:
(a) "solved" posts related to their problem.
(b) Howtos from the wiki
(c) Link's to packages
(d) In general, just one way to integrate some of the different Ubuntu tools.

I'm not sure how hard this would be, but it could be done in stages, beginning with providing ways to add meta data. Yet another advantage of this meta data would be to provide statistics that could guide the documenation team and wiki in prioritizing its howtos and so on by working on the most popular problems.

Anyway, its an idea. Feedback please?

[s|k]

4.) Ultimately a kind of host/hostess "bot" that walks the user through a series of questions. They wouldn't have to use this, but if it was designed well, it would be in everybody's interest to do so. It would save time. The "bot" could ask simple, pointed, questions like "does this have to do with hardware or software" "What is the brand and model of the device" etc...
Then, the "bot" could return to the user:
(a) "solved" posts related to their problem.
(b) Howtos from the wiki
(c) Link's to packages
(d) In general, just one way to integrate some of the different Ubuntu tools.

I'm not sure how hard this would be, but it could be done in stages, beginning with providing ways to add meta data. Yet another advantage of this meta data would be to provide statistics that could guide the documenation team and wiki in prioritizing its howtos and so on by working on the most popular problems.

Anyway, its an idea. Feedback please?

I'm sure if you made this, the forum would link to you or maybe even host it.

[Pragmatist]

I'm sure if you made this, the forum would link to you or maybe even host it.

I was waiting for that
Actually, I would be happy to contribute my time and skills to work on this project. One of the first things I would like to know is what technologies are used in the Ubuntu websites/servers etc...
In fact the idea of a bot is not new and there are many examples to draw from. I think HP uses this kind of technology, and, of course, academia has worked on them for a long time. I even think I read somewhere that there is some Linux forum that uses it! I'll have to check.

[ssam]

#ubuntu on irc has a great bot with a list of answers to common questions. so when someone asks how to get mp3s working someone types in

!mp3

and the bot gives them a useful answer.

could this be worked into the forum some how?

[s|k]

#ubuntu on irc has a great bot with a list of answers to common questions. so when someone asks how to get mp3s working someone types in

!mp3

and the bot gives them a useful answer.

could this be worked into the forum some how?

You could do it with AJAX or just server side (boring). ;P