Idea: Documentation area in this discourse

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#1

This was originally posted on another thread; where I stole attention away from the issue; sorry @anon673819

Maybe we could add a documentation section in this discourse…

To me, currently the development section fits this the best, however I bet a Lubuntu user wouldn’t look for a howto or documentation in there.

@leok recently add a howto for swap which would also belong in a documentation section if created. (there could be others too)

Any thoughts on this?

Are there costs involved? (esp. @teward @wxl that I haven’t considered?)

To me it won’t replace the manual; the swap page for example was easier to create, and I hope makes it to our manual. But a page here is pretty easy for users to maybe make a first step…

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Panel Icons installed using Desktop Icons vs. Application Menu
#2

@KGIII

Thank You for the invitation.
Being on 20.04 and intending on staying there as it works perfectly, Hirsute is not my thing,

And the usual frameworks for this kind of stuff has turned me off completely (GitHub, GitLab), where 90% of the effort goes to adhering to geeky rules and authorization codes etc.

So, no Thanks.

Still, I enjoy the informal interchange here, the Q & A in text format working wonderfully.

Cheers.

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#3

I’m not certain that yet another documentation repository is needed in a landscape where there already are hundreds, and the only way to find something is using Google or DuckDuckGo.

What’s more needed is a Head Editor that as a dictator cleans up the noise and clutter that’s all over the place. This goes both for the libraries and the documentation.
But I don’t think you’ll find a volunteer for that, it’s a full-time job.

#4

Well, we already have a manual that is under source control and @lynorian is the primary contributor and certainly the driver of the project. They do better than anyone I have ever seen in all of my time working with Lubuntu. If you have some particular suggestions, there you go.

What @guiverc is suggesting, or at least how I take it, is to have a more advanced set of documentation on here. We don’t need to fill the manual with things like, oh, I don’t know, how to use SSHFS or remote desktop solutions, etc. That, I think, could live very nicely on Discourse (assuming with have the wiki ability set up) or on Phabricator. Probably better on the former since the latter is really meant for development than for support. Also, if a post works out to be good documentation, you can easily turn it into a wiki.

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#5

I’ve no issue with the Manual, it’s well arranged, clear and generally good quality. I don’t know who @lynorian is, but she/he is certainly doing a good job.

An idea could be a kind of “Manual Appendices” here (that potentially could be added to the Manual itself) addressing firstly: the most frequent topics; secondly: going deeper into specific (perhaps difficult) topics.

The important thing is that it is arranged logically from a user’s point of view (not from a developer’s!), meaning that it’s topic based (Desktop, File system, USB booting…) and not technology-based (Acronyms all over the place that no normal human understands).

Might be an idea. But the linking to the Manual is important, otherwise it will drown in the sea of other information sources.

My 5 cents :slight_smile:

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#6

Advanced is a no…

I see this as a low barrier of entry; can be used like community.ubuntu.com do for their draft tutorials maybe (no formality though), but more allowing people to post pages they feel are worthwhile, or even benefit being in the manual, after which a decision can be used on incorporating it into the manual sometime in the future. Not all topics will belong in the manual.

It could be just someone’s tip, for a specific device or something. This will supplement at best, not replace and won’t be an ‘authority’ like the manual is. If people need/want help, they should always go to the manual first… the can be a tertiary place (secondary being the lubuntu wiki, which is the more technical/advanced).

It would be good if we could have two tiers, or a confirmation (tested) post added to it as a form of quality control.

#7

Interesting thought. What do you think, @lynorian?

I think it would require a wiki plugin or something to convert posts to wikis. Right, @teward?

#8

If no plugin, people can comment their edits, and moderators can ‘edit’ the original to include the corrections noted (add a TESTED & WORKS or something notice maybe)

To do that we’d best state in a post that posts in the documentation area are seen as Lubuntu community property, and may be edited. Wiki is more formal, and maybe a better way.

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#9

I’m sorry, but as an outsider/user I see you people already going into the technical side of things before even a concept stands.
That’s a problem. Really.

#10

Well I think if we have the wiki functionality (which I know somehow exists but Discourse documentation is a mess I don’t like to bother with), we can even make a little "Documentation’ category and everything will even be nice and ordered.

@anon673819 I’m pretty clear on what the concept is, actually.

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#11

Yeah I concur with seeing the [Ubuntu] discourse documentation as a mess.

#12

Oh I meant the documentation for using Discourse itself. I also agree that Ubuntu’s documentation on their Discourse instance needs some help, but I think if we have ONE Documentation category that would help a lot.

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#13

Nope, that’s already inbuilt. Admins and staff can convert existing posts to wiki themselves (see https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-is-a-wiki-post/30801) and anyone with trust level 3 on them can create a wiki post themselves (because that is the current minimum level to self-create wiki posts set in the permissions side of things). Admins and mods already are above that trust level.

Also, currently, Trust Level 2 on users grants privileges to edit wiki posts as well, but that can be altered to just be level 3 if we wanted.

Admins can give certain users higher trust levels if they want to.

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