Summer of Documentation

The Summer of Documentation was an effort by a handful of Ubuntu Forums BeginnersTeam members to help get the Community Docs up to date by working with the Ubuntu DocumentationTeam, particularly the WikiTeam. The Beginners Team Wiki Focus Group encouraged communication between the teams (one of the primary purposes of Focus Groups is to get interested BT members involved in other areas of Ubuntu). After Hardy Heron was released, it was apparent that the documentation on the community wiki was getting very outdated, even the core pages. In short, the community wiki was a mess and needed to be cleaned out and cleaned up.

Enter the Ubuntu Forums Beginners Team Wiki Focus Group and its Summer of Documentation.

Major Work

Cleanup

One of the first things to do was to mark pages that needed to be deleted from the wiki due to being outdated, extremely incomplete, or simply duplicated work. To solve this problem, we implemented CategoryDeletion to tag pages, which the wiki admins were then able to delete. It is estimated that well over 100 unneeded pages were cleaned out from the wiki using this method.

We also browsed the wiki in depth and assisted in tagging pages with the appropriate Category, like CategoryCleanup and CategoryNeedsExpansion, in order to to compile a more complete list and to better document the extent of work needed. As always, this is an ongoing process on the community wiki and is not limited to the SoD.

Implementing New Features

Near the end of the SoD, the WikiTeam created the Tag system to replace some of the existing Categories that were being used to mark pages that needed attention. This new system ultimately replaced CategoryDeletion as well.

We helped get this functionality introduced to the wiki by finding new pages to tag, and by updating pages that were previously marked with the deprecated Categories.

Spreading the Word

Since the Beginners Team makes its home on the UbuntuForums, we also made an effort to make the users there more aware of the community docs, and to post relevant links to wiki pages for those requesting support. This has been a success for the entire Beginners Team, not just those working on the SoD.

Wiki Pages

Of course, a key component to getting the community docs up to date involved actually working on pages that were marked for Cleanup and/or Expansion. These are pages that the BT members contributing to the SoD did heavy work on. It is by no means a complete list of the work done, but highlights some of our most visible achievements.

Moving Our Wiki Area

The Beginners Team wiki area was originally created on the community docs, not the team wiki. While we became aware of this in the Spring of 2008, we continued to use the existing area to maintain our fairly complex wiki structure. At the end of the SoD, we decided it was the right time to move our wiki structure to the Ubuntu Team Wiki in order to comply with the wiki guidelines.

Closing

We hope our project has had a positive effect on the Ubuntu community, and that we didn't step on too many toes in the process. While the SoD is officially over, the Beginners Team will continue to contribute to the community docs and other areas of Ubuntu Documentation. Who knows, this could even become a yearly tradition!

I would like to thank all the members of the Beginners Team who helped contribute to this project in any capacity - your dedication and commitment made the SoD a success. The Beginners Team would like to thank the DocumentationTeam and the WikiTeam, esp. Matthew East for supporting our efforts, and always being flexible, understanding, and open to new ideas and options. Thank you.

CategoryBeginnersTeam