Proposal for Wiki Cleanup

The WikiCleanupProposal is the result of consultation with the greater Ubuntu community on what needs improvement in the Ubuntu Wiki. The emphasis of the proposal is to restructure the Wiki into a high-quality documentation source that encourages Ubuntu users to use and contribute to.

Populate

The next logical step after restructuring the UserDocumentation page is to "fill" the sub-pages that are linked-to off the main page. The suggested method to populate the pages is to search the Wiki on page title names with keywords related to the page.

eg. "print" returns AutomaticPrinterConfiguration, HPPrinterInstallation, HowToXeroxPrinters, HpPscHpPhotosmartSeriesAllInOnePrinters, NetworkPrintingFromMacOSX, NetworkPrintingFromWin2000, NetworkPrintingFromWinXP, NetworkPrintingFromWindows, PrinterSharing, WindowsXPPrinter and XeroxPrintersHowto

After the search, each document should be examined to check that it is a document, that it meets a minimum standard and is not a repetitive effort of another document. Once a document matches these simple rules, it should be placed on the correct sub-page of UserDocumentation. A secondary stage of the populating could be to perform a search on text with related keywords, however, this is a much larger task.

Most of the hardware sub-pages are in need of extra links, where possible. Printers and Sound have already been populated.

Versioning

A concerted effort needs to be made to improve the way version-specific documents exist in the Wiki. Starting from the sub-pages of UserDocumentation, a cleanup needs to be made to ensure that an end-user does not get confused about the version a document applies to. The cleanup will include removing documents from the sub-pages that are clearly irrelevant to the current, previous or development version.

Pages that are version-neutral (can be used for all versions) or are not applicable to the current version are to be flagged with a short alert message at the top of the document - notifying the reader what version the document applies to. The creation of version-specific icons (the iconic Badger-Badger-Badger head for Breezy) would also aid in the versioning overhaul.

Paste the text below to use the Ubuntu 13.04 banner.

• <<Include(Software/1304Template)>>

General Guides

The MultimediaApplications page is an excellent example of how to outline a specific grouping of applications available on Ubuntu. Below is a list of similar pages that there is a need for:

Multimedia & Graphics

• MultimediaTools - High-level page straight off UserDocumentation to redirect to guides such as CDRipping, DVDAuthoring and MultimediaKeys

• GraphicsApplications - Similar page to MultimediaApplications, with references to TheGimpHowTo and other apps like gThumb, EoG, etc..

Internet & Networking

• EmailClients - group guides based on Email Client - also include an introductory page for each available Email Client

• InternetApplications - similar page to MultimediaApplications, with sections dedicated to IM, IRC, VOIP and P2P

• NetworkServices - similar page to MultimediaApplications, with sections dedicated to the setting up of DNS, DHCP, Monitoring, etc..

• WirelessNetworking - high-level page with brief explanations and guides for WiFi, Bluetooth, Broadband Wireless and ir.

• RemoteFilesystems - guides to connect to remote fileservers, includes NFS, Samba, iFolder, rsync and WebDAV

• RemoteAccess - guides to connect to remote machines, includes SSH, VNC, nX, etc..

Accessories

• FileTools - introduction to file tools such as archiving and compression tools

Games

• GnomeGames - list of all games, with very brief introductions, that are being shipped with DapperDrake

• UbuntuGames - contains a link to GnomeGames to briefly describe each Gnome Game then contains the extra games grouped into categories - Adventure, Simulation, Arcade, etc.. - to make a higher quality framework for Ubuntu Games doco (in addition to renaming the current UbuntuGames to UbuntuGamesDotOrg)

• WindowsGames - expands on the very brief section in the current Games page - also needs to be written in an evangelical undertone to really drive home that all games can work under Ubuntu (throw out your copy of Windows, gamers!!)

Office

• OpenOffice - contains short sections about each of the OOo components and is a placeholder for OOo guides

• LibreOffice- contains sections about how install LibreOffice components and is a placeholder for LibreOffice guides

• OfficeApplications - outlines the other apps that can be installed in Ubuntu (dia, planner, gnucash, etc..)

Servers

• WebServers - contains guides on how to setup Apache, PHP, SSL, etc..

• DatabaseServers - introductions and guides to the databases available in Ubuntu (MySQL, PostgresSQL, Oracle)

• FilePrintServers - guides on setting up Samba, CUPS, WebDAV, etc..

• CollaborationServers - guides on setting various CollaborationServers such as OpenGroupware, Hula, Sun Java Enterprise System, etc..

• ContentManagementServers - guides on setting up Wiki and CMS Servers such as MoinMoin and Plone

• MonitoringServers - guides on setting up monitoring servers such as MRTG, Nagios, Zabbix, etc..

Programming

• TextEditors - introductions to text editors such as gedit, vi, emacs, etc with help on setting up syntax highlighting, etc..

• DevelopmentEnvironments - guides on setting development environments such as Java, Mono, MATLAB, etc..

Graphical Environments

• AlternativeDesktops - brief descriptions of Kubuntu and Xubuntu with links to their main pages

OS Compatibility

• WindowsCompatibility - guides on setting up Windows Compatible environments such as Wine, Cedega and CrossoverOffice

• VMWare - description of VMWare's capabilities and links to the VMWare docs that are available
• Qemu and kqemu

CategoryDocteam