Self-Introduction - openSUSE Community Assistant

[rhorstkoetter]

Hi,

please let me introduce myself. My name is Rupert, I'm 28 and I'm
currently on the home stretch of studying business administration and
electrical engineering at Darmstadt University of Technology.

I've been involved with the openSUSE Project for several years. I
served as the Project Manager of the openSUSE Forums Merge, I
initiated the openSUSE Forums section at the openSUSE Weekly
Newsletter and I contributed as a moderator at the openSUSE Forums to
the openSUSE community. I was employed twice at Novell/SUSE - as an
Intern in Product Management in 2007/2008 and as a Workstudent for
Community Architecture in 2008/2009.

As of the 1st of October 2009, I'm sponsored by open-slx.com to work
for the openSUSE Project as openSUSE Community Assistant. I'm really
looking forward to collaborate with several openSUSE teams on
improving openSUSE documentation and community resources - namely the
openSUSE wiki, the openSUSE Forums, the SDB and other support
information for openSUSE.

My current focus is to work on a concept for the openSUSE wiki to
improve the content quality, to enhance its usability and to improve
its maintainability.

Have a lot of fun!
Rupert

[swerdna]

Hey Rupert -- welcome back.

Good to hear that your talents and efforts are directed again where they can keep on doing good ==> openSUSE

[hcvv]

Hallo Rupert,

Wish you all the best in your task of improving the documentation about our beloved openSUSE. Much needed imho.

Wünsche alles Gute,

[Knurpht]

Hi Rupert,

Welcome back. IMHO the wiki is a part that deserves more attention (a lot that should be in the wiki now appears in the forums on a regular basis, i.e. wireless/graphics drivers and config etc). If you need refelections on your work or thoughts you know where to find us.........

[oldcpu]

Hi Rupert,

Welcome back ! The wiki is a big task !

My four major concerns on the wiki are:

• out of date wiki can be distracting because they are (a) often not kept up to date, and (b) often not labelled as being applicable to an older version, when in fact they are only applicable to an older version, and (c) an old version can give a superficial false sense that a technical aspect is covered for a current openSUSE, when in fact after reading the wiki one learns the technical aspect is not covered because the wiki is so out of date
• the summary page/indexing from a top level, to lower wiki levels needs work. Its hard, especially for new users, to find a wiki addressing their problems. In my case I simply do a google-search for "openSUSE wiki <technical-term> " which works most of the time, but that sort of search appears not to occur to most new users;
• the wiki edit capabilities require a knowledge of wiki syntax that puts off a large percent (my guess is 80%) of the potential contributors. In fact, maybe we should do a poll on our forum, asking if the openSUSE wiki syntax discourages users from contributing with openSUSE solutions or tips/tricks ( ... let me ponder this and I can come up with a poll .... )
• wiki guidelines need to be put in place in such a manner that it does not discourage contributions

And finally, most important, if you are still in Darmstadt, what are you doing on 12-Nov-2009? If still in Darmstadt, are you up to go for a drink and celebrate openSUSE-11.2 GM release ? PM or email me if this is a possiblity? [ ... and is anyone else in Darmstadt on that date ? ... ]

[rhorstkoetter]

Lee,

the wiki indeed is a big task. I'm already working on a concept to improve its content quality, its usability and maintainability though. Your ideas are certainly very welcome here. What about subscribing to the wiki mailinglist to join the discussion? I'll present my concept proposal there later today and I'd appreciate your participation very much.

As of the specific points you mentioned, I'm on the same page here and my proposal already tries to address most of your concerns, i.e. the search capabilities, the categorisation and thus organization of the content. Also the mentioned Guidelines are part of my proposal. From a long term perspective, a poll is a great idea to get an impression of community's perspective - I'll come back to you later on, thanks.

Meeting each other on the 12th of November in Darmstadt (yes, I'm still here) sounds great. I mean, it has been some time already and it always was a lot of fun! Let's sync via PM/email as proposed!

Best,
Rupert

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by rhorstkoetter

What about subscribing to the wiki mailinglist to join the discussion? I'll present my concept proposal there later today and I'd appreciate your participation very much.

Hi Rupert,

As the mods/admins on our forum well know, in particular I am very very bad at not watching mailing lists. Years ago I used to subscribe to mailing lists, and then a day came when I stated NO more, and I stopped. Instead, I now participate in the forums and occasionally on IRC chat.

My not participating in the mailing lists is pretty much a symptom of the pet peeve of a somewhat stubborn old man.

BUT, it has been pointed out many times, that the openSUSE mailing lists are where one can get a better feel for the "pulse" of various aspects of the openSUSE community management. Our forum membership is large, but we are out on the fringe of the dynamic part of the openSUSE Linux community, and I believe it is in the mailing lists where one can more closely observe the aspects that shapes the openSUSE direction. ... it is there were there are more influences on its course.

I confess I subscribe to two mailing lists now:

• Dell Linux mailing list - mostly disatisified Ubuntu users who are either looking for help, or who want to rant at Dell because their Ubuntu does not work. I subscribe because I have a new Dell Studio 1537 laptop, and I typically answer the very rare openSUSE question that pops up on that list, and
• Packman mailing list - I recently subscribed to this. I found it helped me come up to speed quicker on any Packman packager packaging problems - as typically there is a notification there of any such problems.

I supposed I could subscribe for a brief time to the wiki mailing list, ... more on a "lurker" basis than an active basis. Time is of a premium in today's world of massive information saturation, and my time is limited. I decided earlier today that I would not participate in the local chess championship (for our organization and the larger one across the road in the same technical field) due to a lack of time. I could not afford the comittment of 1 chess game (after work) per week for the next six weeks. And I'm still struggling to keep up my French language lessons. (and I still can't speak French, but my "baby talk" (in French) has improved a bit )

When I get home tonight, I see about subscribing to the openSUSE wiki mailing list using my moderator openSUSE email address. I believe the subscription instructions are on this page: Communicate/Mailinglists - openSUSE

I'm looking forward to November 12th.

[hendersj]

On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:36:01 +0000, rhorstkoetter wrote:

> What about subscribing to the wiki
> mailinglist to join the discussion?

Rupert, is the wiki mailing list on gmane? Like Lee, I find it difficult
to use mailing lists, but using gmane, I can subscribe to the list as if
it were a newsgroup (and use the same software I use here), which makes
it much easier. That's how I participate in the project and user mailing
lists as well.

If it's not on gmane, perhaps we could get it added. :-)

Jim
--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator

[rhorstkoetter]

@Lee
While I understand your point of view, I started the discussion at the wiki ML as this is the usual communication medium of the wiki team. To avoid a split of the discussion it makes not too much sense to start another one in parallel at forums.o.o from my perspective (while I myself would prefer the forums as a communication medium as well btw). That said Communicate/Mailinglists - openSUSE is the right place to find the subscription information, yes.

@hendersj
To my knowledge, opensuse-wiki [at] opensuse.org isn't available via Gmame/NNTP (yet). The responsible person for the MLs at SUSE is unfortunately on vacation until monday. Once he's back, I'll trigger him to ask if it's possible to introduce the list to Gmame though - sorry for the inconvenience.

@all
The archive of the discussion (for those not subscribed yet but interested to participate) is available at [opensuse-wiki] Concept Proposal for the openSUSE wiki

HTH,
Rupert

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by rhorstkoetter

@Lee
While I understand your point of view, I started the discussion at the wiki ML as this is the usual communication medium of the wiki team. To avoid a split of the discussion it makes not too much sense to start another one in parallel at forums.o.o from my perspective (while I myself would prefer the forums as a communication medium as well btw). That said Communicate/Mailinglists - openSUSE is the right place to find the subscription information, yes.

OK, thanks.

Last night I took a rare night off openSUSE, and just curled up on the couch and read some chapters in a book. I decided I was being too cantankerous in my posts as of late, and had to remove myself a bit from posting. I may do something similar this weekend ... Monday is the celebration anniversary of the launch of one of our spacecraft, and we are being given the day off (trust me when I say its not often that happens). So its a long weekend for me. But since my wife has to work over the weekend, we are staying in Darmstadt.

Despite taking last night "OFF" , I did make the effort to subscribe to the wiki mailing list with my oldcpu at opensuse dash forums dot net account. I check that account for email daily.

A lot of work has gone into the wiki by the current wiki team, and I have my hat off to them for their efforts. There is a lot to do, and I believe they are trying hard. But the scale of the effort needed is over whelming. I know various members of the team have helped improve some of the wiki that I started, making them more in line with a uniform standard, and fixing a number of the links, where I applied a non-standard format.