Techbase has proven to be a great resource for the KDE community of developers, administrators and project coordinators. It didn't offer much of anything to users, however, and that was purposeful: Techbase was designed with a clear purpose in mind, and I believe that to be a significant reason why it has been as successful as it has been.
To fill the user gap, however, the Community Working Group (CWG) members have started work on a wiki driven site much like Techbase but designed specifically for user appropriate content. It is not meant to replace documentation, but rather to augment it and provide a working communications channel for the KDE community of users about KDE as it develops and progresses.
Anne Wilson and Juan Carlos Torres of the CWG have been working on getting content on the wiki, working towards a structure for the content, etc. It's a huge task, however, and now that they've started the work and have set a pace for their efforts it is time for other interested people to join up and help make this new resource the amazing place it needs to become. Two people can't do it on their own, but a few dozen surely can and I know for a fact we have way more than that number of interested, concerned users.
So without further ado, say hello to Userbase!
Remember it is in a very early state right now and not a finished product by any stretch of the imagination. You can help Userbase achieve greatness sooner by emailing the Community Working Group who is hosting the Userbase project efforts and start adding content to the wiki.
Update: I just found out that the log in system for Userbase is still under construction. Danimo and Pino informed me that they having implemented only OpenID based authentication for Userbase, but that it's not fully exposed yet. Assuming this goes well, Techbase will follow suit later. Good news on all fronts, really, but one more bit of "early days, not completely ready" to deal with on Userbase as authentication gets ironed out.
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I just copied the whole Plasma FAQ over to userbase, and hopefully more people will read it now.
Great stuff. I'll try help-out. I'm one of those many who hasn't quite got 'round to contributing to KDE is a useful way, this looks like a good place to start.
Do you think a stuff-that-needs-to-be-done-on-the-wiki wiki page would be a good idea? Maybe a table with "title"/ "status (nothing here/some content... /complete)" etc.
Perhaps there is one, I can't see one, I'll look closer.
This is soo cool! Thank you very much!
KDE is getting better and better nearly every day! Awe(and then)some!
Now I have so sell some Web 2.0 company so that I can get a few hundred million € to build a enterprise KGX distro ;)
The world wants one!
I would port Kiosktool etc. and pay armies of KDE hackers =)
I have to think bigger! I would buy Nokia and tell Nokias usability people to help Celeste & Co. In her talk she seemed like she could need some help XD
Thanks again!
*goes off building webpages for a web 2.0 company*
It was great to see the Plasma FAQ arriving. Hopefully it will be accompanied by translations soon.
That brings up one To-Do - it would be really nice to get some translations of other pages. Any volunteers?
If your project has pages hosted on techbase or your own project pages, why not drop in to #kde-www and chat about what you'd like to see on the page we make to link to you?
If you're not yet involved in any project, you can still help. The aim is to have every KDE application represented, with a short intro, some screenshots and links to project pages. Pick one of your favourite apps and show the world why you like it.
And before I forget - we are going to need some good artwork, once we are a bit better organised. All ideas welcome :-)
> all your userbase
... are belong to us? ;-)
KPDF entry is a blatant copy of kpdf.kde.org, besides the issue of "copyrihgt" i think it's BAD (tm) having the same information in two places, but oh well, if all userbases are belong to you, not much i can do
@Albert Astals Cid: "but oh well, if all userbases are belong to you, not much i can do"
i'm sure i don't have to explain collaborative development to you, but in case it was missed: that's why i'm raising awareness of Userbase ... so people can raise issues and contribute now rather than when it's deemed ready for prime time.
if i may make a suggestion, get in touch with the Userbase team and *ask* why they duplicated that content (questions are a really great way to start working on issues like this) and perhaps add some suggestions as to what you think might be better.
(as for copyright, i'm surprised you'd have an issue with one *.kde.org site using content from another.)
Thanks for calling me up to some manners, criticisng for the joy of criticising is not good teamwork.
So, apologies from my side, i probably sounded much more upset that i'm actually are.
Wouldn't knowledgebase be a better name for it than userbase? After all, the user base is the collective set of users of the product. And techbase is not named developerbase...
Techbase is mainly, though not exclusively, aimed at developers. It's probably also the place where advanced users may look for information. It's not the place where relatively new users will look for information though. I have been told many times that it's too scarey :-) 'Knowledgebase' is not descriptive enough of what Userbase aims to do. It really is concerned with user-centric information. At the moment it is mainly a launchpad for where to find more information about applications, but in time it will also have FAQs about applications - things that crop up on irc and MLs regularly. These also are not the stuff for techbase.
I've been using KDE for 7-8 years and never seen many of the project pages until now. Userbase will give more exposure to them, too, which should benefit all.
The term "knowledgebase" has a particular meaning. As well as a strong association with Microsoft.
Does this mean wiki.kde.org will eventually die? Just curious, since both groups, users and developers, are now covered by *bases.
@notriddle: That is the plan. As it stood wiki.kde.org suffered a lack of clear purpose and became a bit of a mishmash of user and developer related articles. Using w.k.o tended to be a tad confusing and was probably intimidating for new users.
The move to userbase is both a good chance to clear up existing content and an excuse to decide afresh how we want to present help docs to our new users.
It's getting there ;) Help where you can!
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