Proposal for "Maemo School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Quim Gil very kindly offered to host the Tablet School on maemo.org as a separate section, I was very honoured by this but for various reasons didn't want to do it (they're detailed in other threads, no need to discuss it here).

Anyway, it just struck me how this could actually be an opportunity to do something similar but slightly different: a Maemo School where every aspect of the interface and third party applications could be covered, with contributions from anyone who wants to make them.

You might be saying "hey we've already got that, it's the Wiki!" but the Wiki has a rather anarchic non-standard nature which is difficult for newcomers to navigate. Also, some of the instructions assume both technical knowledge and a good knowledge of english too.

Here's what I'm proposing in detail:

A Maemo School to carry on what the Internet Tablet School did.

Everyone could contribute, as long as their content fits the criteria (see list below). All Maemo topics are welcome.

Here's the important part: It would be 100% video, with no text at all except perhaps a title. Videos could be hosted on any free Flash video service, Nokia have their own called Ovi Share, but YouTube would probably be the best in terms of getting the word out to new people.

It would be hosted on maemo.org using a format similar to the Downloads section, with "freshest" and "most visited" charts etc. There would be categories for tutorials, and comments for each video on maemo.org itself (so that the comments aren't lost if the video is updated or moved to another hosting service).

The reason I think this would work is that if you want to show someone how to do something, doing a video of you actually doing that task on your tablet is the clearest and most elegant form of tutorial. It also proves that your method of doing something works.

A 100% video-based tutorial site would at a stroke remove any need for prior knowledge, and you wouldn't need to understand english either as the same options would be in the same places in other languages.

A Maemo School admin or admins could be responsible for approving and categorising videos, contributors would upload videos to their own YouTube (or whatever) accounts and then submit the URLs of those videos through a form on the Maemo School site for consideration. If the video passes some basic standards (see below) a Maemo School admin would categorise the video and embed it into the Maemo School section. Below the embedded video would be its creator's name and a link to the creator's website, so that they get the credit for their labours.

If a video fails quality control, the Maemo School admin(s) should let the user know exactly what needs to be fixed, referring to which rules (see below) the video broke.

The reason I'd suggest a central quality control system and index page is to make it easy for newbies to find the good stuff. If a video is poorly done (see below), or incorrectly categorised, there's a danger of such a site turning into an inaccessible mess.

From my experience with the Internet Tablet School I have come up with a list of criteria that instructional videos should fulfil (these are basically what I thought about when doing my own videos, along with one or two new things):

1. Device should be shot with a steady camera from directly above, or as near as possible, with the camera zoomed in to give a full view of the screen. Zoom in as close as you can without losing focus. A tripod or equivalent should be used if possible, it makes life much easier. Note that some device screens look better than others when zoomed in, try several devices if you can.

2. Ideally, a device used in a tutorial video should have a fresh install of the latest firmware to remove any possibility of add-ons interfering with the device's default behaviour. A device in a tutorial has to be as close as possible to what someone would see when they switch their Maemo device on for the first time.

3. No text, just let the video do the talking. However, there can be a brief text title screen to say exactly what you're doing. The title should explain what you're going to show in it (e.g. "How to install an app from maemo.org's downloads section"), and also say which device(s) the tutorial applies to (for example the Tablet School tutorials generally applied to the Nokia N800 and N810, but a few only applied to one of these).

4. Start on the home screen, with applets laid out as they would be on a brand new tablet.

5. Do not skip anything! Show the tutorial's topic in its entirity from start to finish. One exception might be a long download, but even then the beginning and end of the download should be shown, with only the progress bar's journey cut out.

6. If you mess something up, start all over again, don't show it in the video. I had to do this quite a few times on the ITS... ;-)

7. Sound is up to you, have sound if you want: talk politely, mute it, or dub it over with some music. Jamendo.com is a very good source of high quality Creative Commons music, but remember to give the artist credit at the end of the video (name of artist and name of track). If you do use music try to use something calm and relaxing.

8. GO SLOWLY! Don't rush through steps, make sure you do them pretty slowly so that people can follow what you're doing without having to pause.

9. Make the video as high quality as possible, so that the texts on the screen can be read. If the device screen looks fuzzy on camera, try adjusting the device's brightness until it looks sharper.

10. Show GUI methods wherever possible, because these will be easier to follow on the video and easier for newcomers to remember. Command line stuff might be okay if there's no GUI alternative, but make sure people can see exactly what you're typing in the video, and go slowly so they get a chance to read it.

11. If you have a choice of devices, use the one that looks clearest on camera. I usually used the N800 for the Tablet School videos as its screen looked clearest on my camera, but different people may have different experiences on their cameras and devices.

12. If you have no choice but to break one of the above rules, explain why in your submission form on the Maemo School site.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'd like to hear some suggestions and feedback in this thread on how these criteria could be altered or added to.

Also, feedback about the idea in general would be welcome.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

And also, maybe there could be a "tutorial of the week/month" contest, possibly with a small prize (are you reading this Nokia, hint hint ;-) ), to encourage people to submit videos.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Interesting idea, I like the concepts... one thing that stands out right off the bat though for me is if it's going to be all video, we should try and make some recommendations on the best way to do video walk-throughs. For example, you've got several points there describing how to get the best video quality, how to make sure things are always in focus, use a default firmware install whenever possible, etc. Personally if I was to do some demos for this type of thing I would use x11Vnc in combination with something like Adobe Captivate:
http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/
Now, not saying that everyone should go out and buy that software, but the whole point is that rather than "shooting a video", Captivate allows you to make a dynamic animation or video of your screen, along with comments and things describing what you're doing after the fact. Now if somebody could suggest an open source app that does relatively the same thing then I think that would be a much, much better way to go as it eliminates many of the "gotchas" you describe while at the same time. Again, viability here varies, as really it makes more sense to have somebody like a "debmaster" be "tutorial master" to help get people who want to contribute to figure out how the best ways to go about it are (but not have to be responsible for doing all the work themselves of course!), but that might not be entirely possible... even if we just had a group of people who had done a few and were willing to volunteer from time to time to make up these tuts to demonstrate things that others suggested I think that would help with the consistency factor...

Bringing up my second point there... to be successful I think there'd need to be a very easy and open way of users requesting walkthroughs for things not covered. I write for a web developer community website, and one of our biggest draws for users is that we actively spend time in the forums asking "what else do you guys want to learn?", in addition to showing off the cool things we do on our own. I think that would go a long way to helping make the Maemo experience far beyond any other mobile platform out there...

Just my thoughts anyways!

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Picking up on joloius' idea, a quick Google of "Free Screencast Software" revealed: http://camstudio.org/

Worth a try?

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Jing is pretty great.

Tim

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

One problem with screencast is that you can't see the cursor which happens to be your finger or stylus.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Jolouis, interesting idea about video alternatives, but are you suggesting that people wouldn't actually film their devices being used?

What I worry about with non-video tutorials is that people won't be clear and/or accurate because they're not actually doing the task on camera directly. I often made mistakes in the text of my tutorials because the link between what I wrote and what I did wasn't a direct one.

I never made a mistake in the videos, because the videos were an exact recording of reality, and if I messed something up I had to shoot it again. Video is a great way of making you do something correctly.

Regarding annotations, the main things I'm trying to get away from are notes being added to tutorials because text will tend to assume prior knowledge, whereas the direct video of something actually being done is much more explicit about what you have to do. By forcing people to do videos instead of text, it would force people to be totally specific about how to do something, and remove the possibility of misunderstandings.


Regarding user suggestions for tutorial topics, there was some method of consumer feedback suggested ages ago, it was an open source equivalent to the uservoice.com site but I can't remember what it was called. Anyway, if you go to uservoice.com you'll see what I'm talking about. That system could perhaps do what jolouis is calling for, as it would let people suggest ideas for new tutorials and vote on other people's suggestions too.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

My point would be that if you're trying to film taking an action on the tablet, something like a screen-cast makes more sense in terms of clarity than doing an actual "camera pointed at me using the tablet" approach. Obviously there are some things where it won't work (demonstrating how to do a video chat for example makes much more sense by seeing what you're physically doing along with what's happening on the software side of things), but for a lot of topics (how to install different types of software, how to change options, etc) it's much better as you don't have to worry about compression in the video destroying the clarity of your shots (and nobody really needs to see you holding the tablet for those types of demos). A screencast is still the same as with video... if you screw it up or do something stupid, you'll have to redo it. And you don't have to put written comments or annotations in, but some software gives you the option to that's all. To the user it'll still look just like a video, but a lot easier to see ;o) It was just a thought anyways... mikkov brings up a good point about the lack of cursor, but I'm sure we could find some creative ways to work around that (not sure about camstudio or Jing, but in Captivate you can have the app add extra graphics to show your cursor or emphasize when you click on things, etc).

The uservoice thing looks pretty neat, though I mean it doesn't have to be technically complicated; it could be something as simple as an extra forum where users can post up requests for tuts or get directed to the ones they're after; whatever works best as long as the mechanism is in place and the users can easily be directed to it is what matters.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

I haven't used screencast so maybe I was being a bit hasty. When it comes down to it, any technique which records your actions on the device accurately, and which can display these actions clearly to others, should be suitable for doing tutorials with.

I mentioned the uservoice thing because maemo.org is supposed to be doing something like that anyway, but yeah a simple forum (maybe on ITT) could be enough.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

I still think it's a good idea and actually I like a lot your video/screencast only approach.

Note that between the day we talked and today one important change has happened: now the initiative on anything happening around maemo.org relies on the community, specifically the council. If the maemo.org development team and them like the idea it's all about organizing it in sprints, or something like that.

Why Video?
 

May I ask, why use video for this? Or, to make question more general, why is everyone so obsessed with these jerky, stuttery, smeary internet videos that show barely recognizable geeks with gadgets in badly lit settings?

To add insult to the injury, Flash videos do not even show well on Nokia tablets and having 3-4 of them inlined brings MicroB to its knees.

So, can I suggest that you use normal screenshots and text instead? This will let readers freely browse through lessons (not possible with videos). The readers will also be able to recognize taught UI elements (barely possible with internet videos) and won't need to wait for the video to download over a shaky connection. Finally, with text you can organize your lessons hierarchically use hyperlinks, and have a table of contents. All this is not possible with internet videos.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

All in all I think fms has some very good points here.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

I suggest to consider the following option:

1) Use the SDK to show the demo.
2) Record the X11 data with something like pyrecordmydesktop.

This creates the best quality of video without depending on a steady camera with light influence and mirroring and fingers/stylus in the way and so on.

You could even embed this video inside a picture of a N8x0. Heck, you could even let the user specify which device they have and this is used to show the device background picture (for example, a N800 with embedded Flash video).

The issue is here that some hacks require hardware fiddling (pressing hardware button, for example). For this I don't have a solution. But for purely software related things this would work well.

You could also change your mouse pointer icon to a stylus or a finger.

Omiting any text is not good IMO. You could use voice as feedback with the video, but some people are not native English speakers. Give them, besides the voice, also the text (transcript) of the sound. This is also useful for archiving reasons, and a quick look through for an outsider. The text could be hidden by default and become visible using JS.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

I think video and screencasts are a great core idea. No stop energy should be thrown on that. If someone feels like doing more or else, go ahead.

Re: Why Video?
 

This was one of the biggest reasons that I was thinking screen casts instead of "video"; you want to show somebody how to use their device in a mainstream kind of way... and as much as we all love to admire each other, I think taking the "hey here's me using my tablet" out of the equation helps give these tutorials a much more polished and professional appearance (at the end of the day you want people to feel like what's being demonstrated will actually be easy and effective for them to do... people generally don't get that impression when they watch shady videos of tech savvy people "working the internet magic". No offense to Krisse of course (those videos were great!), but I honestly don't see everyone involved making their videos as clean and polished as the tablet school ones were, even if the guidelines are in place.)

When it's all said and done, I think the best approach would be a combination of written and video. The suggestion I have would be people do a detailed write up of how to do something (using table of content if you want/or a common format, whatever). That "rough tutorial" then gets submitted up to the forum/feedback place/proposal area, where somebody (community member, council person, somebody who dreams about Maemo at night, etc) can jump on, claim it as "their edit", and use the SDK and screen casting software to try it out as written. If it all works, then they save the video, add it to the tutorial and the whole shebang gets put up and online. If it doesn't work as expected or there's some confusion then the person doing the "trial run" emails/posts back to the original author that changes or clarification is required, and the process continues.

It's a good open check/balance setup that results in 1) everyone can contribute tuts, whether you know how to do video and screen casts or not 2) tuts are of higher quality because there's now a "quality control" type of process involved 3) tuts are written but always include the option of a video demo showing how things should work, without requiring any real extra effort (somebody completely new should always try your tut first anyways, so if they happen to be recording their efforts at the time...). Anyways again just my two cents, but that's very similiar to the editing process I've gone through when writing articles and chapters for web-related magazines and books, and it works very, very well.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

And such animations do not really need to be played in flash. They can just be encoded into a traditional animated .gif and inlined into an html page (as long as they are reasonably short and few of course).

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

complete agree! .gif is also for this purpose.:D

Re: Why Video?
 

BTW, just realised... the upcoming devices have TV Out, don't they?

Well TV Out is extremely easy to record directly onto a computer, you just need a $20 adaptor that plugs into the USB port and the right software (which usually comes with the adaptor). You can also record TV Out onto many brands of DVD and HDD recorders, then transfer the video file onto your PC.

I've done lots of TV Out videos from Symbian devices, they are very very very very easy to shoot at perfect clarity, and even the worst film-maker would be able to make something that is clear and professional-looking. You don't need any professional software or skills, and even simple free editors like Windows Movie Maker are good enough to edit and process TV Out footage into a form that can be uploaded to YouTube.

On top of that, I think someone said mouse support is on the way? That would possibly allow pointers to be visible in TV Out recordings.


I gave lots of reasons in my original post, but I'll repeat them:

-Videos by definition show a method ACTUALLY working. Text tutorials often contain mistakes, or methods which should work in theory but don't in real life.

-People who write tutorials often leave stuff out, or write stuff unclearly. That can't happen with videos.

-Videos of a GUI in use are easy to understand in any language, increasing the global appeal of maemo. Even if text labels are different on different language settings, they are in the same place in every language so people can easily see where they should click even if they don't speak english. The tablets come with lots of language options, not everyone uses them in english.

-Videos do not assume any prior knowledge, so they're much more accessible to newbies. For example if you see someone actually clicking on the contacts icon, you don't need to know what "contacts icon" means. This also relates to the point about language above, as technical terms may be totally different in different languages.


None of my tablet school videos are like that.

I spent a lot of time and effort on making my videos as clear and well-shot as possible, and if other people could follow the same simple rules for making videos for Maemo School then it could become a very useful resource indeed.

Or, if the new devices have it, they could record from TV Out which requires virtually no effort at all, and produces a picture that has almost perfect clarity. If TV Out is available it could solve almost all of the potential quality problems.


Firstly, I don't think most people would watch them on the actual tablet. The vast majority of people who use Tablet School are watching the videos on a desktop computer, I know that from the screen resolutions in my visitor logs.

The reason for this is probably that if you watch the videos on the tablet itself, it's impossible to actually do what the tutorial is suggesting because the tablet is already in use.

But even so, I don't think Flash video will be a problem on the next device, and even the Mer update for current hardware may make things better too.

My 5800 displays Flash video (including YouTube) without any problems, and it has a slower processor and less RAM than the N8X0, so the raw hardware power clearly isn't an issue.


People who want to do that can do it in the Wiki.

I don't think it is a good way of making tutorials suitable for beginners though, for all the reasons I gave in my original post.


You can browse through videos in the index page. I suggested in my original post that there would be an index for the videos just like the current index for downloads.


You clearly haven't watched any of my Tablet School videos. Every single UI element is visible in my vids, I went to great lengths to make sure the UI is totally visible.


If you're the kind of person who has an internet tablet, I should think it's almost certain that you have a broadband connection of at least 256k or more, which is fast enough for a standard quality YouTube video. The percentage of tablet users without a 256k+ connection must be very very small.


You can have a table of contents with ANY media type, you just need to embed content on web pages which are organised into an index. I talked about all this in my original post...

And you can use hyperliks with videos if you host it on (for example) YouTube, and you can add notations too. I don't think such things are useful in a beginner's tutorial, but they are possible.

Re: Why Video?
 

Well, this is up to the tutorial author to fix. Learning how to make GOOD tutorials does not look like a fundamental problem to me.

An animated screenshot will work just as well.

When saying that YouTube videos are smeared, jerky, and barely recognizable, I am not blaming you for making them this way. All these qualities are due to the media format itself, not to the author. It is the media format I suggest changing, not the author :)

While you can browse through a list of videos, you cannot easily browse inside a video due to its sequential nature (i.e. one frame at a time).

Oh yes, except that the last hop of that connection is WiFi, whose reception varies depending on where in the house you are.

Again, you can obviously have an index of videos, having an index of a single video contents is more problematic.

Anyways, I am not persuaded that one should use videos for computer tutorials, especially considering the quality limitations of these Flash videos. Maybe go with animated images aka "screencasts"?

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

When is it going live very very good idea the tablet school tutorials did help me alot am waiting to see more especially with the to be announced device many questions could be answered with a single video tutorial.

Re: Why Video?
 

If people want to do text tutorials, do them. Contribute to the wiki. There's nothing to stop people doing them right now.

I don't want to do text tutorials for the reasons given. My tutorials would be video-based.

Let's do both, and see which ones people actually use more.


The author won't necessarily understand that there IS anything to fix, because they will assume too much prior knowledge, or they will use terms which they understand but others don't.

That's one of the problems on the Wiki, some of the instructions don't really mean much to beginners.

For example if you say "become root" it is meaningless to beginners, but means something to experienced users. If you actually show the same process on a video, it means something to everyone because everyone can see how it works.

Text tutorials also have the problem of language, which wouldn't be the case with videos.

Videos are a good idea because they directly show the actual method of doing something, instead of just describing the method. If you can see something actually done, that means everyone with a similar device can copy it whether they understand the text or not.


I think YouTube is good enough. If you have a look at my YouTube channel I don't think any of these videos are smeared, jerky or barely recognisable:

http://www.youtube.com/tabletschool/


If the tutorial only covers one topic, why would you want to browse inside it one frame at a time?

And if you want to examine a particular video frame you can always press the pause button.

Browsing isn't really that useful in a single tutorial though. For example if there's a tutorial showing how to set up a Gmail account, why would a beginner want to browse through it non-sequentially?


Why would someone buy an internet tablet if they don't have reliable access to at least a 256k connection?


If a single video only covers one single task then there's not really any need for an index within it. These videos would only be a few minutes long each.

If you have separate tasks you would do them as separate videos.


Take a look at my Youtube channel. None of these have problems with quality.

And if the new devices have TV Out, quality would be even better because the video would be being recorded directly from the device.

Re: Why Video?
 

I looked at your videos and found exactly what I expected to find - they are normal web quality videos. Again, it is not that they have problems with quality relative to other web videos. The problem is that what is known as "web quality video" is barely usable and uncomfortable to look at. For reference, compare it with a normal NTSC or PAL TV broadcast by scaling your web video to fill a 32" display.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Maybe a poll would be in order? I mean debating back and forth video VS text is one thing (personally I still think the methodolgy I proposed makes the most sense as you get the best of both worlds plus some good feedback mechanisms, but again that's just me... I don't pretend to know best), but at the end of they day it comes down to the community in two ways: 1) Newbies are going to know best which way they prefer to learn and 2) Community members, who are going to presumably be the ones contributing these tutorials, are going to know what's most viable for them to be effective. As the thread has shown, there are a few options for doing good clear quality screen capture/videos; these options of course require more effort and introduce a larger possibility for discrepencies/differences in quality/format/etc than straight text... as well as more difficulty in maintenance (i.e. it's easier to update part of a written tutorial to accommodate for changes in OS/software; with video, you need two different videos). Anyways, again either way I think it should be put to poll and let the masses decide which way is best; after all, that's the whole point of this Maemo community thing right? (unless there's a "communist" dictator lurking around the corner that I'm not aware of!)

Re: Why Video?
 

No, because we're not being forced to choose between two things.

If people want to do text and diagrams they can already do so on the Wiki.

What I'm proposing is an alternative and separate set of tutorials, using video only.

If we have both methods in use, then we would have the best of both worlds.


Which masses are you talking about?

The point of my tutorials would be to appeal to beginners who don't currently use Maemo.

The only people who would vote in a poll would be those who already use Maemo, i.e. not the people that the videos would be aimed at.


Which video specifically is "barely usable"?



Why on earth would you want to watch these videos at full scale on a 32" screen?

If you can't see the text in the video in its native size, then you can't possibly see the text on an internet tablet either.

Re: Why Video?
 

You seem to be implying that this is not possible to do in a video (which I don't agree with), and that this is unfixable in a wiki (which I also don't agree with).

That's why articles link to the the root access article when they mention root access. None of the problems you have with the wiki are insurmountable, and I can't say I love the idea of people running off to create duplicate tutorials elsewhere on the site.

Why not instead of doing your own little thing over there come out and help with the wiki over here. There's no need for the videos to be separate. Why not, instead, take wiki articles and create videos to go with them? Then we can embed a link to the video on YouTube on wherever at the top of every page that has one.

Then you've got a text method for people that prefer it and a video method for people who prefer that, and if the videographer is following along with they text, they may be able to spot those missing or assumed steps and improve the text article while they're creating a video.

Or if somebody creates a video, then they simply slap it on a new page and either add text steps themselves or wait for somebody else to do it.

This combines the documentation efforts and keeps them in a single location. A win-win for everybody.

Concrete proposal
 

I suppose one important question is are you suggesting that this be done, or are you looking for support for something you want to (re-)start doing?

If you want to start creating tutorials, app review videos etc. again then that's fantastic.

I like the idea of a downloads-style "fresh"/"hot" and potentially voting. Suggested approach:

• Videos get created and put on YouTube, in a particular channel (as you did with tablet school)
• A wiki page gets created in a particular category, embedding the video with a boilerplate template.
• Anyone can come along and comment on the video (on the "discussion" page)
• Anyone can come along and transcribe the video into text.
• We can do some simple RSS feeds/MediaWiki plugins for pulling out the highest rated/most viewed/newest videos on the channel, and create an index page to the wiki category.

Is this a compromise which destroys the concept, or a tangible proposition we can get around which doesn't require developing a whole new infrastructure (or, god forbid, a new midgard module ;-))

Are you thinking that the Maemo 5 lead device might be popular and this might be needed? Earlier, though, you said that video wasn't a problem because all Maemo users would have broadband. If it's for the large influx of users expected with the Maemo 5 devices, that may not hold true much longer.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Could somebody post a video explaining how to set my mytube app to play porntube instead?

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Okay, well, obviously my suggestion isn't popular with everyone. :-)

How about this as an alternative proposal?

-Maemo School section using the same basic format as the Downloads section, including a category-based index (with different categories to downloads of course).

-Anyone can contribute a tutorial on any Maemo topic, or on topics related to hardware which runs the Maemo platform.

-Tutorials can be using any method (video, text, animations) but it must be viewable on the website, i.e. it must not require a download or any link clicking.

-All tutorials subject to quality checking and feedback process from Maemo School admins. They can reject a tutorial if they want to, but if they do so they must give instructions on how the tutorial could be made acceptable for inclusion.

-Tutorials covering the same topic from different angles could be merged onto one page by admins (for example a video tutorial could be embedded with a text tutorial covering the same topic)

-Choice of school admin(s) would have to be done by some kind of community process.

...I think that would be simpler and less controversial, but the quality control process could help it avoid the problems the wiki has had in being unstructured and inconsistent.

Those who want unfiltered help could still use the wiki, while those who want a more filtered experience could use the Maemo School section.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Basically agree, although you probably do not need the index to be as elaborate as the one in Downloads.

At this point, I think it is more practical to ask for volunteers, and leave emergency moderation privileges to the Council and/or yourself.

I 100% agree on the rest.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

I can do the admin if people are okay with that. I'd be applying similar rules to what I used on the tablet school site.

Obviously if it takes off, or if there's disagreement over something, it would be useful to have more than one admin, but I can certainly do it to start with.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

You guys make it so complicated! How about this:

Anyone who feels like making an instructional video just goes ahead and does it. Use whatever equipment, style or format you like. Then post it to YouTube.

People will link to the good videos, and the crappy ones will soon be forgotten.

How bureaucratic does it need to be?

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

That makes it very easy for the person doing the video, but very difficult for the person trying to find the video. Where should new users go to look for links?

The point of a central site hosted on maemo.org is to make it easier to find useful tutorials related to Maemo through a single categorised index.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Krisse, I am happy to see you around again as an advocate for ordinary users. I am sure people will find any future video tutorials and that they will be helpful no matter whether they are hosted on maemo.org or somewhere else. Your understanding of the need to explain in basic terms are spot on, IMHO. I also hope that someday there will be video tutorials on Mer (when it becomes user friendly).

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Completely agree with the revised proposal, as it keeps the same original principles but just opens up the formatting a little to make it a little more open to everyone who wants to contribute, while still being fairly managed/maintained/ordered. As pointed out, the biggest problem with the Wiki is that it's a big confusing mess.

I'm waiting for GA to jump in as usual and say "Why bother with this, let;s just clean up the wiki and make it better", but I think Krisse's point remains very valid; the wiki is not, and by it's very nature can't, be an open gateway to new users. That's like saying "Okay here you can learn everything you need to know to live in city X by reading the encylopedia"; sure there's lots of good information there, and it's probably something that when you get comfortable you'll go back and check out when looking for specific things, but it's not a "newbie oriented experience" by any stretch; I think the proposed section would act as a nice bridge to get people from "Whoa tablet thingy?" to the point where they might start looking at the Wiki for more advanced/nitty gritty figure it out based on information rather than a walk through approach.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

The answer to the wiki issue is to just have both systems running separately. Both would have their advantages, so why not offer both and give users a choice of which to use?

There's no need to choose between the wiki or maemo school, they could both operate alongside each other.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Google. Same way they would find Maemo User School. Or if they've already found Maemo.org*, there can be some links from there to the best videos. No need to have rules about camera angles, software tools, etc.

Regards,
Roger

*domain names are case-insensitive

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

The wiki is a technology which allows arbitrary users to enhance (textual) content. See my proposal (in whatever post it was): use the wiki as an enabling technology with a whizzy index page doing exactly what you want.

There wouldn't be the reticence over the technical detail being implemented as a midgard module, and using the wiki allows a text based version of the tutorial to be posted under the video, and enhanced as errors/omissions are found.

As others have said, the workflow process is unnecessary - and anything which is too hideous can be decategoried and removed from the index whilst it is cleaned up.

Don't confuse technology (wiki & YouTube) from presenatation mechanism.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

That depends on the tutorials being out there, and the videos being in existence, but they're not.

AFAIK the Tablet School site was the only one that did any step-by-step tutorials for how to use Nokia tablets.

If you search youtube for nokia n810 you get about 500 videos, and the only tutorials in those results are Tablet School ones.


I know what a wiki is, I write for a technology site. :-)

By "the wiki" I mean the link that used to be at the top of the ITT forums, not quite sure where the link has gone now though.

I'm suggesting more than just an index page, I'm suggesting a quality control system so that we don't end up with an unwieldy mess.

If you allow everyone to contribute freely with no filtering process, you end up with what the wiki (i.e. the one linked to from ITT) is now: lots of great info for experienced people, but pretty useless for someone who is new to the platform.

If you mean a closed wiki, where only admins would be able to edit stuff, then that would be fine, but I don't see the advantage of such a technology over whatever is currently used in the download section.


Who are these other people?

How many of them have set up a site aimed at Maemo beginners?

How many of them have written a tutorial aimed at Maemo beginners?

People say they liked the Tablet School site, but as soon as I suggest using the same methods for a tutorial section on maemo.org, they say they're unnecessary.

If people want something like Tablet School on maemo.org, it HAS to have a quality control system where a central person or persons oversees the style and usefulness of contributions.

If someone has a better alternative do it, but so far it looks like I'm the only person even trying to do tutorials for maemo beginners.

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Do you? Because from where I'm sitting your justifications for not using the wiki don't make much sense.

So, basically, in all of your anti-wiki campaigning you never really understood which wiki we were all talking about (hint, it's not and was never the itT wiki)?

This is exactly what a wiki provides. There are at least a half-dozen people who review all new content on the wiki daily, but the benefit here is that you aren't unnecessarily limiting your potential content (nor potential help in cleaning up existing articles).

No, you end up with info that users are interested in contributing. As the wiki is largely made up of experienced users who are used to answering experienced-user questions, this is what it's composed of. If, however, you were to get more people interesting in answering very basic questions, then the wiki content makeup would change.

And if you route newbies through appropriate indexes, they'll never once have to see anything that might hurt them, either.

A closed wiki is really no wiki at all (CMS is really a better term). I don't see the advantage of duplicating our documentation to two separate places and I really don't much care for the gate-keeping game on maemo.org.

Because we already have a documentation infrastructure. There's no reason to trash that whole thing and spend time and effort creating another Midgard module for a separate Tablet School section. We have a wiki which meets all the technical requirements (even the ones I wholly disagree with).

. . . and the wiki has exactly that (see the Mer page). If it really came down to it, the index page could be limited to people in the "tabletschool" group (although I'm am very against the idea).

Re: Proposal for "Maemo User School" hosted on maemo.org to replace Tablet School
 

Sure, but I recommend you to go ahead and agree with... all the people that will be there working with you.

For instance, you don't need to agree with me since I know I will be busy on other things in the Maemo community, hopefully just as useful as this promising project.