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Idea #5476: Better brainstorm guidelines, and better description of ubuntu team's process

bug This idea was marked as implemented the 19 January 09.
Written by Auzy the 23 Mar 08 at 08:40. Related project: brainstorm.ubuntu.com. Status: Implemented
Rationale
There are absolutely no guidelines at the moment on what makes a good idea. And theres many reasons we need them!

- People keep saying that we are barking up the wrong tree with coding ideas, because "Canonical doesn't do coding" or "canonical shouldn't be inventing new standards".
- We need to know if you want new project ideas, or just enchancement ideas.
- What are you expecting us to write in an idea. You should present examples of ideas, and the format you want us to write them in. And example format may be:
Title: Clear and concise. Mention affected programs if any
Description: Summary/idea, what happens now in the program, benefits of implementation, disadvantages of implementation, etc.
- Without an example, what are you expecting? We need a few examples! So that we know the best ways of doing things
- Should we be targetting certain programs only, do you want us to suggest new protocols, or are they outside the scope of brainstorm? Do you want us to suggest new standards? Without a clear specification of what the ubuntu team actually does, and what they dont do, we cant optimise the process.
- Are ideas posted upstream?
-Help us, help you by explaining why some ideas are particularly good
- Its Software Engineering 101, we are expected to submit random ideas, but we don't know enough about the ubuntu development teams to submit the best choices
- Outline coders strengths in the team. If you have many coders who are good with image processing, let us know, we will place an emphasis on image processing ideas
Tags: (none)

191
votes
implemented
Selected solution (#1): Auto-generated solution of idea #5476
Written by Auzy the 23 Mar 08 at 08:40.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #5476 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!

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Comments
Auzy wrote on the 23 Mar 08 at 08:40
Happy easter all.

blindvic wrote on the 23 Mar 08 at 16:07
I have an idea related somehow to this.
I don't want to put it separately because i am not sure how to describe it comprehensively.
There should be developed an infrastructure/framework for Ubuntu development. There should be some rules for Ubuntu not just for GNOME or KDE.
Someone said that Linux has a heap not a set of software. The efforts are not efficient. Many people are working on GNOME, KDE, X, Kernel... People are making modules for the whole system, but they do sometime things that are not necessary or are laready implemented.
If there could be a system (web-based) for tracking the whole Ubuntu development...
The infrastructure should help people easily understand where they can help. It should be easy for them to get inside the development process.
Well i am a amateur programmer, so maybe i don't understand how big software development is working now...
Maybe someone understands what i mean and can describe the idea in right way.

mafitzpatrick wrote on the 23 Mar 08 at 22:27
I think "Ubuntu doesn't do X" is a pretty poor excuse. Ubuntu is packaging the software together and releasing it as a product: if feedback identifies that there is a problem in a bit of it, that problem can't be ignored as "someone else's responsibility".

I think rather than limiting ideas on Brainstorm ("You can't talk about *that*") there needs to be some way of passing requests/bugs/etc. upstream to whoever does do it.

Thing is, I'm not sure if there is anyone "in charge" here? Who would be responsible for deciding at what point something was big enough for a bug to be tagged elsewhere? Can we all do it?

More information about the process would be very helpful. Thanks!

Auzy wrote on the 23 Mar 08 at 23:57
Yeah, all I want is more information patrick, we don't know enough about the process to know what ideas should be posted.

I posted this because someone said in a comment "all ideas are viewed by someone in charge", which there is NO evidence of, and not documented anywhere.


belovedmonster wrote on the 24 Mar 08 at 10:38
See also my idea about a Brainstorm blog by the developers.
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4717/

Basically I think people are starting to get fed up by the lack of any discourse. Here we are submitting and voting loads of ideas and we are not getting any sense that what we are doing is actually contributing to anything.

saivann (Brainstorm moderator) wrote on the 11 Apr 08 at 05:55
This is such a very great idea +1, I'll also send a mail about this to the ubuntu-qa team..

jiu wrote on the 12 Apr 08 at 04:33
I agree with the need for feedback from Canonical but I don't think Brainstorm should have any more guidelines, the whole idea of brainstorming is to be messy with as little guidelines as possible, and to have the best ideas stand out from the wisdom of the crowd. I think there is something about how are brains are wired that works better when few guidelines are used.

And I personally also resent all comments in the line of:
- Ubuntu doesn't do coding
- Brainstorm is not a place for bug reports, use Launchpad (although Launchpad should definitely be used, there is no reason why brainstorm should not be used too)
- this is never going to happen, don't even think about it.

I think it's a great tool, don't get me wrong. And a good way to get constructive feedback. People should just be a bit more relaxed about it.

saivann (Brainstorm moderator) wrote on the 19 Jan 09 at 17:31
This idea is now implemented and clearly visible when posting a new ideas and guidelines are well described in the help sections :

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/faq/

These guidelines will help brainstorm users to post relevant ideas and to work together without restricting their creativity.


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