[Mageia-marketing] Fwd: Mageia product naming/scoping

[Romain d'Alverny]

(cc-ing the list :-p )

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Patricia Fraser
Date: Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 22:46
Subject: Re: [Mageia-marketing] Mageia product naming/scoping
To: Romain d'Alverny

Hi Romain,

> and thanks a lot for your insights.

You're welcome!

> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 20:19, Patricia Fraser
> <trish at thefrasers.org> wrote:
> > I'm conflating answers to package naming and website stuff
> > together, because I think the two have some cross-over.
>
> To some extent. But the product ought to live without this website,
> and the website is not only about the final (but about the process
> to get there, and go beyond). At some point, we may even consider
> to have a dedicated website for the product, but we're not there
> yet.

The point I didn't communicate very well was: if we have the
distribution, and we want people to use it, we absolutely need to have
the information about it out there, easily accessible and readily
found, and the best place for that is on the Mageia website - so I
think the product really won't live without the website.

We maybe don't need the website right this minute, but we need all
the time between now and release day for Mageia 1, to put things in
place - so it makes sense to talk about it now and plan for it.

> I may not have been very specific on what is meant by a "use case"
> here. It's not about targetting a gamers group, or a developr group,
> or a hitchhikers group, etc. It's more about how experienced one is
> (not at all, or to some extent) and how the linux distribution is
> made available for testing/installation: install DVD, live/install
> CD or USB key, netboot install, etc.
>
> This, because at this point at least, the only kind of "flavour" we
> would have is this: how to download and use the very same product
> (that is, the same tree of packages, available either through a
> physical medium, either through the network).
>
> Well, that's true for the ISO meant to use live or install the
> system. It's a little bit different for the pluggable storage (USB
> key for now) that provides a different experience: you can use it
> live, install it _and_ have a persistent storage for your data.
>
> So my naming question, to frame it better (and feel free to indicate
> me how/where to make this more clear on the web page) is more about:
>  * how do we name those different access/install experiences? the
> same (Mageia) + a casual description (DVD, LiveCD, netinstall,
> minimal, mobile)? (I favour this, but) or more inspirational names?
>  * and how do we frame them to the new visitor that wants to
> "download Mageia" ?

Okay - understood. Then, maybe, we name it according to the kind of
installation rather than something confusing, and we have a way for
a new user - I'm thinking new-to-Linux as much as new-to-Mageia - to
discover a) what each of them means *and* b) which of them will suit
this user at the moment. A "what does each one do" set of information
and a "which one do I want" set of information.

> > Whatever "products" we have on our list (I hate that word. Can we
> > find another, less commercial generic term for the various
> > flavours of Mageia?),
>
> We could, but "product" is the result of some "production". Nothing
> commercial in this. "artefact" wouldn't qualify I guess. No
> particular idea here.

<marketing hat on>

The problem with this kind of naming is that it's inward-facing - it
refers back to the people already in the project. We need an
outward-facing name, to talk to the people who aren't in the Mageia
community yet; once they've tried it, we hope they'll join! "Product"
is an expression that puts a fence between makers and newcomers.

It would be good to name Mageia releases/iterations/flavours in a
way that says to the newcomer: "this is for you! We hope you like it!"
and even "if you like it, maybe you'll join us?"

> >        - most of this info should be available from the packagers
> > - can we ask them to give the comms team a heads-up in some
> >          way when they add/change things, so information on
> > flavour pages can be updated?
>
> That would rely on checking each package changelog and getting in
> touch with the packagers. I don't know how to put some incentive (or
> how to integrate these changelogs) as to make this more easily
> informative. I believe mageia-app-db work done by Stormi can help a
> lot here.

How do we get to take a look at what's currently in mageia-app-db?
I've seen some mention of it on the Devel list, but I haven't read
it in any detail.

> > - have a progression from less to more technical/detailed info -
> > links to package info, for instance, especially the Drak packages
> > and their derivatives and other Mageia/Mandriva specialist
> > packages - I've had msec installed for umpty years and I still
> > haven't ever found decent documentation!
>
> Yes! To find the right balance, and delivering it as a useful,
> clear, to the point doc, still attractive and welcoming. We can do
> it. We can do it. There's a lot to learn from Rails and similar
> modern web dev tools online documentation that is far ahead.

Documentation is often the poor relation, but it's the place where
makers talk to users; it's the place where we can be the most
welcoming - like a gateway into the community. Worth doing.

Cheers!


--
Trish Fraser, JD9R RQ2D
52.4161N,16.9303E
wo mrt 16 22:34:28 CET 2011
GNU/Linux 1997-2010 #283226 counter.li.org
andromeda up 4 hour(s), 55 min.
kernel 2.6.33.7-desktop-2mnb
--
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