On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 20:49 +0000, Michael Wood wrote:
> alan c wrote:
> > for reference:
> > http://ubuntuclips.org/
> >   
> ubuntuclips.org ubuntuvideo.com and quickones.org :|
> 

GNOME KDE XFCE :|

;)

> This often happens in open source, 3 good ideas that could have been 1 
> excellent one.

Well they're not quite the same. Ubuntuvideo is a site which presents
videos other people made. As far as I can tell then generate NO content
themselves. In fact I submitted my videos to ubuntuvideo and only one
[0] of them has been accepted [1]. It doesn't appear to be very actively
maintained, I have seen one wiki page claiming the ubuntuvideo webmaster
is AWOL, however I have seen updates since I saw that claim.

Ubuntuclips do a similar thing to quickones however they have very clear
constraints on the video size (in resolution) [2] which I do not agree
with. I believe that real newbies need "start to finish" tutorials
showing them everything they need to do a task. I don't believe that
showing a portion of the desktop is enough, all mine are full screen
(1024x768).

I set the site up after the Ubuntu-UK meeting at the LinuxWorld Expo and
after seeing numerous screencasts online which (in my humble opinion)
sucked in one way or another. They had some or all of:- no audio track,
low resolution, shaky video recording, no intro/outro, and so on. I
tried to address all of these to make some high quality usable videos
which could be watched by a real beginner and value gained from them.

The full specification I drew up you can find as a bullet-ed list on ths
site [3]. 

Don't get me wrong, mine aren't perfect, and I welcome feedback telling
me how I can improve them. I have repeatedly asked for (both positive
and negative) feedback here and elsewhere about the site and the videos
and am open to suggestions. For example I recently changed the license
for all the content based on feedback from an Ubuntu-UK and GNU/FSF
member. 

I would also be happy if the content was moved to the Ubuntu-UK site -
note that ALL the videos mention (in effect are branded) Ubuntu-uk and
not quickones. Quickones is really just a placeholder for them right
now. It was always envisaged by me that I would make screencasts and put
them on quickones but after the meeting at the Expo I figured that given
I have aligned myself with Ubuntu I should make Ubuntu specific
screencasts for Ubuntu-UK rather than just for myself. It was just
easier for me to throw the content onto a domain I already had than go
through the hoops of getting some space and the necessary software on
the Ubuntu-uk.org site. I also link back to Ubuntu-UK.org in the text
that accompanies the Google Video entries, thus trying to bring people
to our team.

I would love to hear any suggestions for improving quickones.org or the
Ubuntu-UK screencast 'project'. So far I have had very little negative
feedback. Don't worry, I can take criticism if someone wants to throw it
my way :) but most of the feedback I have had has been pretty positive -
along the lines of "keep doing what you're doing", so I have been. I am
no web designer so I have just used a stock theme. I'd love to have a
more Ubuntu looking theme if people think that's appropriate?

Should I change that? Should I make the videos not mention Ubuntu-UK?
Should this not be an Ubuntu-UK project? I don't know, feedback welcome
though.

Sorry if this mail seems like a rant or like I am pouncing on you for
criticizing, that's not the case. I just want you to understand why I
set the site up and why you can't just find all of the ones I created on
one of the other sites.

Maybe we should add this to the agenda of the next Ubuntu-UK meeting so
people can have their say "officially"?

Cheers,
Al.

[0] http://www.ubuntuvideo.com/installing_updates_on_ubuntu
[1] http://www.ubuntuvideo.com/category/tutorials
[2] http://ubuntuclips.org/contribute
[3] http://quickones.org/Creating_Screencasts


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