On Thu, 2005-07-07 at 00:38 -0400, Daniel Carrera wrote: > Jonathon Coombes wrote: > > > Way ahead of you! :) > > I have added a lot of the FAQ's to the KB already - certainly the > > ones that people were asking and also what I considered "pertinent" > > to the KB. What I need is people who can go through the list and > > check it against the FAQ and see what I have missed and add more > > information. > > Hhhmmm... you see... this is what I'm thinking: If the KB and FAQs are > unified, they could really complement each other.
Agreed. > I know this is technically very difficult, but bear with me for a second: Not technically, but maybe resource wise :) > Suppose that the KB and FAQs were one and the same. It's a database of > questions and answers. People would have a browse option (like FAQs > today) or search option (like KB today). You can think of it as either > searchable FAQs or a browsable KB. Either way it's the same thing. > Instead of copying and pasting questions from one to the other, they > could "just" share the same database. > > You see, right now, the FAQs and KB sort of duplicate each other, but > not entirely. They are different approaches of solving the same problem. > I fear that the current situation (1) divides the limited volunteer > resources we have and (2) confuses volunteers as to which resources to > contribute to. Agreed. Although from what I have seen on the mailing list, most people do not visit either the FAQs or the KB before posting obvious questions. > This is the same reason why there has been an effort to merge different > FAQs together, so there are fewer of them. The current FAQs at > OOoAuthors are the merger of the FAQs from (1) user-faq (2) > documentation and (3) Colin's unofficial FAQ. Agreed. At the miniconf in Australia only a couple of months ago, we had a number of people such as Colin and Iannz wanting to see the KB as the first port of call for any support. Once this is automated a bit more and combined with FAQs, I think it would be an invaluable resource. > A further unification with the KB might be valuable (or it might be a > stupid idea). Incidentally, I like the name KB better, and I like the KB > user interface better. Yes, the KB word is used quite a lot by the large corporations, and it is essentially more correct in that it contains more that just the FAQs. It is a wealth of knowledge, the combined knowledge of the people who use the product. > In any event, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. So when can we do this? :) Regards Jonathon -- OOo Tips (RSS) - http://mindmeld.cybersite.com.au/tips.rss OOo Knowledgebase - http://mindmeld.cybersite.com.au/ Cybersite Consulting - http://www.cybersite.com.au/ Training4Linux - http://www.training4linux.com
