On 8/24/2011 12:40, Rob Weir wrote:
On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 9:30 PM, drew<[email protected]> wrote:
On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 09:05 +1000, Jean Weber wrote:
I've started a new thread, because I think Rob Weir's very important point has
got lost in the discussions about forums and lists. Rob wrote:
Support is important. The question is
how best to do it. If all we're doing is considering the merits of
different access methods to support, without looking at the
implications of fragmenting the repositories and the resulting
knowledge base, then we are doing a poor job at thinking this through.
Remember the best support site is the one that allows the user to
answer their own question, without signing up for a mailing list or
posting to a forum. We should be looking at how we can prevent user
support questions.
This ties in closely with end-user documentation and how it is delivered, so I
am very interested in this topic. Later today I'll go through the archives of
this list to find the earlier discussions, which I believe occurred while I was
traveling and thus weren't given enough of my attention at the time. Or, have
ideas and suggestions, perhaps examples of good practice, been posted to the
wiki? Apple is IMO a brilliant example, but they have a lot of resources
It's clear to me that we need to do better than we have in the user support
area, if we can do so. Not only will that benefit users and improve our
reputation, it will allow us to work smarter, not harder. I will pursue this,
along with other interested people. It's something valuable that I can do while
the techies are moving websites and working with code etc.
Setting up a suitable system and populating it with suitable information will
be a big task and take quite awhile, especially if we don't have enough skilled
people to do it. (I'm referring to content, not infrastructure.) All the more
reason to get started now with planning what we want to do, so we can start
doing it ASAP.
BTW, the Docs mailing list at OOo gets quite a few enquiries from people
wanting to contribute, and a few of them sound like they have relevant
experience and skills. I don't want to lose them. Yes, we point them to this
list as well as ODFAuthors, but I don't know how many have actually joined. If
we're actively discussing topics of interest to documenters, perhaps more
people can be persuaded to get involved.
Hi Jean,
Before I let another thread slide away from view - I agree completely
with approaching this with a unified view of user support, not just
stove pipes for different delivery vehicles.
Does anyone have a sense for how far we can take this by extending
phpBB? It looks like we've already enhanced it quite a bit.
In other words, is phpBB the best way forward? Is it easy to hack?
For example, do we think it would be possible to eventually add
collaborative features like question/answer ranking, etc.?
//drew
Not quite on topic, here, but re hacking forum code:
We have a divide between support users (who prefer forums) and support
providers (who prefer email). How well could forum code provide
email-like interaction for the providers? E.g., Email for new topics /
comments of interest; link for fast reply entry. Email /for/ entry? Some
of this is probably available already. Design input from providers would
be nice.
--
/tj/
