You're right on all counts. The current help is tough to use and a
system like stackoverflow doesn't prevent people from asking the same
question over and over again.
However - it is much more searchable, and also tries to discourage
repeated posting by suggesting similar questions as you write up a
given question. It also helps in threading the discussion and allows
more experienced users to curate the result so that the question and
answer banter has a better chance of remaining useful beyond the
original context.
In application docs would definitely be huge, but they won't make
questions from users go away.
On 26-Aug-10, at 10:31 AM, Michael Wild wrote:
On 26. Aug, 2010, at 17:21 , Dan Lussier wrote:
I was wondering if the KitWare guys had considered a
stackoverflow.com type of interface for Paraview help? The mailing
list is great for some things, but doesn't work as well for those
repeated 'how does this feature work' type of questions.
This type of forum appears to work pretty well for general software
development and computer issues (superuser.com) so it might help
augment the ParaView wiki, which is already home to more long form
articles.
Just an idea.
I don't agree with that. Although perhaps a bit more searchable/
discoverable and certainly more fancy-looking, it doesn't prevent
from people asking the same questions over and over again. The only
solution to these kind of questions is to finally write real in-
application docs. The current help is just unusable...
Michael
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