On Wednesday, April 25, 2001, at 09:46 PM, Yasuo Ohgaki wrote:
> As I mentioned in first e-mail, I have no idea how could possibly anyone
> misunderstood that content written in notes submission form is going to
> be
> posted to php-general. (It clearly written in instruction and it is
> impossible
> to misunderstood like this, if they can write question in English)
Many people can write.
Many less want to read.
This is why phrases like "RTFM" exist, because people will *refuse* to
read
ten words, but will write ten thousand.
> After reading so many questions in notes, I think there are 3
> possibilities why
> people are posting questions in notes
> 1) They just didn't read instruction. (May be too long for them?)
Not concise. Yes, this can be a problem. Too concise can also be
a problem.
> 2) They just ignore instruction. (I guess(hope) most people is not
> ignoring)
Some do. I just spent three weeks convincing a man to edit one line, in
one
config file. People are a many-splendored thing.
However, since these people often don't read prior notes, submissisions,
or
errata anyways, they rarely notice when you take out their data. We can
make
the docs clearer, but somebody willl always be confused.
> 3) They didn't read instruction and misunderstood notes form content is
> going to
> be sent to php-general some how.
Many are are afraid of looking stupid, or are wishing to hide their
ignorance.
> 1) and 3) is most likely. This is my guess and I could easily wrong.
> May be it's a good idea to ask people post questions in notes, why they
> did that
> to get better figure.
Most are confused by wording. We do not yet have a language that
translates well
to all speakers of english, let alone a few thousand dialects and
lauguages around
the world. This is why it is so important to keep revising, until all
users can
understand the manual.
> I thought it might be a worth the efforts, see if you can cut down
> number of
> questions in notes with simple(?) change.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] => something different or null.
'nulll' leads to less answers being shared. among users.
> (Alternatively, if email address is null or default, rejecting and
> displaying
> shorter instruction again "This is NOT for asking questions. etc".
> Making
> instruction shorter and using larger font size for "Not for asking
> questions"
> may also work somewhat. IMHO.)
Yasuo: we have tried many things. My latest theory is that pages with
answered
qestions lead to more questions. Therefore: allow only answers, not
questions.
Sign up for doc priviledges, and remove questions, and change the
documents.
It's a good way to start.
-Ronabop
