I've been following this discussion with some interest and would also
generally support the wiki idea. If this was to be adopted it would
surely not just be a question of having content managers/moderators, it
would also be necessary to ensure that that it was easy for those that
are not computer savvy to find the answers to their questions, if they
are on the wiki.
Terry W
Arnold Huzen wrote:
For the time being it is 3 to 1 in favour for another setup in this
discussion.
The thing we need to sort out is how do we best serve the users of
OpenOffice. Generally people do not read FAQ's, do not read manuals.
So by forcing them to subscribe to a mailinglist with up to hundreds
of unwanted e-mails a day does not bring them the support they want.
The mailinglist is a good thing to bring all the questions to the
users that committed themselves voluntarily to answering questions of
others, but is not good for people that just want an answer to their
question.
That is the only reason why we should be looking for something more
useful than the mailinglist. It's the customer satisfaction that we
must search for in the first place.
The Wiki-way Harold suggested might be a very good option. It will
take a moderators or content managers to decide what goes to the wiki
and what doesn't.
Arnold Huzen
Harold Fuchs schreef:
On Saturday, January 06, 2007 3:05 AM [GMT+1=CET], James Mckenzie
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
I know your opinion on this. Commercial products do not allow
open posting of messages to them. You are forced to go through
the FAQs and possibly more. This is what our 'users' should go
through.
Also, the Readme makes it look like this is a commercial help desk,
not a group of volunteers that support this product.
<snip>
Nobody is ever forced to read the FAQs. Same as nobody is ever forced
to read the EULA. Clicking "accept" doesn't imply (other than
possibly in a formal, narrow legal sense) that I've read the document.
We are talking at cross purposes. You are still talking mail list. I
am really talking web forum.
I never mentioned "open posting ..." I said that we should require to
authenticate the user's mail address and then only e-mail him/her
when someone reponds to his/her specific question. This avoids the
garbage a truly "registered" mail list generates.
I don't have any issue with re-writning the Readme. Excellent plan.
*********
I work with many products. Some are as large as Oracle (yes I am an
Oracle DBA of sorts) to little products that cost $9.95. All of them
require
that you register and not only to get your e-mail address, but in some
cases to make sure that you are a legitimate user of their product.
We have a registration form too and it is in the product.
Again, registration is fine; I don't have a problem with it. I do
have a problem with registering for something that is going to
generate hundreds of irrelevant e-mails a day. Actually, if I were a
newbie asking an OOo question and was forced to register, I would
seriously regard all OOo messages that didn't address my question as
Spam. I'd be *very* cross to have to plough through dozens of
*unsolicited* (ergo Spam) explanations of how to upgrade X11 on the
Mac I don't own and don't have any intention of ever owning.
***********
<snip>
You can filter mail any way you like. However, it does get rather
tedious
to see the same stuff in messages, time and time again like "Please
respond
to [EMAIL PROTECTED]'. This is a MAILING LIST....
I didn't mean mail filtering. I meant letting the web forum
categorise stuff and then letting the users "subscribe" to any/all of
those categories.
Again, for a fully registered system, a mail list is inappropriate so
filtering it is irrelevant.
**********
<snip>
Web forums already exist and one was shut down for the Mac. There is
a reason
that mail lists exist. However, this list is abused and some folks
from SUN have even shut down their subscriptions because of it.
The list is abused. It's the nature of mail lists to be abused. Why
was the Mac forum shut down? What is the reason for mail lists?
OOo is the only product I know that is supported by a mail *list*.
Other products for which you can get help via e-mail don't let you
see e-mail traffic other than yours (you might be able to
searcg/browse the archives but the messages aren't *pushed* at you
like OOo's e-mail is). That's not a "list" in the sense we mean it. I
too have worked for many years in product support. That was done by
e-mail and phone because it was a long time before the web. But
nobody saw answers to anybody else's questions unless an answer was
explicitly forwarded for some reason.
**********
I am and will be for subscription to this list only after reviewing
the FAQs. This is the best compromise and will allow us to help
those with problems that they
cannot solve by reading through the user guide or in the FAQs.
You can't force people to read the FAQs. They will still send "dumb"
questions. The only choice then is to be rude and say "go read the
*&^$! FAQs" We *might* be able to cut down the number of "dumb"
questions by re-writing the documentation *including* the FAQs (is
the thing about X11/Mac in the FAQs? What about starting
Calc/Impress/... on a Mac?) and by making them prominent on the
support and download pages. But forcing people to read about esoteric
Linux issues (like sending mail doesn't work) when they want to know
something relatively trivial about Windows Writer is still not the
way to go.
I hate FAQs. They are nearly always condescending; frequently
sententious, pi canting nonsense; usually trivial and more often than
not don't have the answer to my question or, if they do, it is to be
found under some heading that I never thought of.
If you really want to do FAQs, do them as a Wiki so they can be
easily updated with new issues like X11/Mac. It is easy to control
who can edit your Wiki so it's not a free-for-all.
************
It can also help us have enough time to improve documentation for
this product
to that of those commercial books that are written for and cost a
great deal
of money (I've seen what is basically an improved user's guide
selling for about
the equivelent of 15 pounds here in the U.S.)
No arguments with this bit ;-)
Regards, Harold
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