Knowledgebase Additions

[RuralWeb]

as long as Actinic views this as their job...not ours/yours/whoevers

the question is whos forum is it - is it a marketing/support tool for actinic or a community owned by its users. If it belongs to actinic then its thier job but if as chris posted in another thread it was setup by actinic for the benifit of its customers/users then there should be user mods who would take control,

[Duncan Rounding]

...I believe you hit the pointed wire on the flat bit - but just slightly off target.

I'd love to know what this means?

Bill's Scottish/Egyptian slang for 'hit the nail on the head - but not quite all th eway into the wood'.

Or at least that's my translation.

[chris ashdown]

Maybe you are missing the point, by being so tied up helping with the forum!!

The point as I see it is that

1) many questions keep getting asked time and time again

2) People are getting fed up answering the same old questions

3) due to above site gets filed up with above and people get pissed off

Is not the solution for a strong update of the help pages on the software, moving the whole KB and a large part of the Advanced onto the help pages (where better to look) and mayb offer a help update at regular intervalls

Today I tried to get a third computer on my MU, in the end I rang up support who sent me a installation guide to MU

Question why was it not included in the help files which gave very little information

A lot of people probably never get to the forum as its not the bast advertised site on the actinic pages so their first stop would be the help pages

[pinbrook]

Is not the solution for a strong update of the help pages on the software, moving the whole KB and a large part of the Advanced onto the help pages (where better to look) and mayb offer a help update at regular intervalls

In my view - YES

I still prefer to search for a solution - and find it - rather than ask and wait.

We are all getting jaded, but i think we are beginning to pull together, alot more crap has been ignored over the past few days, there was even a thread bumped by its owner after 11 minutes today - again that was ignored - OP already had been given the correct answer which wasn't what he wanted to hear.

I am still the eternal optimist and utopian who wants to see the quality of the help improved, whether it be forum, KB, help docs or whatever. If i search I want to find.

I am also happy to devote a few hours to help this happen.

[leehack]

there was even a thread bumped by its owner after 11 minutes today - again that was ignored - OP already had been given the correct answer which wasn't what he wanted to hear.

I chuckled when i saw that as i knew he had just shot himself in the foot.

[Jan]

I think the knowledgebase is the right place for proven solutions to be added, it can be managed far more easily than the forum. If the search isn't good enough then maybe it should be replaced with a wiki or some similar tool.

Regards,

[RuralWeb]

I think the knowledgebase is the right place for proven solutions to be added

Agreed - maybe chris needs to make the link to it in the top right of the forum a bit bigger and flashing!

[Jan]

Agreed, or maybe the forum search could be modifed to include the text, don't forget to search the knowledge base for solutions with a link.

Regards,

[RuralWeb]

maybe the forum search could be modifed to include the text, don't forget to search the knowledge base for solutions with a link.

If the two could be linked to provide answers to the same search then that would help

[RuralWeb]

OR - if one of us knows its in the KB then could we not have an icon that can be placed on the post to indicate that its in the KB without getting flamed as jo puts it

[Duncan Rounding]

Good idea for the icon. We could upload one to photobucket or suchlike and then include the image in the post each time. (I'm sure gabs could knock up a suitable icon and load it up to photobucket)

We could also add some text to our signatures about searching the KB, AUG and Forum Stickies etc.

How about this one?

EDIT: Are IMG tags disabled on this forum?

[cdicken]

Hi chaps - with regards to the community/knowledge base/advanced user guide discussion, the realisation here at Actinic Towers is that the community has become a support forum, but that shouldn't be it's primary role. It's primary role should be the sharing of ideas, rather than fixing other people's problems. People's first port of call should be the help/kb/aug, then they should search the community, then they should ask a question. It's going to take a while to shift that emphasis and change that behaviour, but that's the plan.

[RuralWeb]

the realisation here at Actinic Towers is that the community has become a support forum, but that shouldn't be it's primary role. It's primary role should be the sharing of ideas, rather than fixing other people's problems.

Exactly - it might be worth moving the forum down the list of support options on your website - at the moment its N01 which means people come here before Actinic support

[JSnow]

Being relatively new, I am maybe not entitled to an opinion on this but here it is anyway...

Why not create a new forum "topic"(?) called "New Users Questions" and restrict access to the other topics so that the new users can only search through them and not post in them. Anyone with less than X posts should be considered a new user.

This would give the new users access to the information via the search (which is what everyone wants them to do). Should they still not find an answer they can post in the "New Users Questions" forum and the more experienceed users can choose whether to look at them or not. At the top of this forum, place a single sticky in capitals that asks, "HAVE YOU SEARCHED?".

A mod can then trawl the "New Users Questions" forum (say once every 24hrs) to check the questions. If the mod finds a "double post" then ignore it and let the other new users answer the questions (i.e. build up X amount of posts).

If the mod finds a question that is solvable or requires expert attention, then he/she can post a link to it in the relative "restricted" forum.

This would free up the other forums for serious improvement / solution discussions. Not to mention save all the more experienced users time to work on more intricate / satisfying improvements and solutions without all the annoying "double posts" clogging up their threads.

I personally search, use the aug & help files before posting so I know it can be done (to great success). Almost every question has been answered.

Chris, why not give these guys what they want. Without their assistance (solutions previously posted and searched for) it would have taken me far longer to finalise my site.

These few are by far Actinic's greatest asset. They are willing to help and provide solutions for everyone to use (free of charge!!!!) just as long as they can do it without being interrupted by "double posts".

I for one, think that their request is justified and to be honest, I wouldn't mind only having search privileges if those privileges will result in giving me the (exact) answers that I require.

[pinbrook]

People's first port of call should be the help/kb/aug

and actinic support line

Therefore at the risk of being controversial why not cease to advertise the community on the actinic website, let people find the community ...

they will find it by a large by 2 methods

support introduce them to it
they search the www to find it - hey they will know how to search then before posting and demanding.