[mythtv-users] Re:MythTV Help Website

Erwin van der Koogh mythtv at koogh.com
Thu Apr 15 07:19:33 EDT 2004


>> Precisely!  And this fact is the single, strongest reason to deploy a
>> wiki !! When the answers are there for everyone to find, the flood of
>> messages on this  high-volume list will drop significantly. Everybody
>> will be happy.
>>
>>
> Semi OT:  I've never seen a wiki that was worth a crap.  Care to share a
> couple links?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page> ;-)

> Searching the mailing list archives or using google for an OSS project
> should be considered the equivalent of reading the help file of a windows
> app.  That's just how things work.  The folks that come here asking
> questions that are easily answerable are the same folks that call tech
> support before reading the help files.
> The only real irony is that the OP was offering yet another information
> source to the project when he himself had not availed himself of the the
> existing ones.

I have availed myself of the existing ones, and that didn't solve my 
problems. What I think is the main problem is that as a newbie I have no 
clue as to what is the real problem.. and that makes searching for answers 
all the more difficult.

> Again, I'd have to see a wiki that works but every one I've seen is full
> of holes, wrong information and useless info that it's impossible to find
> anything useful.  The exception to that has been the various "definition"
> sites that have a very focused scopes.

That's why I wouldn't suggest just a random everyone can do everything and 
keep it focused.

As per previous post, I think the most can be gained out of a collection of 
"How I got it to work with these parameters". So that others can look for 
stories with similar parameters can compare notes.

>> Now, back to this. I feel that there is a VERY big difference between
>> requiring sgml patches, or having a low-threshold wiki. Let's say I
>> wanted to  correct or annotate 1 sentence in the docs. Send patches ?
>> Yeah, very likely.  No, just like everybody else, I just assume that it
>> being corrected on the ML  is enough, and that maybe even someone
>> already compiles a faq out of ML  answers. (when you are new you have no
>> way to know how it currently is done)
>>
>>
> Now we've switched gears here... A little bit ago folks were talking
> about adding large amounts of documentation not correcting things here
> and there.

How would one go about contributing a "How I got it to work" type story and 
easily keep it up to date?

>> As coders, you just can't imagine how big a hurdle it is for 'ordinary
>> people' to hear that they have to learn, for example, XML before they
>> can join in.
>
> You do have a point.

Even as a coder (although a java, not C one) I would feel uncomfortable 
writing docs on the main site. Mainly because there's one thing worse than 
no documentation and that's wrong documentation.

> But the million dollar question is:  "Did you need to struggle with that
> problem?"  i.e. if you had: Read all the docs, searched the mailing list
> & used google would you have found the answer in a reasonable amount of
> time?

No I did not :)

> Personally, I think what Myth needs more than a Wiki is a FAQ and even
> that could be rolled into the howto I think.  I'm not saying a wiki is a
> horrible idea, I just question the usefulness of adding another
> information source when the existing ones aren't being used properly.

A free for all wiki is usually a horrible idea, but if you can focus it 
narrowly enough I think there's quite some potential in there. But I also 
think that we are focussing too much of a particular technology. If it 
could be solved by something (or someone) else that would be great too.

So maybe the million dollar question is:
"How can we make it easier for people to share their experiences with the 
web?"

Erwin


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