Print Page - Help page as FAQ page

Public area => The Pub => Features => Topic started by: nhwd on September 7th, 2011, 01:53 PM

Title: Help page as FAQ page
Post by: nhwd on September 7th, 2011, 01:53 PM

I'm not sure what you guys plan on doing with the help page but I was thinking it could work as a FAQ page. Perhaps using this faq script called phpMyFAQ. Its features include categories, searching, member registration, ability to submit questions and ability to vote or comment on the question answer page, among others. I just think this would be highly useful for such people who aren't exactly used to forums and how they work.
If you'd like more info refer to the script's main site: http://phpmyfaq.de

Title: Re: Help page as FAQ page
Post by: Arantor on September 7th, 2011, 02:07 PM

Quote

I'm not sure what you guys plan on doing with the help page

We removed it entirely. It's been a matter of some considerable debate both for us and for SMF during their migration to it being a placeholder page.

Fact is, it's not that commonly used.

For most sites, it's also incomplete, as I don't know any mods[1] that actually puts information into the help area. Even the largest mods do not do that (SimpleDesk talked about doing it but by the time we got round to considering it, SMF had already pruned their own.)

All things considered, it's actually more practical in a lot of ways not to bother, of which the two most important are:
1. If the interface needs an explanation in how to use it, it's broken and should be fixed. Glossing over the problem with a manual is all well and good but you should only need the manual in specialised/rare circumstances, not general ones.

2. Most users can navigate round to post something, and in every single community I've ever seen that offers any kind of features other than the most absolute basic, people talk to each other and ask each other questions, which is a subtle way of getting a community interacting.

There is a third quite important reason too:
3. Most people don't read the manual. I know I already mentioned this, but it is quite important, important enough for me to bring it up again. sm.org, for example, is replete with information. Many aspects[2] are well documented but yet most people just don't even try and find that information.

Far better would be for us to not bother doing anything like that in the core and making it a good mod where its functionality can be consolidated rather than us doing a half-assed job in the core. Especially since that allows the administrator and similar contributors to set the tone and content to suit a given community.

1.	Other than the one whose sole purpose is to reinstate the original help pages.
2.	Other than the ones that are really quite broken and/or unintuitive, such as permission profiles in 2.0.

Title: Re: Help page as FAQ page
Post by: Nao on September 7th, 2011, 02:41 PM

I think we can at least safely say that a documentation project for Wedge is underway. It's pretty basic for now but it'll serve as a basis for more. The project is currently being held by Norodo from the forum :)

Title: Re: Help page as FAQ page
Post by: nhwd on September 7th, 2011, 08:23 PM

Quote from Arantor on September 7th, 2011, 02:07 PM

Quote
I'm not sure what you guys plan on doing with the help page
We removed it entirely. It's been a matter of some considerable debate both for us and for SMF during their migration to it being a placeholder page.

Fact is, it's not that commonly used.

I understand and agree. It was probably the most unused page on the whole script.

Posted: September 7th, 2011, 08:22 PM

Quote from Nao on September 7th, 2011, 02:41 PM

I think we can at least safely say that a documentation project for Wedge is underway. It's pretty basic for now but it'll serve as a basis for more. The project is currently being helf by Norodo from the forum :)

I'll be on the lookout for it :cool: