FAQ: What am I missing?

dangelog

Right. So, how about a "community" unofficial FAQ section, exactly like the "official" one but maintained by regulars?

giesbert

So in addition to the wiki? as part of the wiki?
And who should fill it? only mad scientist? all? questions on questions :-))

stukdev

Yes, question on question.
Maybe is a good idea only the FAQ on the qt site.
Some people look that, not a FAQ in a wiki.

[quote author="Gerolf Reinwardt" date="1292759426"]So in addition to the wiki? as part of the wiki?
And who should fill it? only mad scientist? all? questions on questions :-))[/quote]

dangelog

Many threads from the forum can possibly become good candidates for inclusion into the FAQs; and being FAQs, I like the Question + Answer + Comments (which from time to time get merged into the Answer) structure more than a wiki page.

goetz

That could easily achieved with a category FAQ that would be added to the respective pages, together with some overview page.

I too like the idea of a community maintained FAQ.

vsorokin

[quote author="Volker" date="1292767407"]
I too like the idea of a community maintained FAQ.[/quote]

QtDN wiki is community maintained FAQ now. Why do make something else?

goetz

[quote author="Vass" date="1292768981"]QtDN wiki is community maintained FAQ now. Why do make something else?[/quote]

Good point - you catched me ;-)

dangelog

[quote author="Vass" date="1292768981"][quote author="Volker" date="1292767407"]
I too like the idea of a community maintained FAQ.[/quote]

QtDN wiki is community maintained FAQ now. Why do make something else?[/quote]

Because the wiki lacks the form of a Q/A database. I'd say it's much more suitable for articles, tutorials or so, while FAQs are good for "How I do this?" kind of things. My 2 cents.

vsorokin

peppe, What about this category: "Category:HowTo":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/wiki/Category:HowTo

dangelog

I'm not saying that the wiki cannot possibly, never ever, contain FAQs! :-)
I'm saying that I like more the "Q/A+comments" structure, probably because the wiki lacks comments and discussion pages.

giesbert

So, I think it could be a new section in DevNet, like the Trolls FAQ just DevNet driven. But then the access should be somehow be secured? I think it's agood idea, as you have additional questions on the same page, not searching the forum for discussions on the topic.

dangelog

[quote author="Gerolf" date="1292772503"]So, I think it could be a new section in DevNet, like the Trolls FAQ just DevNet driven. But then the access should be somehow be secured? [/quote]

Yes, rank-based, exactly like everything else in DevNet right now.

[quote]I think it's agood idea, as you have additional questions on the same page, not searching the forum for discussions on the topic.[/quote]

What do you mean? Additional questions about an entry should go in the forum and be debated there ("I did this but I didn't get the expected results..."); comments could instead add valuable content and/or suggestions to the entry ("On lines 4-6 instead of doing X, you can do Y"), and they can periodically get merged into the entry itself.

At the same time, forum threads can get "promoted" to FAQs when problems are solved.

giesbert

bq. I think it’s agood idea, as you have additional questions on the same page, not searching the forum for discussions on the topic.

That was regrading potting FAQ to the wiki, where you have no comments section.

vsorokin

peppe, Goods idea! Discussion page are needed. In wiki help wrote – use forum for discussion, but is bad, because we don’t have link to discussion from wiki page. I created "suggestion":http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/2615/.

fcrochik

I don't think we need one "more" section. For me the community FAQ could/should be resolved by:

Any necessary changes to the search engine (may be nothing is needed here). Mainly we want to make sure that one can easily limit a search to the "question" tag. The rating system will cover the "frequent criteria"
Add to the forum a way for the user to identify the post(s) that actually answer his question (these would be show just after the question).
the current FAQ search would also include all the posts flagged with "question"

EDIT: maybe we want to have the search criteria to limit the results to the ones that were simultaneously by "question" and "solved" tags. I haven't made my mind yet but wonder if we shouldn't close the thread after the original author confirms that a (and which) solution was reached.

giesbert

Up to now, closing of a thread is done, when the author request a close by the admins, I think. For my threads, it worked that way, that I wrote a message to Denis or chetankjain

fcrochik

[quote author="Gerolf" date="1292784173"]Op to now, closing of a thread is done, when the author request a close by the admins, I think. For my threads, it worked that way, that I wrote a message to Denis or chetankjain[/quote]

I have submitted a suggestion to allow the original author of the thread to close the thread.

fcrochik

Please vote for it if you like:

http://developer.qt.nokia.com/forums/viewthread/2207/

EDIT: and here is the link for the bug report: http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTWEBSITE-123

dangelog

[quote]A QA-forum style (think Stackoverflow, Expert Exchange, Yahoo! answers) is probably one of the big things we want to add in 2011. The number of interactions to support a QA forum is plenty, so it’s not a quick addition to the site I’m afraid.
[/quote]

I think this settles down the "community FAQs" thing. :-)

mgran

I'm hoping a future "questions and answer" type of forum thread would be the ultimate FAQ, see suggestion here: http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTWEBSITE-134

When we have that sort of data we can make overviews/searches on solved threads. Perhaps merge it with the current FAQ section to keep it sane.

Feel free to comment on that link above, the usability aspects are especially important and a bit of a worry.