Creating a FAQ

I just saw Ian's reply to this thread and I was wondering if it would be beneficial to create a FAQ. I think that it is something worth looking into because there are a few things that pop up periodically/frequently, but I don't know if there are enough to create a FAQ. I think it could be handy.


Opinions?????

good idea!

Sounds good to me.

I'd like to order one of those with a side of tutorials

Yep,

FAQs are good... it will be very easy to ask people to go and read it !

if only they could read them BEFORE they ask the question !

Read? Doesn't that require effort?

Hi,

You are right...

But it will be better for us, we ( people above ) will just have tell them to go to FAQ . We will not spend time giving the direct link like we do today...

who would have to create the FAQ?

Considerations ...
o It should be a living document, updated as we learn more
o It will be difficult to boil down collective knowledge into "nuggets" that have adequate
context to remain meaningful.
o The author will get several messages of gratitude. He will get dozens of messages
with "opportunities for improvement".

I guess in summary my feeling is that the FAQ will be a lot of ongoing work to provide a
very useful compilation of knowledge that already exists in this forum.

If this does not drown your campfire, whoever volunteers for this will have my eternal respect.

An extensive piece on the selectelement series would definitely need to be in there!

Are you just wanting someone to compile the list for the FAQ, and you guys will put it in the forum?
I guess to put it better, do you just want a word document with this info?

Assuming that the FAQ could be expressed in simple text, I suggest it be posted
like any new message, with care to title it meaningfully, such as ..
"FAQ: VB Script Best Practices, compiled June 3, 2005"

This would make it easy to find, would readily indicate its age, and would be the
natural way to gather follow up info.

In most forums that I've been on, administrators have an ability to make posts "sticky"

This means that they always remain at the top of the forum.

the only problem I see in doing it that way is that you would end up with a few FAQs amongst a sea of comments.

Eric

You could create a sticky FAQ that would stay at the top of the forum, and make it read only so no one else could post to it. Then, only the author, or the almighty Rich could do it.

You like that volunteer job I just gave you Rich.

Craig -

Thanks, pal!

Please also remind me to buy you a cold one at the Spring 2006 Conference in Atlanta.

I'm kinda putting one together in my spare time, so we may have something that resembles one soon.

-craig

There certainly is a need for a FAQ section.
That would require a dedicated moderatior. This moderatior would need the occaisional assistance of peer reviewers.

You could offer free COE membership to an appropriate volunteer as an incentive. ;-) The responisbility would drive the motivation.

Or share the work with solid7 who is also trying to do something similar:Here

Ian -

Call or email me if you know of an eager volunteer.

Sorry for ressurecting an old thread, but this is the exact feature I'd like to see on the forums. Thread was started back in the days of the "old" forums, so maybe something has changed?

I'd like to emphasize, that if there's no way to properly host such content on this forum, then users will look elsewhere. In fact it happened numerous times already: Mike Berry created it's own website, Fernando Petre compiled an offline encyclopedia etc. I'm not here to argue about the reasons, but the fact is the forums are going to lose content which has the most value because it is created by experience users ("power users" as some people call them), and this will lead to overall quality and therefore user number drop.

Hi Little C,

Everyone likes this idea for years.

I can tell you what can be done with the way the forum functions today

 

Create thread called FAQ and good topics

then add links to topics... start with 6 or 12 like the following

 

Click here for MFG Good topics

We can ask the Forum Monitor to make it sticky, so it's always on top.

Power users will be encouraged to add their on replies to your post, with their favorites.

If it's organized… it will be clean.

The only downside... is every 5 years... the forum is …. changed … where the links are broken.   But that can be fixed.

Best Regards

Dave

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Dave Frank  *    Dasco Engineering.

NC Programming Lead

COE Product Co-Chairman, Digital Numerical Control

 

Thanks for you suggestion, Dave.

Most obviois downside of described approach is that other users (non-contributors) will ruin F.A.Q.'s structure with their posts. And you can't take away posting feature from them as healthy content implies a discussion being held over it.

And I found no stickies in MFG forums. Are you sure it is possible and that easy to do?

Hi Little C,

 

Yes, I just made Top 3 Must Haves sticky

Click to MFG Forum

Moderators can also lock threads, to keep them getting garbled by unintended garbage.

COE is always looking for Volunteers, and you would make an excellent addition. Perhaps you desire to be a monitor. That is up to you.  I know a monitor already exists... so you would need to work with that person, or if you want to ,,,,be added to the monitor role.  If more than one is allowed. I'm not sure.     I will contact COE division manager and see what can be done.  

Do you want one for KBE, and another for D&D?

I use the sticky from time to time.  Each year, I focus the MFG community on the Top Ten. 

I also look for common threads with the same topic, such as Probing.... so people can reference them when a probing topic or other topic comes up.  

Moderators can delete Spam.... and move threads originally posted in the wrong forum....I E... V5 to MFG,   etc,

Moderators can even merge dangling threads that got fragmented at the last time the forum got upgraded.  ( If people see threads like that... email [login to unmask email])

Editing can also be done. It will leave a notice "edited by so and so.. on date" stamp

I have not seen the need to do that.  If someone uses a naughty word...I send a link to [login to unmask email] and let the staff fix it.   MFG users can get quite upset. we have major bugs over a decade old.  people can get quite passionate.  People in MFG ask questions like:....."How can we trust DS on V6, when DS never finished V5?"...…. All in all, it's a great bunch of guys.  Many I now considered good friends.

Best Regards

Dave

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Dave Frank  *    Dasco Engineering.

NC Programming Lead

COE Product Co-Chairman, Digital Numerical Control