13 replies to this topic

[kernelhappy]

One of my long standing discomforts with the Android community is that we rely on standard forums for much of the collective information sharing. Lets face it, OPs who start the threads we're most interested in, don't really want to spend their time managing a FAQ/thread . This isn't a bad thing, in fact it's a good thing, these OP's do more for the community by banging away on locked kernels and OTA leaks and boot managers than they would maintaining a thread.


In short, many people spend a lot of time helping one another in threads that grow quickly, making it very hard to extract good information from them, there has to be a better way.

For a while now I've felt that we need something in between a forum and a wiki to help collect good advice into one place but still allow discussion. I have two ideas:

1) Integration or at least association to a wiki page for each thread, or at least the big ones. OP's post can still own first post, but at least it'll be easier for people to centralize good information rather than it being buried in the middle of 200 pages.

2) It would be nice if we could tag/vote particularly useful or informative posts in these threads. That way when someone posts a problem and someone posts a resolution, the resolution could be tagged and then a filter could be applied so that we can read through 40 resolution posts rather than 400 including chatter.

I don't know what kind of add-ons IPboard has to enable these, but at the minimum a link to a wiki that starts with OPs first post and gets modified from there should be easy to setup and manage.

I personally believe there is great value in making it easier find all the great info the community puts together.

Thoughts, comments, ideas?

edit: whoops forgot another idea; 3) nested comments like slashdot/reddit. The downside is that this is a major deviation from the way most forums are setup and when someone adds a post to a thread with multiple questions, you can end up fragmented, although if it's clean to start, people would hopefully ride the coat tails of a similar post rather than starting a new chain.

[kernelhappy]

Looks like a possible topic for

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=].

[aktrazer]

I'm thinking so. We'll have some room for users to get on the hangout as well so they can ask us questions and contribute directly!

[papi92]

This will be included. I emailed the admins who are participating so they can talk about a solution or idea to answer this question. Cheers!

[Thach]

I could have swore Matt made a wiki page a long time ago. Now as for upkeep and things like that, I'm not sure the status. I have a link here some place so lemme talk a look when I get time today and I'll let everyone know what I figure out.

[Thach]

This was created a while ago, like around the .173 build and doesn't look like its been used or updated since.

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[kernelhappy]

This was created a while ago, like around the .173 build and doesn't look like its been used or updated since.

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Cool, so half of it is in place.

the next steps would be to:
a) encourage OP's to create a wiki to go along with major posts.
b ) probably a good idea to define a naming convention for articles
c) encourage people to backfeed good info from threads into it

wishlists for this:
a) restrict it to registered users of the site
b ) automate the process of creating the wiki to go along with the post

I personally think the fusion of wiki and forum for something like the android community would be hugely beneficial. If there aren't already wiki addons for IP board, I wouldn't be surprised to see them pop up if it worked out as well as I hope.

[ZKK007]

I think this is a great idea. It would help a lot of people out with to-the-point information instead of reading through hundreds of posts. An alternative for now could be to have to author of the OP add FAQ's to the OP with the answer post number beside the question. E.G
FAQ
1+1 = See post #123

The only problem with this is that people may not read the OP (...this happens a lot) and therefore it would be pointless.

Just a thought for a quick solution.

[mattlgroff]

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I have done a Wiki before and it had a major flaw:
Nobody but me worked on it. I gave up in the end because no assistance came and no one seemed to even like it. I just see this happening again in the future.

[stealthmouse]

I agree. We have the support forum and help in chat room as well, and Matt has set up a separate thread for the utility specifically for help. So the issue, I think, is not so much the lack of information sources, but how we "triage" when people ask for help. We all support the community, and at droidrzr this is especially true. The downside is that when someone asks a question for which there is already an answer, we tend to answer it for them, without directing them to the original source. I do it all the time, and so do many others. I've noticed that at xda in particular, they are much more diligent about posting a link to the answer, rather than spelling it out. And certain posters make it quite clear in their OP that if the answer is in the thread, they won't be responding. I'm not saying we change the personality of droidrzr, as it's what makes this such a great place to be, but perhaps more diligence in directing people to the place with the answers, rather than answering in the thread with the OP. It could go as far as even locking the thread, with a link to the thread for FAQ and new questions. Seeing Matt's post, I think wiki is a bit removed, but the help thread for his utility gets a lot of hits. Unfortunately, so does the thread for the OP (with questions, I mean).

[androidlearner]

The issue with that is it's easier to just give the answer then search for the thread that has it. In all honesty a lot if answers could be gathered if people took the time to do some searching before asking the question to begin with. I don't mind helping people, but when the answer to someone's question is within the first three links when doing a quick Google search it makes me not want to help. This gets to be very evident when leaks and OTA updates show up. You'll see 5+ threads showing up asking the same question. For example, root for the JB leak the Razr. There are so many threads of the same thing because no one wanted to take the time to read.

Sent from Razr Maxx running Full Throttle Killer Bean

[kernelhappy]

http://droidrzr.wikia.com/wiki/DroidRzr_Wiki I have done a Wiki before and it had a major flaw: Nobody but me worked on it. I gave up in the end because no assistance came and no one seemed to even like it. I just see this happening again in the future.

That's part of why ultimately I'd like to see it integrated in the threads themselves. I'm thinking of it being more like a chalkboard where everyone can leave bits and pieces to help each other out. I'm not expecting them to be full blow wiki articles, but just a means of massaging and refining the data the collective puts out there.

Maybe online communities have changed, but if I found good info in a thread, I'd be willing to move it into the wiki to make it easier for others to find. But that's just me.

Quite honestly, it doesn't have to be a wiki, it doesn't have to be flagging and filtering, but we need something,

I think the ability to flag "must read" helpful posts (not just like them) and filter them might be the easiest way to improve it with the least maintenance.