Forum FAQ's

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Cliff Stamp

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Most of the forums often get very similar questions on a weekly basis. It would seem to me that a FAQ link specific to each forum would be of great benefit, just add a link right after the "moderated by XXX". I don't think it would be difficult to get people to write an update the specific forum FAQ's, would not have to be the moderators either.

The FAQ links could just be to external pages so it is not something Spark would constantly have to be updating. Or it could be updated externally and just bi-monthly send the pages to Spark for an internal copy to be made. Joe's FAQ's for example would be an excellent General forums set of FAQ's. I realize that they are up there already but I think that it would benefit from being in a more visible place and that the idea could be expanded.

-Cliff
 
Interesting idea, Cliff.

I recently began compiling a lot of information from the HI forum, with Bill Martino's permission. I had perceived a similar need. In that forum particularly there are certain threads that people keep bringing to the top, as they contain valuable information.

I am putting this together on my ISP's server, but would be willing, if all affected parties agree, to put it on Bladeforums.
 
First, This should probably be in the suggestion box forum.

Second, if you guys want forum specific FAQ's, no problem, thing is that you will have to maintain them.

I personally don't feel that they will work, because if people don't use the search feature as is to find out the appropriate information, I'm having a hard time believing that they will bother clicking on a link to read about the information elsewhere.

Anyhow, if we do such a thing (which for 30+ forums is not a small task), it's up to the moderators to put the FAQ's together in a text format for me to convert to HTML. I'll try my best to update them regularly, but I can't make any promises.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
Totally forgot about the suggestion box forum, guys move it over when you get a chance.

Spark, the links could be to external pages. There is no need for you to any work except change the format to include the link to the FAQ. You could if you want make them internal links, which would be somewhat neater, if you had the free time but it is not necessary. There are plenty of free web page hosters where forum members can put up pages if they don't have the means already and I think Bladeforums even offers this feature to its members.

As for people not using them because they don't search. The problem with searching is that there is currently too much information and it is not indexed at all. That is what the FAQ's do basically. The search function is something not a lot of people are familar with but everyone knows how to use index's and the FAQ are a net staple solution to this. Searching only works well if you are familar with the thread history.

For example lets say someone wants to know how to use the Sharpmaker (a very common question in the Spyderco forum). There are posts everywhere on the forums about this. Joe has wrote up very detailed comments in the Reviews forum, there have been extensive comments in the General forum, thread after thread in the Spyderco forum etc., all this can be daunting to some. There may even be conflicting opinions which are worked out in another thread - and other such problems. There are a lot of good points brought out some of which are rarely repeated - the tip rounding problem for example.

As another example of the problems due to the information overload, I used to keep links to sharpening khukuris for when people asked about it. However I took a look at some of my last posts and asked myself if I would be able to make sense out of it if I was new to the forums. The answer was no, most of the threads are heavily cross linked to other threads containing similar information and some of the threads wander in and off topic and end up pages long.

While some of use do have a lot of free time for internet browsing some people do not and they simply can't invest the time in reading all the threads and trying to sort out the information. Since most of use have done this already I don't see it as much trouble to offer what we have gleamed to the newer members. I am willing to do the HI one, so basically Howard I can help you gather the info you need. There are over 3400 members. I doubt that it will be that hard to find a couple for each forum that will put up a FAQ page.

-Cliff

[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 23 September 1999).]
 
It's going to be an interesting task, no doubt about it, but if anyone wants to step forward and do it, by all means, go ahead.

My concern is that if it's going to be a "featured" part of BladeForums.com, it needs to be *on* BladeForums.com, because of the inherent reliability & stability issues, not to mention the overall look and feel.

Most of the "non forum" pages on BladeForums.com run off a common template with common navigation, etc. This gives a pretty uniform look to the rest of the site, and we're going to be doing something similar to the forums as well in the near future so that the entire site is uniform in appearance. As such, you can understand my reluctance to want pages scattered hither and yon on all sorts of servers, subject to removal and dissappearance without notice.

So, we'll provide the space for them. We may even be able to feature a link on each forum for that forum specific FAQ in the near future.

But, it will be up to the moderators to maintain a text file for the forum specific FAQ, and I'll do the HTML updating.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
So who do we contact to help gather data? I have one idea I could devote some performance time to (Long Acts, those Opera’s).
smile.gif


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~James


 
While this may be a daunting task, I think it would indeed be a useful one. I don't think FAQ's would be necessary for all of the forums, though - just the highly trafficked ones that receive a lot of the repeat questions.

In addition to stuff like Joe's reviews, I think it would be good to get a layman's terms version of state laws together. As far as this goes, there have been several discussions so far, and I'm sure people would be willing to review the pertinent laws for their state and report to somebody who could put the whole thing together. That and the "what knife should I take on an airplane" FAQ would be useful. There's a whole bunch more, but that's what's in my head right now.

Sorry to be adding fuel to the fire, moderators, but I think that it would be used more than the search feature. People know what FAQ's are and if the link is placed well enough, I think they would use them.

Just my $.02



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JP Bullivant

 
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