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Subject: Re: User support: beyond forums or lists
From: drew <drew@baseanswers.com>
To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
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Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:38:13 -0400
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On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 12:40 -0400, Rob Weir wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 9:30 PM, drew <drew@baseanswers.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 09:05 +1000, Jean Weber wrote:
> >> I've started a new thread, because I think Rob Weir's very important point has got lost in the discussions about forums and lists. Rob wrote:
> >>
> >> > Support is important. The question is
> >> > how best to do it.  If all we're doing is considering the merits of
> >> > different access methods to support, without looking at the
> >> > implications of fragmenting the repositories and the resulting
> >> > knowledge base, then we are doing a poor job at thinking this through.
> >> > Remember the best support site is the one that allows the user to
> >> > answer their own question, without signing up for a mailing list or
> >> > posting to a forum. We should be looking at how we can prevent user
> >> > support questions.
> >>
> >> This ties in closely with end-user documentation and how it is delivered, so I am very interested in this topic. Later today I'll go through the archives of this list to find the earlier discussions, which I believe occurred while I was traveling and thus weren't given enough of my attention at the time. Or, have ideas and suggestions, perhaps examples of good practice, been posted to the wiki? Apple is IMO a brilliant example, but they have a lot of resources
> >>
> >> It's clear to me that we need to do better than we have in the user support area, if we can do so. Not only will that benefit users and improve our reputation, it will allow us to work smarter, not harder. I will pursue this, along with other interested people. It's something valuable that I can do while the techies are moving websites and working with code etc.
> >>
> >> Setting up a suitable system and populating it with suitable information will be a big task and take quite awhile, especially if we don't have enough skilled people to do it. (I'm referring to content, not infrastructure.) All the more reason to get started now with planning what we want to do, so we can start doing it ASAP.
> >>
> >> BTW, the Docs mailing list at OOo gets quite a few enquiries from people wanting to contribute, and a few of them sound like they have relevant experience and skills. I don't want to lose them. Yes, we point them to this list as well as ODFAuthors, but I don't know how many have actually joined. If we're actively discussing topics of interest to documenters, perhaps more people can be persuaded to get involved.
> >
> >
> > Hi Jean,
> >
> > Before I let another thread slide away from view - I agree completely
> > with approaching this with a unified view of user support, not just
> > stove pipes for different delivery vehicles.
> >
> 
> Does anyone have a sense for how far we can take this by extending
> phpBB?  It looks like we've already enhanced it quite a bit.
> 
> In other words, is phpBB the best way forward?  Is it easy to hack?
> For example, do we think it would be possible to eventually add
> collaborative features like question/answer ranking, etc.?

hmm - one of 'those' questions.

There are a good number of such mod's available for this from the pbpBB
team site.

There is the KDE brainstorming site
http://forum.kde.org/brainstorm.php#cat83 

This is custom coded pbpBB - a few years back I spoke with the admin's
there and they made it clear they would be happy to share the code.


//drew