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    Help - Need Feedback Please

    Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 @ 09:45 AM  
    What if users could create their own help documents?

    I'd like to change the currently-closed Help area to more of an open format, similar to the Posts area. I've been aware that the Help documentation is a bit lacking for awhile now but have not had time to update or add content until just recently. Moving to an open format would allow anyone who had a question or suggestion to request assistance or feedback by posting under the Help section.

    Advantages:
    1. An open format alleviates some of my workload because I'm not the only one providing content in the Help area anymore.
    2. The questions would be based on real-world, site-specific issues submitted by actual users who are experiencing problems or have suggestions.
    3. Since the answers provided are coming from other members like yourselves, there's a very good chance that the responses will contain both technical and non-technical information, making them easier to understand.
    4. A multitude of responses means greater potential for collaboration when it comes to new ideas or suggestions for site features.
    5. An open format gives any member of the site the ability to post or respond to a question. This ultimately translates to a greater volume of help documents available, increasing the chances that users will find the information they need.
    Disadvantages:
    1. The answers provided may not provide enough detail to assist the user asking the question, or may contain faulty or incorrect information, potentially leading the requester astray.
    2. As the site features are continually updated, the information originally provided in response to questions may no longer be accurate.
    3. Help documentation must be tagged so that other users can find the answers they need.
    4. Any member can post a question or an answer turning the Help area into a potential spam haven. Because of this, questions and answers would have to be moderated to ensure the Help area is not abused or that potentially harmful information is given out to unsuspecting users.
    How does it work?

    If any of you have ever used sites like Google Answers, Yahoo Answers, or Experts Exchange, the Help area here would work in much the same fashion. Users ask questions, other users or members in-the-know can respond to assist them. It's actually a very simple but effective method for helping out the other members of your online community.

    So, hopefully you made it this far and can now provide some of that good quality feedback I'm always asking for.

    What do you think?

    Suggestions?

    Ideas?

    Critiques?

    1
    Reply by Grateful on September 17, 2008 @ 05:17 AM

    This is weird...I thought I had a whole reply filled out, not a blank one! I did this some time last week. Oh well...my comment basically said that a help section would be a good idea, but you must remember the computer technical expertise of the site's users to be able to offer helpful advice. You certainly don't want to be put in a position of constant editing either.


    2
    Reply by Vaughn on September 21, 2008 @ 11:18 AM

    Any help area is good but depends on your clients, who they are and what expertise they can bring. I have used all of the examples you mentioned from time to time, except for Experts Exchange after they started charging for memberships. The main thing is your site and questions have to be able to be googled. If I am looking for an answer - I google it and go to the sites that come up within the first two or three pages of google responses. I don't want to have to go to ountless sites to find an answer.

    One of the things I have done is to post problems I have had in my day to day activities that I have had to reseach on more than one occasion, so I don't have to do the research again. A code repository would be good also. I keep code examples so I don't have to figure out an algorithm more than once if it is a good one.

    Another thing I have noticed is that some sites grab posts from other sites, I don't know if this is a good thing or not. I have been doing a lot with vmware lately. I post questions on vmwares support site. Within hours my post appears on other sites. If you are going to specialize on something technical or otherwise, you could zap posts from another site to yours and give commentary on them..

    I love yahoo answers, it is sooo adictive. It is like the potato chips that you can't eat just one. Once you are there - count on spending hours there.


    3
    Reply by Jeff on September 22, 2008 @ 01:31 AM
    (A reply to comment #1)

    Lisa,

    I agree that not everyone will be able to provide a technical response. However, in searching back through the posts, I've seen current members lending assistance to others on multiple occasions. Even though it may not be highly technical, often times it gets the job done and gets the user with the question moving in the right direction. In reality, the fact that it's NOT a highly technical answer is probably one of the benefits. The average user is not necessarily going to understand the technical jargon so getting a layman's description of the details would seem to improve the odds of them getting the answer they require.

    Thanks for responding on this! Happy


    4
    Reply by Jeff on September 24, 2008 @ 05:47 AM
    (A reply to comment #2)

    Vaughn,

    Perhaps for a much larger project down the road I might look at designing a full-blown Q&A site but for now my idea was more localized to this site alone. The questions and answers in this site's Help section would not be generic but would all be related to this particular site and its features, members, etc. So most likely, the only ones using it would be the site members.

    For those of us on the technical side, a code repository would actually be a great idea. I can't begin to count the number of times I've found the perfect answer to an off-the-wall question but then lost it when I went to find it again. I am always looking for new ways to improve the site so maybe that's an area I could focus on in the future.

    Although it's not technically a "code repository", you could easily copy your code snippets into a post in order to save it for retrieval at a later date. Member content here on the site is fully "searchable" and "taggable" making it very easy to locate items from the past. Plus the permission structures are very flexible making it very easy to control access to your content.

    As an aside, in my further digging around I actually discovered that Google Answers has effectively closed down due to lack participation. A much better example of a community based question and answer site is MetaFilter. But again my original examples were only designed to give the members here an idea of how the proposed Help section would function. I have used Yahoo Answers a few times but I guess I haven't spent quite as much time there as others. Big Grin

    Thanks for the feedback!


    5
    Reply by Dave on September 26, 2008 @ 12:02 PM

    I have no real opinion, I just don't want to see the blind being led by the partially sighted.

    Dave


    6
    Reply by Richard on September 28, 2008 @ 09:33 AM
    This item was removed by the author.


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