25 replies to this topic

[Holmes.Sherlock]

While hunting the web for some info about BI technology, I came across sqlserverpedia, a community driven website with the tagline: "For the community, by the community". Basically side by side all other reesources, it hosts a "Wiki" section also where members can add/modify/delete articles to create enriched, self-contained & ever-growing series of topics. Here, reboot is super-wiki of knowledge, but it is much scattered. Tutorial section is also not that useful for community participation. Hence, how abot adding a Wiki section to our forum?

[Brito]

Well, this idea has been tried a few different times with different variants and all invariably failed.

- First we had a real wiki like wikipedia that was spammed to heck
- Then we had this wikipedia of ours linked directly to the forums so that members could copy and paste things. It was left abandoned, with very few articles and then spammed to heck
- After a while by popular request of some members, I added a generic account that all reputable members could use to create a topic that could later be edited by any of these reputed members as an index to find information. As result, it ended up being used as an anonymous way of flaming others. Or like I use to say: it got spammed to heck


What I think that you mean is creating an "index" section. A section where topics contain a collection of links to helpful resources around reboot. That is something that I would agree with wholeheartedness as an excellent contribution to our community if some brave volunteer souls would be up for that task.

I would help more personally but I'm not a good links collector. However, I can program reasonably well and can code up something to scrap the links from Wonko's memory unit, that alone could contribute with some two volumes of link collections that go all the way from Windows 9 down to the dinosaur age.

[steve6375]

What happened to the idea of being able to mark some posts as 'solution' to make it easy for anyone to quickly find the answer to a post without having to wade through all the posts?

[Wonko the Sane]

However, I can program reasonably well and can code up something to scrap the links from Wonko's memory unit, that alone could contribute with some two volumes of link collections that go all the way from Windows 9 down to the dinosaur age.

Just for the record Wonko disapproves of direct brain scanning , as much as he won't like being tied to a Vogon's Poetry Appreciation Chair.

Since you appear like being able of programming reasonably well, why don't you show your talents by simply fixing the §@ç#ing broken Forum Search?

That (IF it worked) could be already a good, useful tool.

Fixing botched html inside CODE boxes could be another relatively easy step towards a better use of the board.


Wonko

[AceInfinity]

The first time I seen this idea was on SevenForums, however it's also been seen on MSFN or whatever that other forum name is. I think it's a decent idea, but it would take some committed users to write stuff to add to it.

[sambul61]

Scrap the links from Wonko's memory unit, that alone could contribute with some two volumes of link collections that go all the way from Windows 9 down to the dinosaur age.

Was that a typo for Win98?

"Botched" idea is pre-approved though.

"Search" idea is fully scrappable IMHO.

How about "Real Wiki" with limited edit access - like 100 posts threshold?

[Brito]

Was that a typo for Win98?

I mean 9, as in the sense that after 7 and 8 comes 9.

[Holmes.Sherlock]

From Nuno's post, it appears that we are afraid of "spammers" than anything else under the sun. This forum is better moderated than many other of its peers over the web. Hardly there are cases where a spammer has survived more than a day or two before being banned. The collection of information is so unorganized that the same info is being asked time & again. E.g. USB-Boot, quite sensitive a topic where the knowledge base is spread across hundreds of threads. Especially, when a new entrant joins the forum, he keeps on asking the same question which has alreday been asked thousand times.

I'm so burdened that I am not being able to work for Team Reboot what I tried to months back, otherwise I would have volunteered consolidating links & info together in a compact wiki.

Under the circumstances, I request you all to rethink over "Wiki" suggestion. Especially, Wonko is patient enough to compose a pagefull of reply containing a bunch of links. If he takes an initiative, of course, other members contributing to the effort, it can lead to a forum structured way better.

[Wonko the Sane]

"Search" idea is fully scrappable IMHO.

Then let's remove the search page alltogether, since "as-is" it is in practice impossible to find *anything* (unless you really know where your towel is ).

[Holmes.Sherlock]

How about "Real Wiki" with limited edit access - like 100 posts threshold?

Nice suggestion. Also, it could be moderated rather than directly allowing the change to take place. Moderation is lot easier than composing a Wiki page.

[Holmes.Sherlock]

Then let's remove the search page alltogether, since "as-is" it is in practice impossible to find *anything* (unless you really know where your towel is ).

Well, no matter how much improvement is done to the search function, it can never be an alternative to

site: reboot.pro + <Topic keywords>

in the text box on the google home page.

[Wonko the Sane]

Well, no matter how much improvement is done to the search function, it can never be an alternative to

site: reboot.pro + <Topic keywords>

in the text box on the google home page.

YES! google is an ALTERNATIVE, BUT cannot be a SUBSTITUTE to "in-house" search functions.


Wonko

[Brito]

Sorry, I can't add new features on the forum unless they are solidly maintainable by others in the future (even if paid). This means that adding edit restrictions and marking posts as "solution" won't be supported unless this comes available by default on the forum.

[Holmes.Sherlock]

YES! google is an ALTERNATIVE, BUT cannot be a SUBSTITUTE to "in-house" search functions.

/*Attention: A conscious hijacking of the topic by thread stater */

How many times in the last month did you use:
1. site:.......
2. Bookamarked page
3. Your TB sized memory.
4. Reboot search function.

An honest stats expected.

[Holmes.Sherlock]

Sorry, I can't add new features on the forum unless they are solidly maintainable by others in the future (even if paid).

Then we need to learn how is a free community maintaining such Wiki (http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/)?
I'm sure there are lot more over the Internet.

[Brito]

It is simple, the wiki that you mention is maintained by two to three people. It is not a living community.

Wikis have arrived several times before and this forum has seen each one of them fade away from history.

Whatever you put your heart into, ensure it stays available on the forum so that it reaches researchers and tech-archaeologists from the next decades.

[steve6375]

How about requesting that when a solution has been found, the original poster amends his/her first original post to describe the original problem fully and clearly, the method used to solve the problem and any extra details (including thanking the relevant people for help, where appropriate). If the OP had a problem that was answered by rebooters, then it is only fair that the OP should be asked to write up the 'issue' for others to see. This could be written into the reboot 'rules of etiquette' and other reboot contributers could remind the OP of this when an answer is found or a conclusion reached. This forum rule could also suggest suitable headings that could be used and placed at the end of the original first post text: e.g Topic summary, equipment used (h/w and s/w), introduction, method, results, conclusions, references (external and internal post #s) and acknowledgements.

[Wonko the Sane]

@Holmes.Sherlock
You miss the point .

How come the old version search did work (as it works on 911CD forum)?
How come the "new" version search *ALMOST* works (as it *ALMOST* works on MSFN)?

An example.

Try going:

site:reboot.pro jaclaz vdk*

Then go to local site search and search for posts containing vdk* by user was_jaclaz (results as posts).

Now find this thread:
http://reboot.pro/2265/
in the google results.

Asking "How many times you used" is foolish, asking "How many times you used successfully" is a bit better, but still it is info I won't reveal (basically because I have NO idea of the amounts ).

How about requesting that when a solution has been found, the original poster amends his/her first original post to describe the original problem fully and clearly, the method used to solve the problem and any extra details (including thanking the relevant people for help, where appropriate). If the OP had a problem that was answered by rebooters, then it is only fair that the OP should be asked to write up the 'issue' for others to see. This could be written into the reboot 'rules of etiquette' and other reboot contributers could remind the OP of this when an answer is found or a conclusion reached. This forum rule could also suggest suitable headings that could be used and placed at the end of the original first post text: e.g Topic summary, equipment used (h/w and s/w), introduction, method, results, conclusions, references (external and internal post #s) and acknowledgements.

Only, users with less than 100 posts cannot edit their own posts, NO Rule is respected anymore on this Forum, and most new users won't anyway comply with it (just like they don't with existing Rules, which BTW should have been amended since they were changed).
Guess WHAT the idea of "Common Sense Advice" was originally?


Wonko

[sambul61]

Then let's remove the search page alltogether, since "as-is" it is in practice impossible to find *anything* (unless you really know where your towel is ).

I wouldn't worry about alternative users access to info, preselected and structured by experienced forum members. Wonko Search Engine^® is quite unique, no forum Wiki would be able to easily compete with it. But it wasn't updated for awhile IMHO...

If limited EDIT access to Wiki isn't possible, moderated write access might do the trick.

[Holmes.Sherlock]

How about requesting that when a solution has been found, the original poster amends his/her first original post to describe the original problem fully and ...

Whatever rule/regulation you can think of, it is not going to help if it is too stringent. Participation in forum is voluntary & if you try to burden it with rules, it will be an obvious tendency to violate them.

[steve6375]

sure - but we can ask nicely... it can be a polite request not hard rule -

[sbaeder]

Sorry I am "Late" to the party, but another "suggestion" is to allow trusted members to have access to a limited "google code "wiki"...Not as fancy as some, BUT, we have already been using it to manage and organize information for the docs, and if all it was was a rather simple way to organize links, it might be useful. It does have the ability for peopel to "comment" to a page, without allowing them to "edit" it, and if it was a "part" (i.e. managed in the same space, but with proper prefixes to manage it), it could even be extracted and made a part of the CHM we extract.

But, I think the key to anything like this is to have a passionate "owner"...letting it be too "passive" would probably lead to how things have been in the past. For example, I kind of look at Steve6375 as the keeper of a lot of good "links" back to the information here in the area of g4d, and all the things he "manages" over at RMPrepUSB...

So, I am willing to work with anyone that wants to give the google wiki a try at this...

Scott

[Holmes.Sherlock]

@Nuno
What you think of it?

[Wonko the Sane]

trusted members

...and how/by whom/on the base of what would be the "trusted" status assigned?

Like "elected" by Nuno, voted by an oligarchy of trusted members (can you see the CATCH 22 ), by public acclamation, etc.?

We have had in the past at least one example of what I personally considered, a nice, trustable and "mentally stable" member that over a trifling matter (aren't all discussions actually trifling) decided to delete all the files/projects/thingies he contributed to the board.
While still thinking that the peep is nice, I won't anymore consider him trustworthy (in the sense of "stable").


Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

...and how/by whom/on the base of what would be the "trusted" status assigned?

Do you propose the members to get certified by Verisign?