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Summary of change:
'''This page brainstorms on compromises to keep efficiency as high as possible and satisfy communication-related bad habit (of a significant number of people) to dilute useful information (continuously, and indefinitely) and waste other's time by chronologically writing instead of thematically.''' '''Forum''' can be appealing: one can ask something without even checking [http://vems.hu/vt/help/main/error_reporting.html help pages], '''without thinking about where the information belongs'''. * However, by saving 5 minutes during writing to a forum, the '''task is extremely rudely pushed onto readers, to spend 50x or 100x''' (or 1000 times in some cases) total, '''to merge the chronological info that should have been merged at the time of writing''' (if it weren't obvious: because reading happens much more than writing) ** also, if something is added or updated or reworded (which is a good thing when thematically organized), it becomes even more work for readers to merge the information, and the '''useful information is diluted''' ** the '''only way to improve a chronological thread''' is by tedious work: to '''extract information''', rephrase ('''thematically, eg. in a wiki''') '''and delete the thread''' (the good things => extract and merge, the rest is noise)... most of what should have been done at the time of writing in the first place. ---- There is a forum site [http://www.vemssupport.com/forum/ here] * IMPORTANT: official support is only available via [https://shop.vems.hu/catalog/refer_to_thematical_page.php editable, thematically organized format] ---- '''So - sigh - work must be done on the site (not just new firmware and HW features).''' * Professional webmasters can use a '''version tracking system''' like SVN or git (see WikiVsEmail) to store content and use advanced or simple tools to edit * Anyone can edit '''wiki''', but some responsible and qualified persons must assist so the structure is kept clear * Absolutely anyone can add info (well: text) to forums, and most people are convenient to do so: but forum requires the most time to extract useful info and pump into the site organized thematically: absolutely certain that one of the above methods is needed in any case. People who intend to spend some leasure time would use forums more often and those who want to contribute would use one of the first 2. Some would hang in forum from time 2 time and contribute to first 2. The first 2 can be organized with some effort (but not without effort!), forum cannot be organized but information can be merged and pumped over to the organized site. note: whatever method is used, CompenSation/Distribution credits must be based on achieved results not time spent. ---- '''Forum''' is basically a set of messages the same way as '''mailing list''': * when only a browser is available, forum can be easier than a mailing list * when good mail-tools are available, email is much simpler and faster to use than a forum. There are many gateways, eg. 'sourceforge forums' is a flexible implementation of forum and mailing list. ---- A '''product is much more than the hardware and software, customers have to get the right ''feeling'' ''' about it, and the evidence suggests that people are not getting that feeling, the people that I have directed here take one look at the Wiki and never come back (and I am talking about technical people here). With forum people spend much more time around vems (regardless of how same time could be spent more efficiently), and that makes a community. Contraselection is very common in our society: eg. we pay more for support to a software company that sells broken software than one that sells working software. ---- '''Solution''' - it doesn't sound hard to get the best of both worlds * make a forum * Every forum topic should point to 2 (maybe wiki) pages: ** general advice on "search first, summarize project, try to find more relevant place, use links, etc.." ** link to a page that describes the topic and points to relevant info (maybe a small FAQ too): the best might be to include this page as a header for that topic altogether by default (with the option to turn it off) - this will need write-access control at some point. I think that some tags in wiki like the "<code>" are desired and more urgent than the forums (for now we need people who tend to organize information the proper way, so they help build the manual; than anyone can come, many will realize sooner or later how to do things properly). These tags would hide (by default; configurable of course) development related info, or info relevant for v3.1 only. The general way to implement this is: * make property_x configurable in preferences (domain: positive integers) * <relevancy property="x" rule="equals" value="31" > * <relevancy property="x" rule="lessthan" value="32" > It is self explanatory what the relevancy tag would do. (x could be used for board version, 31 means v3.1 Frank (and others) please elaborate on feasibility. ---- A lot of these stand alone systems can't lay a candle to Genboard and they are top dollar units with not even half the features at genboard. there should be one Genboard runing car in each state of the US and world for that matter. that 50 cars in the USA so one person in each state for someone to talk to about it and advertise the unit and help people that are trying to get started. ---- The wiki '''should be used to build pages like normal websites'''. ---- '''Search suggestion:''' How about maybe using a Google search for the site instead of the builtin wiki ''' Pet Peeve '' Why do I have to remember the entire directory structure to link to a page. Wiki should be smart enough to know that GrmRacer is a WikiKeyWord and point to it not requiring a user to remember MembersPage/GrmRacer or MembersPage/GrmRacer/GrmCircuits this will make cross linking that much better and more useful. !MembersPage/... was a standard adopted at some point (we not start that way) to make member's pages not clutter SiteIndex. You are absolutely right: better ways are possible, and needed. ---- '''IRC''' - see ChatViaIrc page FacebookBlocksContentAndUsersWithoutCauseOrExplanatation - The recipient should have control of what she sees... not a third party, definitely not Facebook - the nonsense times are back (people not always noticing, if the same that happened before happens again: if it is NOT black and white, it cannot be mass manipulation after all). ---- * Yes to Forums, 100% of the people I talk to about VEMS are bewildered with the use of a Wiki as opposed to a forum structure. * Having separate forum sections such as "Firmware", "Software", "Wiring", etc, make finding information easy. ** Best to have a "Sticky" at the top of each forum, with '''current information''', and '''complete documentation''' about the subject matter. Kevin Black ** well, that is '''exactly like''' a thematically organized article, Help page (or better: '''wiki''' if editable)... '''with comments/chat at the bottom'''; wikipedia has "Talk page" to keep noise separated, but still linked).
Optional: Add document to category:
Wiki formatting: * is Bullet list ** Bullet list subentry ... '''Bold''', ---- is horizontal ruler, <code> preformatted text... </code> See wiki editing HELP for tables and other formatting tips and tricks.