[wp-forums] Why the forum FAQ

[Podz]

Scott Merrill wrote:
> Vicki Frei wrote:
>> On 12/6/2005 12:55:08 PM, Les Bessant (les at lcb.me.uk) wrote:
>>
>>> I'd like a kind of "master sticky" that sticks to the front page....
>> Entirely agree.  Asked about that a while back.... For pref, I'd like to
>> see a site-wide sticky ABOVE the tag-soup there; failing that, one just
>> under "Latest Discussions" would be okay....
> 
> I'd like to see stickies in a different color, to ensure that they
> attract the eyes of those sited readers who visit the page.
> 

I think a Master Sticky has to serve two (or more) types of people, and
has more than one role.

People:
I too look for FAQ's so signage that pointed me roughly in the right
direction would be good, but an inexperienced user needs bigger signs.

Roles:
Yes Codex has got a stack on information in it, but it does not answer
questions that can and are generated.
There has also been an increase in posts with search.wordpress.org/q=
type response which do sod all for people - we must get rid of the
assumption that people have not searched. Since Matt added the line
above the post area, the number of people having not searched has
dropped - you can tell that from the nature of questions. (It also
drives me nuts that people think pasting a link as a response is help.
It is not.)
And the other role - which was behind this - is flexibility.
FAQ's get dusty - even those in Codex. They require a huge amount of
work to stay current, and I don't think we should aim so high.
My thinking behind this was that we address current concerns and we keep
those on the very first page of that thread. We expand those posts
there, we edit each other's posts, we change the order, maybe split the
'newbie' faqs to be above the second post of the 'not-so-newbies' but we
 try to make both our time on the forums better and hope to reduce the
frustration that users have.

There will never be an ideal FAQ with a project like WP that has such a
diverse and large userbase.

I do favour the different colours.

If we can come up with a good start post of say 10 ? 20 ? issues then do
we do a Master Sticky ? And then mods edit that post and any under it so
remain current ?

I think the forum code could do with some love and I'm hoping that
post-2.0 that will happen.

P.

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