> huh. interesting. But I think it's too bad that users (non-technical and > otherwise) need so much hand-holding when it come to software. > > With a DVD player (or a car or house), a user will press the button or flip > a switch to learn what a thing does. With software, and tools like > MediaWiki, there is this underlying fear of "breaking it", so a user won't > play in the sandbox. It's too bad.
Well, back in the days of VCRs under everyone's television, how many people did you know that had one with the clock permanently flashing 12:00 because they couldn't figure out how to set it? I try to take the approach of making as easy as possible for new users to get over that fear and jump in. Some do, some don't. Some still open bug reports (a complicated process) instead of simply editing the Wiki text. Others wouldn't use the installed functionality on the OOoWiki because they weren't aware of it, or were intimidated by the Versions page. By putting the list into the Help: pages it's made them more visible somehow... and I also have started announcing new Extensions using MediaWiki:Sitenotice. It all helps :-) C. -- Clayton Cornell ccorn...@openoffice.org OpenOffice.org Documentation Project co-lead Sun Microsystems, Hamburg, Germany _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
