On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 9:30 PM, drew <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 09:05 +1000, Jean Weber wrote: >> I've started a new thread, because I think Rob Weir's very important point >> has got lost in the discussions about forums and lists. Rob wrote: >> >> > Support is important. The question is >> > how best to do it. If all we're doing is considering the merits of >> > different access methods to support, without looking at the >> > implications of fragmenting the repositories and the resulting >> > knowledge base, then we are doing a poor job at thinking this through. >> > Remember the best support site is the one that allows the user to >> > answer their own question, without signing up for a mailing list or >> > posting to a forum. We should be looking at how we can prevent user >> > support questions. >> >> This ties in closely with end-user documentation and how it is delivered, so >> I am very interested in this topic. Later today I'll go through the archives >> of this list to find the earlier discussions, which I believe occurred while >> I was traveling and thus weren't given enough of my attention at the time. >> Or, have ideas and suggestions, perhaps examples of good practice, been >> posted to the wiki? Apple is IMO a brilliant example, but they have a lot of >> resources >> >> It's clear to me that we need to do better than we have in the user support >> area, if we can do so. Not only will that benefit users and improve our >> reputation, it will allow us to work smarter, not harder. I will pursue >> this, along with other interested people. It's something valuable that I can >> do while the techies are moving websites and working with code etc. >> >> Setting up a suitable system and populating it with suitable information >> will be a big task and take quite awhile, especially if we don't have enough >> skilled people to do it. (I'm referring to content, not infrastructure.) All >> the more reason to get started now with planning what we want to do, so we >> can start doing it ASAP. >> >> BTW, the Docs mailing list at OOo gets quite a few enquiries from people >> wanting to contribute, and a few of them sound like they have relevant >> experience and skills. I don't want to lose them. Yes, we point them to this >> list as well as ODFAuthors, but I don't know how many have actually joined. >> If we're actively discussing topics of interest to documenters, perhaps more >> people can be persuaded to get involved. > > > Hi Jean, > > Before I let another thread slide away from view - I agree completely > with approaching this with a unified view of user support, not just > stove pipes for different delivery vehicles. >
Does anyone have a sense for how far we can take this by extending phpBB? It looks like we've already enhanced it quite a bit. In other words, is phpBB the best way forward? Is it easy to hack? For example, do we think it would be possible to eventually add collaborative features like question/answer ranking, etc.? > //drew > >
