On Monday 14 July 2003 05:21 pm, Egbert Eich wrote: > Issue 1.: We see the same question being asked over and over again. > If these poster would consider email archives they whould not > have ended up here in the first place.
Or a wiki! (I like wikis, three reasons including: * they are a write once, read many medium that anybody can contribute to * they are easier to search than (some) mail archives -- certainly easier than the typical "here's the archive of all the emails in June, 2003, have fun" access often provided by maillist "built in" archiving tools * contributions on the same topic from multiple writers can be easier to read because they are all on one page -- although wiki pages can be organized as a mail list thread, they are much better when organized in document mode -- if the original creators of the information don't organize in document mode, someone else can refactor to document mode AbiWord has moved / is moving it's FAQ to TWiki, see http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/AbiWordFAQ. If a TWiki existed for XFree86, I would help support it (by contributing as possible), including occasional refactoring and help with organization. > Issue 2.: Since I don't receive money for what I do here I would > like to make sure that the time I invest to look over > the support emails is at least not wasted. Clearly, I think a wiki (TWiki) is a better tool than a mail list for that purpose. > I think I stated before that this list consumes a considerable > amount of my spare time. To decide if the reason for a posting is a bug or > a real problem or just 'user too stupid' one has to try to understand > the description in a posting - which can be rather tedious if people > tell their complete biographies or post in very poor English. > Looking thru logs can also be time consuming. > I would very much appreciate if we wouldn't point everyone with a > problem to this mailing list right away but let this person look > thru an FAQ *before* giving him the address of this list. Referring them to a TWiki page named "BeforePostingYourProblem" could lead them to the FAQ and to instructions (and examples) of how to report a problem that is not covered in the FAQs. (I know -- I too would like it better if it were "Before Posting Your Problem" or something similar.) > Whenever the server terminates with a FatalError() it tells the user > to send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > This creates an enormous amount of traffic here even if it is a user > problem has been answered several times already - like our all time > favourite "cannot find font 'fixed'". It seems like there is a need for a TWiki page FaqCannotFindFixedFonts. I've installed old versions of TWiki on local servers, installing on a hosted web site is more difficult, especially if root access is not available. If I can convince you that a TWiki is a good idea, someone volunteers a hosting site for it and a domain name, I would then look for some help in setting it up. Randy Kramer _______________________________________________ XFree86 mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xfree86
