Writing a KB article -- some feedback
mozillasup...@spamgourmet.com
Ok, I'm writing my second KB article (I know, I know, I'm new to the
whole Support thing.), but I wanted to give some feedback about how
I'm finding this whole process:
1) Amazingly smooth in general. Maybe because some people are always
around in #sumo to help, maybe because I was just building on the
experiences of many of the other great KB writers of my generation,
but no major snags.
2) Bugzilla is the one big downside. So many of the fields are not
useful and without editbugs, I couldn't assign myself the task of
writing an article, I had to wait for cilias and the process was all
drawn out. It'd have been nice to just get on with writing as soon as
I had the idea for writing rather than a long process that took away
some of the drive to get the article written.
3) That timer in tikiwiki is panic inducing. For the second time
around, I've learned to compose stuff in an outside editor but I would
rather not have to deal with it... especially that popup. (An aside,
I'd like to give a verbal warning to all potential KB writers familiar
with mediawiki that the markup is totally different... that was a
shock to me my first time.)
4) Exactly how much support I'm giving confuses me sometimes (I'm
easily confused), so a style guide on when to give click-by-click
instructions and when we can refer to other articles would be great.
Also a sense of what's article-worthy and what's not would be good,
too. This said, I'm giving mad mad props to cilias who patiently
answered every question and then some.
I think the sum up is that the process could be a lot smoother. I know
in Mediawiki and I'm pretty sure in tikiwiki that there are mechanisms
for requesting articles that may be able to replace bugzilla. This
said, however, I must admit with the massive amounts of support that I
got, it turned out OK. After all, I'm writing a second. And hopefully
many more.
-- Cww.
Jason Barnabe (np)
> 3) That timer in tikiwiki is panic inducing. For the second time
> around, I've learned to compose stuff in an outside editor but I would
> rather not have to deal with it... especially that popup. (An aside,
> I'd like to give a verbal warning to all potential KB writers familiar
> with mediawiki that the markup is totally different... that was a
> shock to me my first time.)
If I'm not mistaken, the point of the timer is to tell you that after
15 minutes, you will use your "lock" on an article and someone else
can go and edit it. I think we could improve this. We could have the
edit page "heart beat" back to the server and reset the (invisible)
timer as long as the users keypressing in the field. If the user stops
doing stuff, then show the alert or confirm.
Jason Barnabe (np)
> useful and without editbugs, I couldn't assign myself the task of
> writing an article, I had to wait for cilias and the process was all
> drawn out. It'd have been nice to just get on with writing as soon as
> I had the idea for writing rather than a long process that took away
> some of the drive to get the article written.
We should probably make clear that you don't have to wait to get
assigned an article to get started. Just say you intend to do it and
get going.
> 4) Exactly how much support I'm giving confuses me sometimes (I'm
> easily confused), so a style guide on when to give click-by-click
> instructions and when we can refer to other articles would be great.
> Also a sense of what's article-worthy and what's not would be good,
> too. This said, I'm giving mad mad props to cilias who patiently
> answered every question and then some.
We also need to explain better how to make article requests. I don't
see the need to make people file bugs themselves; they can just point
something out (in the newsgroups, in the contributor's forum) and
reviewers can make a decision and possible file a bug for them.