Zugg Software :: View topic

Wanderer Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 94

Hey all,

My apologies.. I've been gone from the forums for a long time, but I'd like to give an idea suggestion. The forum is a great social environment as it provides threaded discussions. However, it makes for a very very very poor knowledge base. Anyways, it is somewhat easy to get a package that would integrate a wiki on the backside of the forum. I'd suggest just importing the current build of the help files into the wiki, and letting it develop from there. I think a more efficient way to organize the knowledge that already exists here would be a useful way to better support your users.

Keep up the great work, Zugg! I'm psyched for the new mapper and database addon! (and i'm sad to say, the size of my map puts the one you mentioned in that other thread to shame :P)

GURU Joined: 26 Jul 2001 Posts: 1958 Location: Canada

There is one kinda:
CMUD knowledge base:
http://forums.zuggsoft.com/index.php?page=3&mode=cat&cat=23

CMUD manuals
http://forums.zuggsoft.com/modules/mx_kb/kb.php?page=3&mode=doc&k=2215

As well as articles can be added, I know at least Nexela added some before.

Wanderer Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 94

I mean, you hit the nail on the head with the 'kinda' I think the main power of a wiki format is that every knowledge entry exists as a dynamic object, which unfortunately isnt the case with the current knowledge base. It functions well as a manual, but I just think the good community of zuggsoft clients need better :) Another advantage of a wiki add-on is that it is a really really easy install that would fit right on top of the current forum. Just a suggestion, but I think we should be doing this before we accumulate a decade of forum posts. :P

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

One of the things is that the current knowledge base is directly linked by CMud's help system. This means any change there is immediately available to all CMud users. Also all Gurus have access to add and edit entries into the KB, while all forum user can comment on an entry. I believe those capabilities match or exceed the wiki format. This means you are requesting just a change in the interface. I am not for or against it, since I have seen some horrible and some good wiki interfaces. My general opinion is that Zugg chose a design that is distinguished, respectable, and works.

Perhaps suggesting specific features or abilities that are lacking would help in considering a new design.

Wanderer Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 94

Ok, I think here's what I think is most specifically lacking. Examples. Every day, people are walked through various triggers and whatnot on the forums. There's a help and support system going on here that many large companies would drool over and dream about having. But once those posts get buried, it is hard to reference back. So I guess my main issue here is that there's a system where already done work gets left behind. If you as a guru, or anyone else was able to say... Ok, this post constitutes a good code example, or a good explanation, and were able to someway link it to the topic (my suggestion was a wiki, but obviously there are other ways to do it too), I think you'd get what would become a very very good reference. And I think the best part of it all, is that the help and the support are already going on. It is just a matter of making it all accessible.

Also, I realize the immediate response is going to be "oh, well, why dont you use the search?!" My problem with the search is that it doesnt distinguish between quality results and not. You're also getting a ton of false positives, simply because the lexicon of CMUD programming (and hell, programming in general) terms is not that huge :)

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

To be honest, I've gotten a lot of help by using http://forums.zuggsoft.com/forums/search.php. Yeah, you have to go through a lot of posts
until you might eventually find exactly what you're looking for and they're just posts and not listed subject headers under some major list, but. I'm unsure if I'd want it any other way.

Prog

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:56 pm

The current Knowledge Base really *is* a Wiki. The difference is that we have security controls that prevent any user from modifying it. Only Gurus-level forum users can modify the Knowledge Base. Normal forum users can post comments to the individual articles to add whatever examples or questions that they want. Myself and the Gurus look through the comments and then modify the main help topic as needed, which then gets imported into the CMUD help files.

The only difference between a Wiki and our current knowledge base is that a Wiki has more control over accepting changes and reverting to previous versions of changes. We have talked about adding those features, but since the write access is limited to a small number of people, it hasn't been a big priority.

Anyway, so feel free to add examples as comments to the Knowledge Base. That's what the Comment system is for.

Beginner Joined: 15 May 2012 Posts: 15

The search engine is poo for problem solving on the website. Type in %find or Find, or examples of Find, because you want more than the one or two examples from the help files, and you'll see what comes up. It rarely works.

To search for a specific problem or for examples of something, it's a couple of steps up from just reading the forums like a book hoping to come across something that relates.

However, I am so clueless to scripting that most of the forums is informative on other commands so I'll read those results anyway.

Sometimes you get exactly what your looking for or you get it filtered down pretty well at least. So maybe 'a couple of steps up' should be 'a few steps up'. Try diceavg for something that might relate to that, you get two results back thats not helpful. etc etc

I've gotten TONS of help from searching the forums, its just not the help I was originally searching for. and I don't know of a fix, so I'll shut up.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

There are two search engines on this site, and the one that doesn't require you to navigate through the Site menu doesn't work right.

Beginner Joined: 15 May 2012 Posts: 15

Wow, ok thanks Matt! I will certainly give that a try asap. This may be a huge help!

:)