Document comments used as support forums

[Israel Saeta Pérez]

I've recently stumbled upon

 http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/send-mail-on-workflow-transition

and realized some people think article comments are intended to be used as a support forum.

Would placing a short message in the comments add form like:

"""
Documentation comments are intended to be used to point out erratas, suggestions and improvements to the articles.
Please don't post support requests here. Use the support forums and mailing lists instead.
"""

be easy to implement in short-term?

-- israel

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[Mikko Ohtamaa]

Israel Saeta Pérez wrote:

I've recently stumbled upon

 http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/send-mail-on-workflow-transition

and realized some people think article comments are intended to be used as a
support forum.

If we provide people a media to discuss in some particular context I don't see why this behaviour should be discouraged, since it is very effective peer-to-peer help network. The context is lost and possible related dicussions are not linked in if we guide people to use support forums. Also, support forums are more cumbersome and difficult to use (all that mailing list and nabble hazzle).

Powerful examples of working, encouraged, comments as dicussion examples are here:

http://fi2.php.net/manual/en/function.print-r.php

If we don't want to see people discussing on the authoritative documents section we should be able to automatically link in related discussions like here:

http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Widget

[Martin Aspeli-2]

Mikko Ohtamaa wrote:

>
>
> Israel Saeta Pérez wrote:
>> I've recently stumbled upon
>>
>>  http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/send-mail-on-workflow-transition
>>
>> and realized some people think article comments are intended to be used as
>> a
>> support forum.
>>
>>
>
> If we provide people a media to discuss in some particular context I don't
> see why this behaviour should be discouraged, since it is very effective
> peer-to-peer help network.

Except it's not effective. The comments on plone.org are difficult to
find and often ignored. At best, the author of the original document
will notice and respond. The chances of others stumbling upon these
comments and helping further are slim.

> The context is lost and possible related
> dicussions are not linked in if we guide people to use support forums. Also,
> support forums are more cumbersome and difficult to use (all that mailing
> list and nabble hazzle).

I don't think many people would agree with you there. The plone.org
commenting UI is not geared towards the type of high-volume,
multi-participant discussion that is required for effective end user
support.

Comments on plone.org were intended as a way to provide additional
comments or feedback, not ask for more help. I think it's inevitable
that some people will ask for help, but in general I think we should
discourage that use case.

Martin

--
Author of `Professional Plone Development`, a book for developers who
want to work with Plone. See http://martinaspeli.net/plone-book


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[Alexander Limi]

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:10:20 -0800, Martin Aspeli  
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Comments on plone.org were intended as a way to provide additional
> comments or feedback, not ask for more help. I think it's inevitable
> that some people will ask for help, but in general I think we should
> discourage that use case.

…or, if we decide to support it, at least it has to send CC to a list that  
has some people on it, so the original author isn't the only one that gets  
notified.

I do agree that comments on documentation usually make me more confused,  
not less. :)


--
Alexander Limi · http://limi.net


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[Israel Saeta Pérez]

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:45 PM, Alexander Limi  wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:10:20 -0800, Martin Aspeli
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Comments on plone.org were intended as a way to provide additional
>> comments or feedback, not ask for more help. I think it's inevitable
>> that some people will ask for help, but in general I think we should
>> discourage that use case.
>
> …or, if we decide to support it, at least it has to send CC to a list that
> has some people on it, so the original author isn't the only one that gets
> notified.

But this would involve either
 1) providing a way to route mailing list responses back to the
comments for the reader to see them or
 2) the comment's author being suscribed to the plone-users mailing-list

Anyways, I think that if they're used correctly (IMO errata,
suggestions, improvements), posting documentation comments to the
plone-docs (or plone-docs-comments list, or whatever) would be helpful
for the documentation team to spot any incoming comments and integrate
them if neccessary. But I guess this would have to wait for plone.org
Plone 3 integration.

-- israel

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[Steve McMahon]

Way back at the DocComm sprint, it was decided — but never implemented
— that we wanted to replace the comments with a link to a tracker for
ticket filing for inaccurate, misleading or inadequate documentation.
The idea was to discourage "help me" comments while helping the doc
team take responsibility for quality control.

If we develop a more free-wheeling policy for a portion of the
documents, those will then be editable in place by anyone with a
login. No need for comments there either.

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Israel Saeta Pérez <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:45 PM, Alexander Limi  wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:10:20 -0800, Martin Aspeli
>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>> Comments on plone.org were intended as a way to provide additional
>>> comments or feedback, not ask for more help. I think it's inevitable
>>> that some people will ask for help, but in general I think we should
>>> discourage that use case.
>>
>> …or, if we decide to support it, at least it has to send CC to a list that
>> has some people on it, so the original author isn't the only one that gets
>> notified.
>
> But this would involve either
>  1) providing a way to route mailing list responses back to the
> comments for the reader to see them or
>  2) the comment's author being suscribed to the plone-users mailing-list
>
> Anyways, I think that if they're used correctly (IMO errata,
> suggestions, improvements), posting documentation comments to the
> plone-docs (or plone-docs-comments list, or whatever) would be helpful
> for the documentation team to spot any incoming comments and integrate
> them if neccessary. But I guess this would have to wait for plone.org
> Plone 3 integration.
>
> -- israel
>
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> _______________________________________________
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs
>

--

Steve McMahon
Reid-McMahon, LLC
[hidden email]
[hidden email]

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[Dylan Jay-4]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve McMahon [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Monday, 24 November 2008 8:28 AM
> To: Israel Saeta Pérez
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [Plone-docs] Document comments used as support forums
>
> Way back at the DocComm sprint, it was decided — but never implemented
> — that we wanted to replace the comments with a link to a tracker for
> ticket filing for inaccurate, misleading or inadequate documentation.
> The idea was to discourage "help me" comments while helping the doc
> team take responsibility for quality control.
>
> If we develop a more free-wheeling policy for a portion of the
> documents, those will then be editable in place by anyone with a
> login. No need for comments there either.

And for more official manuals we could support the tracker idea above, or
instead the staging idea Israel had previously mentioned.

In addition to all of that, if we really wanted to support discussion we
cold just include a link the mailing list at the bottom.

 

> On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Israel Saeta Pérez <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 9:45 PM, Alexander Limi  wrote:
> >> On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:10:20 -0800, Martin Aspeli
> >> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Comments on plone.org were intended as a way to provide additional
> >>> comments or feedback, not ask for more help. I think it's inevitable
> >>> that some people will ask for help, but in general I think we should
> >>> discourage that use case.
> >>
> >> …or, if we decide to support it, at least it has to send CC to a list
> that
> >> has some people on it, so the original author isn't the only one that
> gets
> >> notified.
> >
> > But this would involve either
> >  1) providing a way to route mailing list responses back to the
> > comments for the reader to see them or
> >  2) the comment's author being suscribed to the plone-users mailing-list
> >
> > Anyways, I think that if they're used correctly (IMO errata,
> > suggestions, improvements), posting documentation comments to the
> > plone-docs (or plone-docs-comments list, or whatever) would be helpful
> > for the documentation team to spot any incoming comments and integrate
> > them if neccessary. But I guess this would have to wait for plone.org
> > Plone 3 integration.
> >
> > -- israel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> > This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's
> challenge
> > Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great
> prizes
> > Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the
> world
> > http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/
> > _______________________________________________
> > Plone-docs mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Steve McMahon
> Reid-McMahon, LLC
> [hidden email]
> [hidden email]
>
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> world
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plone-docs

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[Graham Perrin]

Steve McMahon wrote:

replace the comments with a link to a tracker

Hurrah, this is exactly what I had in mind, and I have a complementary suggestion (for which I have created a separate thread <http://n2.nabble.com/An-item-of-documentation-should-list-%28probably-at-the-foot%29-tickets-that-are-related-tp1574426p1574426.html> — aiming to keep things concise).

[treed-2]

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 04:41:10PM +0100, Israel Saeta P?rez spake thusly:
> I've recently stumbled upon
>
>  http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/send-mail-on-workflow-transition
>
> and realized some people think article comments are intended to be used as a
> support forum.

The commenting/discussion board functionality in plone has always been
weak. This seems very strange to me since there are tons of half-baked
PHP based discussion boards out there that seem to scale and that
people really like. Everyone says there simply isn't enough interest
in a good message board system in Plone from people actually willing
and able to do the work and I guess it is true.

I have never understood (aside from what I just wrote above which
probably explains all) why comments in Plone were not a content type
which can then be indexed and aggregated in a smart folder or
view. People could leave comments on a documentation page and those
comments would be saved there but would be found via the catalog index
for aggregation on a main documentation discussion forum where they
would be seen by anyone monitoring the forum.

--
Tracy Reed
http://tracyreed.org


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[Dylan Jay-4]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:plone-docs-
> [hidden email]] On Behalf Of Tracy Reed
> Sent: Wednesday, 26 November 2008 7:51 AM
> To: Israel Saeta P?rez
> Cc: Plone Docs List
> Subject: Re: [Plone-docs] Document comments used as support forums
>
> On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 04:41:10PM +0100, Israel Saeta P?rez spake thusly:
> > I've recently stumbled upon
> >
> >  http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/send-mail-on-workflow-transition
> >
> > and realized some people think article comments are intended to be used
> as a
> > support forum.
>
> The commenting/discussion board functionality in plone has always been
> weak. This seems very strange to me since there are tons of half-baked
> PHP based discussion boards out there that seem to scale and that
> people really like. Everyone says there simply isn't enough interest
> in a good message board system in Plone from people actually willing
> and able to do the work and I guess it is true.
>
> I have never understood (aside from what I just wrote above which
> probably explains all) why comments in Plone were not a content type
> which can then be indexed and aggregated in a smart folder or
> view. People could leave comments on a documentation page and those
> comments would be saved there but would be found via the catalog index
> for aggregation on a main documentation discussion forum where they
> would be seen by anyone monitoring the forum.

I believe they are separate objects enough that they are indexed separately.
I'm not sure why that doesn't happen out of the box.

I do remember for one project I patched comments so they indexed as part of
the page content itself. So any search on terms in comments would return the
page the comments were about (including the comments).



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