Is there a novice thread?

[Anne]

Is there a novice thread where newbies could ask questions without fear of being told to research through lot of messages they don't understand?

Just asking.

Anne

[Gregg]

Is there a novice thread where newbies could ask questions without fear of being told to research through lot of messages they don't understand?

Just asking.

Anne

This question is already answered in the forum. Try searching.

Gregg

P.S. Just joking. Go ahead and ask your question. I'll try to answer it.

[M_C]

Is there a novice thread where newbies could ask questions without fear of being told to research through lot of messages they don't understand?

Just asking.

Anne

No doubt, "use the search function" ranks right up there with "RTFM" in the rudeness factor, people shouldn't have to worry about that in any forum.
(joking doesn't count of course )

[az2008]

No doubt, "use the search function" ranks right up there with "RTFM" in the rudeness factor, people shouldn't have to worry about that in any forum.

That's why I'm a big advocate of using a wiki to augment a forum. There is lots of repeated information on a forum. People shouldn't have to worry about searching for that information. Or, having to repeat it umpteen times.

Wikis aren't good for carrying on conversations. But, forums aren't good for maintaining commonly-requested information.

Mark

[Anne]

One of the major unknowns for me is the most important - vocabulary.
What, for example, is wiki where there is easy-to-understand magic jack information?

Anne

[az2008]

One of the major unknowns for me is the most important - vocabulary.
What, for example, is wiki where there is easy-to-understand magic jack information?

I wasn't trying to say your question should be answered by a wiki. Just that a lot of questions can be answered more easily by a wiki than historic discussions.

Another poster said you shouldn't have to worry about being told to "RTFM" (read the freaking manual, i.e., search historic discussions). My point was that that's a natural consequence of relying upon a forum for the dual purpose of facilitating discussions and capturing the knowledge that comes from those discussions.

My point was that if forums utilize wikis to capture and maintain useful information, there would be less fear of constantly being told to "RTFM" when the majority of information is right there, easy to find, and therefore discussion questions would be more likely to be less repetitive.

The other nice thing about a wiki (opposed to the stream of consciousness that discussions turn into) is that anyone can contribute. For example, you're complaint seems to be that information locked up in forum discussions (or, centralized on the wikibooks wiki) uses terms you don't understand. With the wiki, you could help with that shortcoming. You could create a glossary page. Document terms that aren't clear to less experienced individuals. And, link all occurrences of the term to the glossary.

You can't do that with a forum. You could start a discussion topic named "Anne's glossary." You (but nobody else) could edit it. It would roll off into oblivion like all other discussions. It could be made a "sticky." But, that just forces the importance of the topic onto everyone's display (when it may not be important to many). After a few months of other novices chiming in with "I think 'Inbound bandwidth' should be defined" (and you stopped updating the first post), it's just another stream of consciousness that new visitors are supposed to spend 2 hours memorizing. And always see it glued to the top of all discussions.

Discussions are not knowledge bases. Those are two entirely different domains, served by different tools. They contribute to each other. In the absence of one, it's guaranteed that the other will be bogged down serving a dual purpose. (Can you imagine using a wiki as a discussion forum? The "talk" page being used for multiple topics, with no pagination or grouping of topics?).

I hope that makes sense. I wasn't trying to answer your question or say a wiki could answer it. Just that, if forums make use of wikis to contain information which commonly occurs in a forum, there would be less repetitiveness. Less cause for someone to get exasperated and tell people "use the search function." If a wiki doesn't use the right vocabulary, that's something that's easily improved.

Mark

[Anne]

Thanks to everyone who responded; and Mark, thanks for the link to the MJ wiki.

Anne