Community Organization - Help Pages

summary:

The current organizational structure is not user friendly

Community Organization - Help Pages

Craig Macomber 1189972269|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

As a new admin here at the community, I have looked around and found some great content, but like almost all wikis (especially ones not on wikidot) the organizational and navigation seems to be a problem. It seems to me that the most important part of this community site is to help the community members, but there was no root page for the help section, no bread crumbs, and no topic based organizing of the howTos. Now that we have so many howtos it was hard to find what you want. I think it is better now, but I still need update the side nav bar.

Any suggestions for the help page? I haven't finished filing all the howtos into the topics (I'm short on time), but I did a lot of them. Feel free file some more. Just set their parent page to the proper page in the "howtotopics:" category.

last edited on 1190045332|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by gerdami + show more

Re: Community Organization - Help Pages

hartnell 1190015438|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

To the admins, I made Craig an admin because he is an organizational genius. Please take anything he says into consideration. Thanks. —hartnell

last edited on 1190045358|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by gerdami + show more

Re: Community Organization - Help Pages

gerdami 1190053047|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

there was no root page for the help section, no bread crumbs, and no topic based organizing of the howTos.

Hi Craig,

The Community grew by itself as a non controlled brainstorming process which started from scratch. At the beginning Michal was the lonely owner of this Community website, then Hartnell came out from the hell. He invited other daemons on board. They realized that the documentation was spread over the main doc, the community, the snippets.
Then the handbook.wikidot.com was created with an added value: multilingual ! When I jumped on the handbook I considered the community.wikidot.com as a scratchpad to which I continued to contribute but with the idea that the real manual would be the hanbook.

I am not against improving this website but I think we cannot be everywhere at the same time.

Best regards,
gerdami

Re: Community Organization - Help Pages

Craig Macomber 1190080601|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I see. I think we then should make a great effort to redirect content additions to the handbook rather than here at the community. Take actions such as remove the add howto box and replace it with a link directing people to a comparable location in the handbook. We have no reason to discourage use of the community's resources, but there the hand book should grow, and the community should stay about the same for now.

The handbook does look like a much more manageable project (1 wiki) and seems to be well organized. The interface however could use some work. It is not clear how to get to the content from the main page. I will get on that later. Also, it could use a nice theme. I could make it a theme if you want.

Re: Community Organization - Help Pages

Helmuti_pdorf 1190105793|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi Craig!

I would prefer to let the how-tos's open AND EXTRA from the handbook -
- of course with better structur to find something - as you bring it in now.

The reason is the easy wrtiting for new users, when they came first time to a point where they can write down there experience.
Even there is a page in the handbook for such item.
I think it is easier to start on a little page for a how-to than in a multilingual project where I have to fit into a new structure and have to use formal standards..
Later it is easier to "copy" a how-to to the handbook . ( as i did) .

And about the handbook "content" we ( the starter team) discuss now over a longer time on the two handbook pages:

http://handbook.wikidot.com/en:content
and
http://handbook.wikidot.com/en:content-2

I believe today we will use perhaps both versions..?

But this is a growing story..

Anyway - you are welcome !

Best regards
Helmut
(One of the lonesome translators [with gerdami] - the next issue: to find some helpers/writers in my language)

last edited on 1190112298|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by gerdami + show more