"Does anyone bother to search anymore?"

[Andy R]

Thanks for the wiki idea. For now let's allow Nords some time to put together some FAQs. If you would like to help him (I am sure he would appreciate the help) out please contact him directly, he will be the point person to help manage this. We have a new usergroup setup to allow access to make the threads in the FAQ forum have similar aspects of a Wiki (edit, add, etc). So if you want to be part of the FAQ team please PM Nords and he will then PM me.

FYI - No conspiracies going on or secrecy. Nords was kind enough to step up and help out. It's time to give him the tools and let him run with his idea.

In regards to copyright, the poster owns the copyright of that post and grants E-R.org the right to display the post. E-R.org owns the copyright on the discussions (all the posts put together).

 

[twaddle]

I'm not talking about any 'building' - just grab my post and edit it, or throw it out and start over. Just copy/paste is the only tool we need. Right?

But a wiki would add lots of cool features like revision history/control and other features that might help prevent an edit war and vandalism.

How does MediaWiki work? - MediaWiki

 

[Nords]

Cheez whiz, guys, I'm accustomed to being criticized for things I've said & done, not for things you haven't seen & heard yet. Lighten up and give this a chance. When you do your own projects I promise to leave you alone until you have something to point at, too.

Here's the deep, dark conspiracy that I've worked out with Andy R:

Thanks, Steve, my main motivation is to do something constructive instead of continuing my perpetual bitching that no one searches or even reads recent posts. It also helps me answer those, uh, FAQs without having to search numerous times for my old posts.

Here's one way it could work:
- Set up a new forum called "FAQs" between "Forum Admin" & "Hi, I am..."
- Put me into a new group ("FAQ Finders"?) and give that group the permission to add/edit/delete posts in that forum. You'd probably also want to give the mods & admins those permissions too, although I'm not looking to add to anyone's workload.
- Make the FAQs forum read-only visible to all, but threads would only be started/modified/deleted by members of the FAQ Finders group.

I'd fill the forum with one-post threads. Each thread's subject would be a FAQ or keywords. Each post would consist only of links to other threads that address the thread's subject. When new threads contribute to the FAQ then their link would be added to the FAQ post.

I'd start with the most popular subjects, and users could PM me (or mods/admins) to request the addition of FAQs or threads.

I sure hope the database is stable enough to preserve (or update) the links. I guess the admins would know if that could be a problem.

I'm probably forgetting a few features or trying to do something that the vBulletin software doesn't support. So let me know if there are better methods...

Andy's set up a private forum that I can post to, and I've started posting links to threads in it. (Some of you may have seen a Bernstein effort that showed up in the "Portal" this/Tuesday morning.) Andy has some questions about how it would work, I have some questions about how the board software works, and we're getting it sorted out.

That's all it is-- a collection of links with a subject. For example, on the perpetual question of paying off the mortgage, the subject would be "Should I pay off the mortgage?" and the links in the post would be as many threads as I can find on paying off the mortgage.

Turns out I'm not the first guy to have this bright idea, as Andy has suggested: http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89273

I hadn't planned to take your approach, ERD, because I wanted to do a reference and not an explanation or a summary. (I already know the issues on paying off the mortgage, I just have trouble finding the damn links to my deathless prose when the question's been asked for the 40th time and this board's software makes the searching a lot harder than it used to be.) I could piss & moan about the search feature as I've been doing pretty consistently for the last six months or I could take what I see as a constructive step to fix it.

One question I have with the search feature, which at some point I'll get around to sorting out with Andy or TechAdmin or BMJ, is linking to posts vs linking to threads. From the very little work I've done on the subject, it seems as though I can find posts with the search feature-- no problem. However when I try to link directly to post #23 in that thread (instead of the first post in that thread), the link doesn't work that way-- it takes me to the board's summary of the forums.

That is why I was hoping this would be a community 'wiki' sort of effort. Let anyone on the forum have input, and let's try for some kind of consensus as to whether that input goes in or not. That is one of the things I like about wikipedia, any topic that attracts a reasonable number of contributers is likely to have BOTH sides of the story there. It does not mean they need to agree, but just present both sides in a useful way.

Fellas, if I'd wanted to pull a fast one then you never would've seen this post on the board in the first place. I would've arranged it all via PMs & e-mails and there would've been a grand unveiling of the great surprise.

You wanna do a wiki, then do a wiki! It's not what I had in mind and it's not what I'd go to when a user posts about paying off their mortgage, but no doubt it'll be of use to the board. I just thought that when we suggest someone search for something or go read the old posts, that it'd be nice to have an easier collection of old posts to search.

That's all I have for you. Now I'm going to stop kvetching, get off my dead ass, and do something about it... y'all are welcome to do the same with your ideas.

 

[Andy R]

To link to a post, there are two methods. One is to link to it within the discussion where in the URL you add #postXYZ where XYZ = post ID (not the post number in the thread but the overall post ID). The second way is to link directly to the post only display (use the link that is part of the post number on the right of each post). See attachments.

 

[ERD50]

Cheez whiz, guys, I'm accustomed to being criticized for things I've said & done, not for things you haven't seen & heard yet.

Geez, I get it all the time from Mrs ERD - 'Hey, ERD you haven't done this, you haven't done that'

Seriously, no conspiracy or other negative thoughts ever entered my mind.

I thought you *were* looking for a 'wiki' type thing. But now, it is clear that what you envisioned, and what I envisioned are two separate things - and they could both be of value, IMO. But they are different projects.

That's all it is-- a collection of links with a subject. For example, on the perpetual question of paying off the mortgage, the subject would be "Should I pay off the mortgage?" and the links in the post would be as many threads as I can find on paying off the mortgage.

OK, that's very useful, but it does not address some of the concerns I have. Mainly, that a number of those threads are long, drawn out affairs, with some 'inside jokes', math errors that get corrected far down the line, and all sorts of extraneous stuff that makes it tough for a newbie (or an oldie depending on [-]my[/-] their mood that day) to come to any conclusion.

You wanna do a wiki, then do a wiki! It's not what I had in mind and it's not what I'd go to when a user posts about paying off their mortgage, but no doubt it'll be of use to the board.

OK, it's up to Andy then. If he is agreeable, I'll start off a new thread, and see if anyone wants to contribute. I'm not looking for any special tools. At this level, I think it can be done with copy/paste, and notes about suggested add/deletes/edits. What I would need from Andy is some acknowledgment that he would at least consider placing the final 'product' on the forum, and lock it (or designate a moderator for this) until there is reason to re-open it (new information). I would also add a link to your reference for that subject, so they can dig through the threads at that point.

Andy - does it make any sense for me to give this 'wiki' approach a try? If so, I'll kick off the mortgage one, I'm not sure what other topics I might want to take on (if any), maybe others will have their favorites, but I'd like to give this one a try. Maybe it should be called a "Topic Summary:<enter topic here>".

-ERD50