Yup, and that's why I changed my focus into how the information could benefit me, and not primarily the members asking the questions. The newbies would need to know how to find the information in the knowledgebase, and decide it's easier just to post a new (old) question on the forum. I need to see those other installations where the folks are loving it to see why.My experience: nobody reads it, the same newbie questions are popping up in the forum all the time.
Perhaps it's because of the bad visibilitiy, as the wiki is only linked in the same way we did it here.
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Hello ES! We could use some help to get us past the finish line on building the new knowledgebase for the forum.
Can you donate? Please see our fundraising page. Thank you!
ES seeks Knowledgebase editors!
- Thread starter neptronix
- Start date
stancecoke
Minor legend
That was my own motivation for the torquesensor article also
. At some point I got fed up with searching for my own contributions, so I created a collection of links in the wikigreat minds think alike lol.That was my own motivation for the torquesensor article also
stancecoke
Minor legend
I just see, that the link is not visible at all, if you are not logged in. So new visitors without account, that are searching for a solution for their problem will have no chance to read the wiki....
Good catch. Might be easy to overcome. I copied the link to the kb and logged out, and pasting in the link, I had access. So not a security issue.
For me it's also a lack of imagination-- I am not seeing what it could be, how it would work, what need it would fill.
ZeroEm
Minor legend
E-HP just to let you know, was not meaning anything bad. Know you have been collecting information and did not see it in there.
There is a lot of knowledge in ES. Enjoy going thru the threads. The facts should be extracted and made concise for the knowledge base. Right, thinking out loud not telling.
There is a lot of knowledge in ES. Enjoy going thru the threads. The facts should be extracted and made concise for the knowledge base. Right, thinking out loud not telling.
Didn’t see anything negative, all good
. Im just saying that I don’t own any of the information there, so it’s up for grabs. I wanted to point out that review of the info by ES experts before adding it might be a good idea.
Some background information to answer questions.
- We planned to add a button that would allow you to quickly reference a knowledgebase article on the forum near the reply button to help newbies extremely fast. Without content, the feature remains unbuilt. This helps with the 'new user won't look at the knowledgebase themselves' problem. And also speeds up pointing newbies in the right direction.
We could definitely make a folder just for this purpose and have little buttons that insert links to articles in there. it would make us a very efficient support desk. Only needs to be a dozen articles in there.
- The entire purpose of this KB is to educate a new user on well established basics at about 100x the speed that they currently do by reading the required 10,000 pages ( this is a huge problem for this website, it took me 9 months of constant reading to get my head wrapped around building ebikes. From what i can tell, it still takes that amount of time. )
For a long time our site does an awful job of this.
- We intentionally removed the link to the knowledgebase for not logged in users to intentionally prevent them from having a bad first impression w/our site, since it is mostly empty. I would love to emphasize it more when we have more content.
This is why i designed a hierarchical automatic index of articles and a search feature. The search feature works very well when you have content. It is just a drag and drop operation to reorganize the hierarchy and it works exactly like windows file explorer, down to the ability to right click and act on an object, and also resize the 'files' pane.
Right clicking when you have editor features:
I never fail to find something myself. Everything about finding articles is better than a wikipedia based wiki by a lot.
Unfortunately i cannot give access to other installations. This is the one whose information is public, the rest are proprietary knowledgebases.
Here is my tech company's knowledgebase. It is running a much earlier version of the software. This gets daily use. it contains proprietary information, so i can't put it on the public web until we back-port the newer version from ES that has a concept of public/private permissions. ( maybe we do that during winter )
You haven't requested access to the KB, but i gave you editor access right now, so that you can try the drag/drop/rename. Feel free to play around in the KB testing area -OK to trash that area.
I would like to hear your feedback on the usability of it.
- We planned to add a button that would allow you to quickly reference a knowledgebase article on the forum near the reply button to help newbies extremely fast. Without content, the feature remains unbuilt. This helps with the 'new user won't look at the knowledgebase themselves' problem. And also speeds up pointing newbies in the right direction.
We could definitely make a folder just for this purpose and have little buttons that insert links to articles in there. it would make us a very efficient support desk. Only needs to be a dozen articles in there.
- The entire purpose of this KB is to educate a new user on well established basics at about 100x the speed that they currently do by reading the required 10,000 pages ( this is a huge problem for this website, it took me 9 months of constant reading to get my head wrapped around building ebikes. From what i can tell, it still takes that amount of time. )
For a long time our site does an awful job of this.
- We intentionally removed the link to the knowledgebase for not logged in users to intentionally prevent them from having a bad first impression w/our site, since it is mostly empty. I would love to emphasize it more when we have more content.
This is why i designed a hierarchical automatic index of articles and a search feature. The search feature works very well when you have content. It is just a drag and drop operation to reorganize the hierarchy and it works exactly like windows file explorer, down to the ability to right click and act on an object, and also resize the 'files' pane.
Right clicking when you have editor features:
I never fail to find something myself. Everything about finding articles is better than a wikipedia based wiki by a lot.
Unfortunately i cannot give access to other installations. This is the one whose information is public, the rest are proprietary knowledgebases.
Here is my tech company's knowledgebase. It is running a much earlier version of the software. This gets daily use. it contains proprietary information, so i can't put it on the public web until we back-port the newer version from ES that has a concept of public/private permissions. ( maybe we do that during winter )
You haven't requested access to the KB, but i gave you editor access right now, so that you can try the drag/drop/rename. Feel free to play around in the KB testing area -OK to trash that area.
I would like to hear your feedback on the usability of it.
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I gave E-HP's article a sticky after reviewing it and deeming it of good quality. This should have been done sooner.
E-HP, i would be willing to grammar + accuracy edit and fact check on your article so it can be improved.
The article should be able to be copied/pasted in and out of the knowledgebase without suffering much if any formatting destruction.
I would immediately suck this up into the KB with moderate edits to improve it, but you are not signed up to be an editor of the KB so that you could maintain it there. I think it would make an excellent start to the KB. Since this is the product of your hard work, i am going to let you decide where the primary copy hangs out and take no offense on what your decision is.
Side note, the knowledgebase system has a visual display of differences and who made the change. Very useful when collaborating with people to be able to quickly identify what changed without a full readover. The idea was inspired by Git.
On the forum, i cannot give people permissions to edit each other's articles. Only the original user or moderators can edit things. It means we have to rely on one person to maintain an article indefinetely.
E-HP, i would be willing to grammar + accuracy edit and fact check on your article so it can be improved.
The article should be able to be copied/pasted in and out of the knowledgebase without suffering much if any formatting destruction.
I would immediately suck this up into the KB with moderate edits to improve it, but you are not signed up to be an editor of the KB so that you could maintain it there. I think it would make an excellent start to the KB. Since this is the product of your hard work, i am going to let you decide where the primary copy hangs out and take no offense on what your decision is.
Side note, the knowledgebase system has a visual display of differences and who made the change. Very useful when collaborating with people to be able to quickly identify what changed without a full readover. The idea was inspired by Git.
On the forum, i cannot give people permissions to edit each other's articles. Only the original user or moderators can edit things. It means we have to rely on one person to maintain an article indefinetely.
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I'll take it. Do your best!
If you wish to make an article unviewable by the public, you can change 'visible to' to 'editor', and only editors and admins should be able to see it. This is our equivalent of marking the article as a draft.
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My vision is for a pocket manual for new people first, so they can come and ask much better questions because we educated the hell out of them first. Then a large, well cultivated compendium that the rest of the internet can enjoy later.
ES has some of the brightest minds in this space. It's a good place to see if we can channel that brainpower into creating something truly awesome. I just have to figure out how to convince them to help pull the cart.
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I feel honored. If porting into the KB is easy, I'd like to just maintain the sticky, and the KB version can be updated when there is enough new info to warrant it. Would that work? The good thing for me is that I can find it easy without a bookmark in my browser now.
ZeroEm
Minor legend
Will spend some time looking for a place to start. Remember my first months on here. Created my account 4 months after E-HP.
Was very impressed with the people here. Lots of back and forth lol. Was guided well and my trike is still good, looking for a new build.
Will spend more time here and find a way to help out. Have nothing but time. Can only work around the house for couple of hours a day. Boring if you know what I mean.
Was very impressed with the people here. Lots of back and forth lol. Was guided well and my trike is still good, looking for a new build.
Will spend more time here and find a way to help out. Have nothing but time. Can only work around the house for couple of hours a day. Boring if you know what I mean.
Something that could be done (not by me ) is that when people post "brainy"-liked things that explain how things work, troulbeshotoing steps, etc., those could be copied into articles on the KB, as starter points for others to then edit into an actual explanatory article.
I had done this (though mostly with links rather than copy/paste) on the old wiki way back when, but I guess this was lost when it was hacked or whatever.
Anyway, for those doing the KB editng, it would make a rapid start to useful content.
For troulbeshooting, or how to start a project of some particular type, etc., you could use posts by various people helping out in those kinds of threads, and create boilerplate articles that you can then link to for future threads like that, instead of having to retype it all out or copy/paste.
If there are specific posts / threads that you found particularly helpful to you in some way, consider building an article out of them.
Etc.
) is that when people post "brainy"-liked things that explain how things work, troulbeshotoing steps, etc., those could be copied into articles on the KB, as starter points for others to then edit into an actual explanatory article.I had done this (though mostly with links rather than copy/paste) on the old wiki way back when, but I guess this was lost when it was hacked or whatever.
Anyway, for those doing the KB editng, it would make a rapid start to useful content.
For troulbeshooting, or how to start a project of some particular type, etc., you could use posts by various people helping out in those kinds of threads, and create boilerplate articles that you can then link to for future threads like that, instead of having to retype it all out or copy/paste.
If there are specific posts / threads that you found particularly helpful to you in some way, consider building an article out of them.
Etc.
ZeroEm
Minor legend
Yes, agreed. The content is here just need to filter out the chit chat and mine the gold and link back to the original if wanted to do a full read on the article/thread. Not going to create just organize.
Sound good?
Sound good?
I think the only issue is that copying and pasting it back and forth could be more hassle than it's worth due to small amounts of formatting loss adding up over time. It would make the most sense if i did my edits on your forum post. Are you OK with that?
This sounds great. That's a good process for coming up with articles. Spinningmagnets used to do that here, and we haven't had a replacement for spinningmagnets in a long time.
I do mark posts with good info as brainy all over the forum. The idea was that we'd have a lookup for that later but we don't rn.
Sure. If I understand correctly, we’d just leave it as a forum sticky for now and maybe decide later whether it’s worth adding to the KB. It seems like the KB accepts hyperlinks, so it could always be accessed via a KB hyperlink, correct?
I try to maintain the change log for thing greater than minor updates.
Yep.
KB dos take hyperlinks and at some point we'd like to point more people to the KB on the forum but without KB content it's a no for now.
A big problem with Xenforo's post editor is that it supports a lot less HTML features than the editor in the knowledgebase. So you can take posts from ES and shove them in the knowledgebase, but when you copy paste back to the forum, the likelihood that you lose formatting or other aspects of the article is super high.
So generally, articles should go one way.
I'll add to your change log if i edit/add to your post
KB dos take hyperlinks and at some point we'd like to point more people to the KB on the forum but without KB content it's a no for now.
A big problem with Xenforo's post editor is that it supports a lot less HTML features than the editor in the knowledgebase. So you can take posts from ES and shove them in the knowledgebase, but when you copy paste back to the forum, the likelihood that you lose formatting or other aspects of the article is super high.
So generally, articles should go one way.
I'll add to your change log if i edit/add to your post
A-DamW
Regular
I'll be the first to admit I've been slacking on the KB, I'll also make the totally lame, but true, excuse that I have been very busy with other things.I just have to figure out how to convince them to help pull the cart.
This kinda gives me an idea,.
One of my biggest hurdles is how long it takes (for me, anyway) to write a decent article from scratch.
It still surprises me finding good info nuggets on ES after ~17yrs of searching.
I have been using the xenforo built-in bookmark feature for awhile now, and have amassed several hundred good reference links.
So it occurs to me, the KB is not to totally duplicate info that is almost certainly on ES forums, but to massively reduce the friction of FINDING that info, for noobs and experienced alike.
Case in point, this person just asked on my vesc boost charging guide:
TLDR; In the KB, I can either link to well written content on ES, or write one in the KB.
Thoughts?
I took on the direction of 5 software projects simultaneously this year and yeah i am also busy as hell, i'm hoping to get some downtime over winter or fall. I also want to write.
Our search no longer sucks by default so most people will have a good time finding specific information with queries written in plain english.
But yeah what's missing is the overview or let's say a distillation so someone could rapidly get up to speed.
You can put a 15 page diatribe about some sub-aspect of a sub-aspect in there, but we could immediately use any general info we get so that hopefully some portion of the newbies come with the lightbulb preinstalled and by doing that, we collectively get smarter.
Linking specific details to ES posts would be highly encouraged.
Crediting people for certain portions would be highly encouraged.
An article that's literally just a list of links with a short note about the link is helpful and lays a seed for an article that's more fleshed out later. The knowledgebase format is designed to be collaborative.
Or you can do even less, just write out a really good outline for someone to pick up.
BTW Grin says they'd be happy to lend us some content. They have tons of great articles. Make sure to credit them if you wish to do that.
Links on ES have a 'permalink' quality, IE if we screw them up or rename them, they still redirect .
But zeropress doesn't have that yet. Right now you are linking to PHP IDs. We know that design isn't gonna hold for long and plan to change it once the KB gets some use.
I think the forum is great for stream of collective consciousness figuring things out but the KB is where the distillate should be once the tribe's knowledge is more solid.
But back to the newbie part;
On reddit, they have a sidebar with lots of articles. This is super useful. Some articles go way into depth but there's the kiddie pool at the top with general information, then it gets more specific below. So as soon as you open the subreddit, you're greeted with their version of a knowledgebase.
For the format, it's an extremely good and effective design.
It does rapidly help educate new users and i think this is why people on reddit are smarter than average.
I can see us doing something similar when we have a decent amount of content.
If we had folders assigned to sections, we could create a sidebar for each subcategory on our site of the newest or most popular knowledgebase articles. This area could get squished to create a sidebar like on the front page.
We can do a lot of cool things once we have content
Our search no longer sucks by default so most people will have a good time finding specific information with queries written in plain english.
But yeah what's missing is the overview or let's say a distillation so someone could rapidly get up to speed.
You can put a 15 page diatribe about some sub-aspect of a sub-aspect in there, but we could immediately use any general info we get so that hopefully some portion of the newbies come with the lightbulb preinstalled and by doing that, we collectively get smarter.
Linking specific details to ES posts would be highly encouraged.
Crediting people for certain portions would be highly encouraged.
An article that's literally just a list of links with a short note about the link is helpful and lays a seed for an article that's more fleshed out later. The knowledgebase format is designed to be collaborative.
Or you can do even less, just write out a really good outline for someone to pick up.
BTW Grin says they'd be happy to lend us some content. They have tons of great articles. Make sure to credit them if you wish to do that.
Links on ES have a 'permalink' quality, IE if we screw them up or rename them, they still redirect
.But zeropress doesn't have that yet. Right now you are linking to PHP IDs. We know that design isn't gonna hold for long and plan to change it once the KB gets some use.
I think the forum is great for stream of collective consciousness figuring things out but the KB is where the distillate should be once the tribe's knowledge is more solid.
But back to the newbie part;
On reddit, they have a sidebar with lots of articles. This is super useful. Some articles go way into depth but there's the kiddie pool at the top with general information, then it gets more specific below. So as soon as you open the subreddit, you're greeted with their version of a knowledgebase.
For the format, it's an extremely good and effective design.
It does rapidly help educate new users and i think this is why people on reddit are smarter than average.
I can see us doing something similar when we have a decent amount of content.
If we had folders assigned to sections, we could create a sidebar for each subcategory on our site of the newest or most popular knowledgebase articles. This area could get squished to create a sidebar like on the front page.
We can do a lot of cool things once we have content
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With the Cadillac version, you wouldn’t be able to discern which source the material came from.
If everyone agrees that most of the content is in ES, and most are too busy to type, then maybe there could be a two part process.
Phase 1: Add links of "good to excellent" content from ES threads that fit the identified categories. Link to the specific post(s) within the thread that contain the best content, if possible. Basically data mining our own forum.
Phase 2: Use the links as support for writing KB content, copying and pasting, or summarizing, and meet whatever quality control guidelines are being followed.
These two steps could potentially be performed by different KB contributors, narrowing the commitment involved, and the two phases leverage different skillsets.
There could be a 1A step in between Phase 1 and 2. This utilizes certain ES members that have expertise in various areas, that would perform a quality check of the content related to their areas of expertise. This could be done either concurrent or following Phase 1. The reviewers can delete any links that are inaccurate or comment on them, if they don't meet the standards, whatever those may be. We all could probably name ES experts on certain subjects. Maybe they'd sign up as reviewers, if that was the sole task.
This project will take time, and between going out riding vs typing on a keyboard, the former will always win for me. I can't commit for the long haul and don't like baling in the middle so that made me reluctant to sign up. It's hard for everyone to commit time, so if the project could be sliced up and distributed so people can utilize their strengths, and shorten their time commitment, it might lighten the load enough to move forward slowly but steadily. Otherwise, the task is daunting when you don't have the time for it. Phase 1 and 1A would provide immediate benefits
A-DamW
Regular
You could do that. The ideal process is up to you.
It is a good idea to write an outline of some sort.
I'll happily do QA/grammar nazi/formatting nazi/suggest improvements duty until we can find let's say, a head editor, if/when the operation gets scaled up.
It is a good idea to write an outline of some sort.
I'll happily do QA/grammar nazi/formatting nazi/suggest improvements duty until we can find let's say, a head editor, if/when the operation gets scaled up.
Once there is KB content, it would be helpful if the XF auto-helper-finder thingy at the bottom of a page would detect what someone is typing up and start showing them suggestions of KBs that have the info they're after, before they actually publish the post. Anything it shows that would take them somewhere *must* open in a new tab so they don't lose their post or place where they were.
As far as time to help goes, I'd be glad to help out, and want to, but not being able to find people to directly help with creating things (especially code) for the wolfy-bot project, I don't have spare time to do it.
If anyone knows some coders or robotics designers (or even better, researchers that are wiling to dive into "new" things) that could help with that, please send them over to the wolfy thread.
(I'm usually too worn out from the dayjob to think well enough to make an article, or even help in detail around here for newbies and such, much less work on the wolfy research (re-learning coding, etc), and end up doing "mindless" stuff like making music, which comes so naturally that I dont really have to think about it...and can easily doze/wake/doze/wake endlessly until I finally really get to sleep a bit before going back to work).
at the bottom of a page would detect what someone is typing up and start showing them suggestions of KBs that have the info they're after, before they actually publish the post. Anything it shows that would take them somewhere *must* open in a new tab so they don't lose their post or place where they were.As far as time to help goes, I'd be glad to help out, and want to, but not being able to find people to directly help with creating things (especially code) for the wolfy-bot project, I don't have spare time to do it.
If anyone knows some coders or robotics designers (or even better, researchers that are wiling to dive into "new" things) that could help with that, please send them over to the wolfy thread.
(I'm usually too worn out from the dayjob to think well enough to make an article, or even help in detail around here for newbies and such, much less work on the wolfy research (re-learning coding, etc), and end up doing "mindless" stuff like making music, which comes so naturally that I dont really have to think about it...and can easily doze/wake/doze/wake endlessly until I finally really get to sleep a bit before going back to work).