FAQ Topics

[James McKenzie]

It appears that we need a Frequently Asked Questions document to go with
our introduction of the Wine Fora to the mailing lists.

I will start with the first topic:

1. Q. What is Wine and where do I get it?
A. Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Microsoft Windows (TM)
Application Programming Interface (API) for most Linuxes and UNIX
variants, including Mac OS X. Wine is usually included as a package
with most Linux distributions. More information on Wine is on the main
Wine HQ web page at http://www.winehq.org in the About Wine box.

This should be posted where the Wine Fora are hosted and we should refer
to it when answering questions addressed by the FAQ. A simple "This is
addressed in the FAQ located at ...." should suffice, IMHO.

Thank you.

James McKenzie

[Jim]

It appears that we need a Frequently Asked Questions document to go with
our introduction of the Wine Fora to the mailing lists.

WineHQ already has a FAQ on the WineWiki at http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ. I'd think that maintaining and refining the FAQ there would be a much more productive activity. Really there isn't much of a difference in pointing a user to a forum post or pointing them to the Wiki. The Wiki, however, is much easier to maintain.

If we need anything "Stickied" to the top of the Forum it should be a Topic called "READ FIRST" which contains a short list of posting guidelines and contains a link to the WineWiki FAQ.

[James McKenzie]

Jim wrote:

James McKenzie wrote:

It appears that we need a Frequently Asked Questions document to go with
our introduction of the Wine Fora to the mailing lists.

WineHQ already has a FAQ on the WineWiki at http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ. I'd think that maintaining and refining the FAQ there would be a much more productive activity. Really there isn't much of a difference in pointing a user to a forum post or pointing them to the Wiki. The Wiki, however, is much easier to maintain.

Great. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

If we need anything "Stickied" to the top of the Forum it should be a Topic called "READ FIRST" which contains a short list of posting guidelines and contains a link to the WineWiki FAQ.

Who can 'make this happen'? We also need a way that new users are
directed to the posting guidelines and the FAQ before posting.

James

[Marc]

En/na James McKenzie ha escrit:

Jim wrote:

James McKenzie wrote:

It appears that we need a Frequently Asked Questions document to go
with our introduction of the Wine Fora to the mailing lists.

WineHQ already has a FAQ on the WineWiki at
http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ. I'd think that maintaining and refining
the FAQ there would be a much more productive activity. Really there
isn't much of a difference in pointing a user to a forum post or
pointing them to the Wiki. The Wiki, however, is much easier to
maintain.

Great. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

If we need anything "Stickied" to the top of the Forum it should be a
Topic called "READ FIRST" which contains a short list of posting
guidelines and contains a link to the WineWiki FAQ.

Not a lot of people reads the "READ FIRST" posts. That's why the most
important thing is:

Who can 'make this happen'? We also need a way that new users are
directed to the posting guidelines and the FAQ before posting.

James

From the phpBB point of view, I think it is much easier to show the
guidelines in the "Start a new topic" page than checking if the user is
a new one an redirect him in that case. I can "easily make this happen"
for the first option with some small coordination with the forum
installer. I can attach a screenshot of what I mean, but I am not shure
if attachments are possible in this list.

In the "Mailing list <-> forum gateway" thread I posted some ideas to
the basic posting guidelines and there were one or two very good ones
contributed by other people. I can have a look at them and pack
together if requested.

Marc ///

[Markus Hitter]

Am 03.03.2008 um 14:13 schrieb Marc:

Not a lot of people reads the "READ FIRST" posts.

Because "Read First" is a meaningless heading and in many forums,
those sticky posts are out of date.

From the phpBB point of view, I think it is much easier to show the
guidelines in the "Start a new topic" page

Excellent idea. I'd try to keep the guidelines short (the FAQ is
already there) and "... if you think this isn't answered in the FAQ
and it's worth to take developers away from improving Wine for a
moment, feel invited to ask your specific question. Don't forget to
include some info about your system (operating system, Wine version)."


Markus

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
http://www.jump-ing.de/

[Marc]

Hi,

En/na Markus Hitter ha escrit:

Am 03.03.2008 um 14:13 schrieb Marc:

Not a lot of people reads the "READ FIRST" posts.

Because "Read First" is a meaningless heading and in many forums,
those sticky posts are out of date.

I do not think it is only due to the name but to the idea behind it.
Even if it is like i have seen somewhere "The Newbies Unread Guide" it
will continue on the "unread" status.

From the phpBB point of view, I think it is much easier to show the
guidelines in the "Start a new topic" page

Excellent idea. I'd try to keep the guidelines short (the FAQ is
already there) and "... if you think this isn't answered in the FAQ
and it's worth to take developers away from improving Wine for a
moment, feel invited to ask your specific question. Don't forget to
include some info about your system (operating system, Wine version)."

This seems to me the perfect final sentence.
By the moment I have marked the involved messages from my inbox in order
to not lose any of them. If more people agrees I will prepare the patch
to forum source files involved. Being unable to help to the wine project
in other ways, I would be very happy to be allowed to prepare this.

[AlanJ]

I don't know if this is possible or not but as part of the registration process can the guidelines not be displayed so that the user has to read them before the registration being accepted. I know some people will just click and accept without reading but even if a few are caught it has to be of some benefit right?

[Jim]

I've taken the liberty of adding a Forum Guidelines WineWiki Page: http://wiki.winehq.org/ForumGuidelines . Note that I consider this a draft as it hasn't yet been reviewed by very many eyes. I only have two.

If it looks satisfactory--or could be made so--then what is needed for the page is better visibility. The ideas so far are:

• In the registration process
• As a sticky
• As a note above every "Post a reply" form

I think all three would be great places to include some text and a link to the Wiki page. This however is both beyond my reach and know how.

Shameless name call out: jnewman?

[Dan Kegel]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Jim <[email protected]> wrote:

I've taken the liberty of adding a Forum Guidelines WineWiki Page: http://wiki.winehq.org/ForumGuidelines .

You might check what the other popular wine forums have for stickies:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wine/ has one for installing WoW
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=313 has six (!):

Wine: Do not expect it to work
Stuff I've learned about Wine
Attention: WINE 0.9.53 adds startup Run/RunOnce support! Read me.
HowTo: Get The Latest Wine
Stuff to try before asking for help with Wine
Stuff to include when asking for help with Wine

- Dan

[vitamin]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Jim <[email protected]> wrote:

I've taken the liberty of adding a Forum Guidelines WineWiki Page: http://wiki.winehq.org/ForumGuidelines .

You might check what the other popular wine forums have for stickies:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wine/ has one for installing WoW
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=313 has six (!):

Wine: Do not expect it to work
Stuff I've learned about Wine
Attention: WINE 0.9.53 adds startup Run/RunOnce support! Read me.
HowTo: Get The Latest Wine
Stuff to try before asking for help with Wine
Stuff to include when asking for help with Wine

- Dan

I like this. We do need something small - max 10 lines. Noobs don't read FAQs, especially if they are pages long. And we can cover most bases with few simple statements.

[Paul Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 10:34 AM, AlanJ <[email protected]> wrote:

I don't know if this is possible or not but as part of the registration process can the guidelines not be displayed so that the user has to read them before the registration being accepted. I know some people will just click and accept without reading but even if a few are caught it has to be of some benefit right?

Let's make it a turing test while we're at it: Ask questions from the
guidelines with (NOT multiple choice) correct answers being mandatory
for registration.

--
Paul Johnson
[email protected]

[Jim]

You might check what the other popular wine forums have for stickies:

I've seen them. I think WineHQ can do better. I personally think that forums should be closely tied to a relevant Wiki. Forums are a terrible place for documentation (IMHO). Yet that's where a lot of it ends up because there is often no other place to put it. A related Wiki solves that problem. Instead of creating difficult to maintain documentation with limited exposure and peer review, use a Wiki. WineHQ has one! =)

We also have the AppDB which is another fantastic tool. If we encourage its use we don't end up with out of date, misleading, and wrong stickies like the WoW stickie on linuxforums.org. If the sticky points to a HowTo on the AppDB, the kinks tend to resolve themselves more naturally.

I like this. We do need something small - max 10 lines. Noobs don't read FAQs, especially if they are pages long. And we can cover most bases with few simple statements.

Yup. I think so to. I think the trick is getting folks to read more. To that end, I think one has to use clever, enticing, titles. I'll admit "Forum Guidelines" sounds dry. Introduce it on the forums as "Forum Guidelines - Your guide to a FAST response" and you'll probably get a few more clicks.

I was actually thinking about the FAQ a bit too. I think it could be factored and simplified a bit by pulling a few topics out into separate FAQs. Developer related questions could be put into a separate FAQ and the main FAQ could point to it with a question such as "I'm a developer where's my FAQ?"

I think the current FAQ looks a bit daunting with its two page contents listing. I don't know; I'm still rolling a few ideas around and I'll post them here if they solidify.