KB Lost Bookmarks Article

[old np]

I quite liked the previous "Wrong Profile" section. If there were specific issues with it I could give better suggestions that also address those issues.

The user wouldn't know that they're in the wrong profile before reading that section, so they might skip it.

[VanillaMozilla]

VanillaMozilila - you're welcome to participate, of course, but it would be best if you caught yourself up first. The statements you made to FatJohn might have been accurate a year ago,....

You assume too much. I am caught up on this, far more than you can apparently imagine. I'm glad I'm "welcome to participate".

[Lucy]

VanillaMozilla - the devs DO know why it's happening, so right there I'm not sure what leg you're standing on.

np - right, so lets call it something more obvious, but I liked the content.

[VanillaMozilla]

Who said anything about "devs"? You're not shooting straight. You'd best concentrate your effort on making sense about the article, and not trying to guess who's qualified and who isn't.

[Lucy]

You did, although you did say they don't know how to fix it, not what causes it.

I'm perfectly capable of multitasking. If you don't want to get into it then walk away, don't tell me to sit down. I do apologize though, I assumed your comments were made out of misinformation and not simply malice. Obviously I took "And I am shutting my mouth on that aspect before I get into trouble" to refer to a larger stepping away from the discussion than it was intended to be. However, you're still welcome to participate in the discussion of what's up with the rdf corruption, rather than just telling me you know what you're talking about, and then not talking about it. I'm not sure what the point of informing me that you know what's going on was if we're not going to talk about.

[VanillaMozilla]

VanillaMozilla - the devs DO know why it's happening....

Oh, you're talking about fixing bookmarks loss. I said the <i>drivers</i> don't know how to <i>fix</i> it, which is why we can't expect bookmarks loss to cease with the next release. Unfortunately, we'll still be needing the lost bookmarks article, then.

[Frank Lion]

I'm perfectly capable of multitasking...

But not, it seems, of being perfectly capable of how to talk to people. Real smart move, Lucy. Why not piss off all the volunteers here and not just Vanilla?

Firefox was built on the backs on such volunteers, any other organisation would have had to pay for Support Staff, pay for Beta-Testers, pay for Extension and Theme writers and a hundred and one other things. You should not forget that.

Your opening post was a verbose ramble and your tone patronising in this thread and others, how exactly did you think that this would be effective or useful here?

How, from another thread, did you think this would be useful? :

... What is needed is more active members who have some sort of "listen to them, they know what they're talking about" designation, and more moderators to handle the grunt work.

The 'grunt work', Lucy? I have come across pineapples that could display more 'people skills' than you are demonstrating in these forums recently.

This is an important point regarding the Knowledge Base, which needs to be written in a way that is readily understood and in a concise friendly style, if it is to be of effective use to Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla product users.

Knowledge-wise, I'm sure that you could have an important role to play in all this and you're welcome to participate, of course. But how about leaving the human 'people skills' side to others, before you empty the damn place, eh?

[VanillaMozilla]

I took the liberty of looking over some of the changes you have already made. At least three people have looked at the section you wrote, "Bookmarks lost after computer restart/crash", and concluded that there are significant problems. You might want to have another look at it. Edit: I see in your first message that you have noticed the problem. Let's get it fixed.

There's also a problem with the process itself. When editing the KB, it's good to keep in mind that the article is used continuously by people who need it to recover bookmarks. To make instantaneous, major changes and to attempt major reorganization without discussion and review is probably not a good idea. I think that's how you got into trouble with Alice. Most of us have some good ideas and some bad ideas. Unilateral reorganization risks leaving users behind in ways that you don't anticipate. Without discussion, you risk removing important information without necessarily knowing why it's there, and you risk misleading people. That's probably why you are discussing it here, now, but I am concerned by some of the previous changes.

Some of the articles are in pretty good shape. This one has been eaten by goats. I must say that np and Alice write very well, but there's only so much time to manage the herd. A little careful reorganization shouldn't be a major thing, but we shouldn't deal with a major feud at the same time -- especially during the holidays. So we need to cool it and step back for a while. I have a pretty clear idea of how to reorganize it, and I'll mention it when I get the time.

[VanillaMozilla]

And then of course there's the preamble. ...I understand that it's important to know you only have 5 days after bookmarks go missing to restore from a backup, but I don't think that's the right place to emphasise that.

I can't comment on everything, but I can't pass that one up. We sometimes see people on the Support Forum who either don't notice that their bookmarks are missing or don't figure out what to do about it until it's too late. Be careful about cutting out crucial information. <b>Every other piece of information in the article can wait, but this one is critical, so I'll put it in Bugzilla Red. It's OK to cut it out of the preamble if you want to put it in big, red letters in a box at the top of the article.</b>

[VanillaMozilla]

I had a look at Lucy's bookmark article on her blog, and it's actually quite good. So I repeat, Lucy, why not write a draft article on a page in KB, and let people comment and edit? NP, would that work?


==============
Here's what I think the article should look like, if I were rewriting it (I'm not). Obviously, this is not the only way to do it, but it's a start. It should be really light on the eyes. SHORT paragraphs. Bullets. That sort of thing. Great economy of words.

(Preamble)
This article deals with lost or missing bookmarks, recovery methods and future prevention. If changes you make to your bookmarks are not being saved or if you can't add new bookmarks, see the article Bookmarks not saved.

Where are my bookmarks? (or some such title)
Must present an overview in a nutshell. I like bullets because they make it easy to see the main points.
Essential points:
1. That bookmarks can be just misplaced... or that bookmarks file may be damaged or missing.
* By default there are 5 daily backups. <b>If file is missing or damaged you have 5 days....</b> Put this essential info in a very prominent place up front.

2. Causes (not necessarily in this order). SHORT statement with each cause on how to recognize it and what to do.
(You can have bullets or whatever, with links to later sections, maybe.)
* Missing or corrupted file. Restore from backup. (see, I've already repeated myself). (This one is critical. Put it first)
* Corrupted localstore.rdf
* Update to 2 bug
* Different Fx profile or OS login account.
* Viruses, whatever.

What to do
A section for each problem
* Sections on searching should include info on how to search the whole computer. Why? Because some people just have a mess, and you don't know what they have done. They just need to be able to find all files in all profiles.
* <b>At the front of the search section(s) there should be the information that users can view bookmarks files with a browser.</b> This helps them sort it out. This info got stricken at one point.

Prevention, other links, etc.

[old np]

Lucy, why not write a draft article on a page in KB, and let people comment and edit? NP, would that work?

I think Lucy agrees for the most part with the current article. I think a "merge" between two articles would be painful. I prefer incremental improvement of the current article.

The main issue I have with your (VanillaMozilla's) proposal is that I believe that around 75% of people only care how to get their bookmarks back, so only 25% will care about the first three sections. That's not terribly bad by itself, but you often see users get pointed to an article only to come back and say "I didn't understand that, just tell me what to do in terms I can understand". Regarding the importance of telling people in blinking marquee that they only have five days - do you expect a significant number of users would be helped by such text? The requirements to actually be helped by that are that they are those who
- found the article
- actually have a problem that requires the recovery
- decide to put off trying anything for 1 - 5 days
- would notice and heed the text

I think the third point would eliminate pretty much everyone.

[VanillaMozilla]

I think Lucy agrees for the most part with the current article. I think a "merge" between two articles would be painful. I prefer incremental improvement of the current article.

Whether it's an incremental improvement or a massive reorganization (like moving the first three sections), why not do it in a calm environment on a separate page? That way you don't make big mistakes while people are using it. Besides, when there's this much to change, it's 10 times easier just to show a finished product and say "See?", than to talk about writing a draft.

The main issue I have with your (VanillaMozilla's) proposal is that I believe that around 75% of people only care how to get their bookmarks back, so only 25% will care about the first three sections. That's not terribly bad by itself, but you often see users get pointed to an article only to come back and say "I didn't understand that, just tell me what to do in terms I can understand".

So rearrange it. That's what happens when a committee edits. It's too hard to rewrite so the information is presented simply enough. I think the first section should be diagnosis and solutions in a nutshell. Then people can identify the problem and look in the later sections for the details.

Regarding the importance of telling people in blinking marquee that they only have five days - do you expect a significant number of users would be helped by such text?

Yes, I've seen people who missed it. We have to warn people frequently on the Support Forum. It doesn't have to be blinking red. It could be blue. It doesn't have to take much space, and I'm joking about the color. Just put a sentence or two where no one can miss it, but not buried in a paragraph somewhere near the bottom. Not even buried in a paragraph near the top.

E.g., point 1 from the "nutshell" section: "If the 'bookmarks.html' file is missing or damaged, you need to restore it from a backup. By default, Firefox automatically makes five daily backups. You have up to five days to restore it before the backups are replaced."

The requirements to actually be helped by that are that they are those who
- found the article
- actually have a problem that requires the recovery
- decide to put off trying anything for 1 - 5 days
- would notice and heed the text

I think the third point would eliminate pretty much everyone.

That's a fallacy, and it's true of anything you can put in the article. If people don't find and heed the article, then we don't need it, do we? People won't heed the warning anyway, ergo, we don't need to write it.

[Lucy]

Well if odds are people won't see it, then it shouldn't be placed somewhere that either a) minimizes the odds of people seeing it even more or b) reduces the helpfulness of the document.

This is a warning that should would be best given to people before they ever have a problem. Where is the best place to put it once they're coming for help? Well for one, where they'll see it. Personally I only read the summaries if they're short, otherwise I skip to the index. I have no idea if this is how most people do it, which is why I was asking. Secondly, where the people who need to know it will already be looking. Should it be at the beginning of restoring bookmarks from a backup instead of the top of the page?

Also are the number of backups kept an about:config option? if so we should link to how to change that. That gets to be more info than is maybe useful in the beginning of the document.

I really propose we get a "how to use bookmark backups" or whatever we want to call it article going with all the info about how it works and what it does, and then it might be easier to decide from there what info we want to duplicate into the lost bookmarks article. The "bookmark backups" article would be an informative article meant to explain the feature leaving "lost bookmarks" as it currently is, a tool to help people who have lost their bookmarks.

[VanillaMozilla]

I don't know how other people do it. I usually don't even look at the index, because the article is all there. You can even hide the index with a click. I don't think you can assume very much about how different people will use it. I do know it's impossible to make it too clear or too easy on the eye.

about:config -- browser.bookmarks.max_backups

"I really propose we get a "how to use bookmark backups" ... article...." Good idea. Mention it in the preamble. This article tells about .... For info on x see y -- like what's already done.

Still lobbying for a "Nutshell" section. An example

How to recover bookmarks, in a nutshell
* Lost or damaged bookmarks file
** The file can be lost or damaged as a result of a crash or improper shutdown (reference)
** You need to restore from backup.(link) You have up to 5 days before your backups are overwritten.

* Bookmarks lost after upgrading to version 2
** The cause (1 sentence)
** What to do (1-2 sentences with link in this article)

Etc. ...or something like that.

[Lucy]

so you would want to put a "Bookmarks Missing especially after restart or crash" section first, give what you've said? so

If your bookmarks went missing yada yada, get then back by restoring from a backup. For detailed instructions read x (link to bottom of doc). Other reasons your bookmarks could have gone missing have different solutions, please read about them below.

Something along those lines?