What's stopping you from contributing to the Knowledge Base?

[Don Corleone]

Don Corleone and Daifne, which "attitudes" are you referring to?

I said nothing about any 'attitudes'? I just read that thread at the time and thought, so this is what goes on behind the scenes of the Knowledge Base, is it? I think I will pass. Maybe other people felt the same, I don't know.

Recently, I search and found this http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.support.planning and saw that this was the same person from that thread. How can someone lead something in KB when they, as is clear, cannot write well for the KB? They can lead, but I will not follow. I may well be a bad boy, but I am not silly.

[VanillaMozilla]

The info in the sticky thread "Virus/Worm that says "Use IE you dope..."" isn't in the KB. ...So I'm here to ask, why isn't content like this being added to the KB?

I think the problem is, Where do you stick it? It's easy to just throw it in somewhere, but where would I put it so someone could find it?

[Phil Bridger]

Surely it should be put in a new KB entry called "Virus/Worm that says "Use IE you dope..."".

If a problem is important and common enough to be put in a forum sticky, then it should be in the KB.

[VanillaMozilla]

OK, browsing from the front of the KB, I press "All Firefox articles, arranged by subject." Now what category do I put it in?

Well, I suppose I could put it in "Privacy and Security".

[Phil Bridger]

"Issues (Firefox)" seems to be the catch-all category, but maybe there's a case for creating a new category for viruses.

I think splitting things up into so many separate categories makes it harder to find them, because it is not always obvious from the symptoms what type of underlying problem has caused them.

[old np]

I think the point here is that a user wouldn't know where to put a new article, and therefore wouldn't try, which means the documentation that would tell the user what to do is therefore non-existent, unclear, or not being found.

[VanillaMozilla]

I think splitting things up into so many separate categories makes it harder to find them...

I think the point here is that a user wouldn't know where to put a new article, and therefore wouldn't try...

Yes, exactly, to both. In fact, it's already there, but I can't easily find it from that high level. You have to look under "Frequently encountered issues", then among 84 other articles is "Issues with Firefox". (Huh? Issues/Issues?)

I just don't like the way the categories and articles are laid out. It seems that everything is a catch-all, with very many issues.

Anyway, what I am saying is that more than once there was some important little fact like that, that I couldn't place easily, so I didn't bother.

[Lucy]

I'm really puzzled by the people who are using that thread as an example of a bad thing. The bad thing was that there was no great place to settle the disagreement and so it ended up in a back and forth. *I* thought it came to a good resolution. I think np, Alice and Vanilla also felt that way. I don't want to speak for them, but that's the impression I got.

The thread itself isn't a problem. The thread makes more visible problems that already existed with the kb and the way things were handled. Just not talking about it and hiding it certainly doesn't solve any problems. If there were more threads discussing disagreements then I think people could see that they happen, but they also *get resolved.*

I'm not the one running the support initiative. I accepted the job of trying to run an inventory of the current articles because *no one else wanted to.*

I think part of the problem is that it seems like *every* disagreement here turns into personal attacks. No, it's not usually by the main people involved, but it's still hard to ignore people who jump in and don't offer much other than "you can't write." No one wants to chip in for risk of getting caught up in it. That's not just my opinion, that's what I've been getting from a lot of people who help elsewhere.

[Lucy]

Someone mentioned the kb losing audience because of Mozilla's upcoming knowledge base. Mozilla's is definitely going to be aimed towards end users. I think the mzkb can still hold a very important place and one that it already fills by being a support tool for the supports and advanced users. I personally *love* the articles that start off with the simple solutions at the top, but do go into more detail and explain the root issue and solutions. It helps me learn how things work and how to help people.

Someone else (maybe the same person? I can't see page one from here) mentioned the visuals. I agree. Looking nice isn't just about the surface. We find things visually pleasing for a reason. A large part of making something to do with text more visually pleasing is all about organization. Differentiating the different areas, making it easy to skim, making the headings stand out and overall making it easier to take in and make use of the information. Part of that would be having guidelines on how different types of articles should make use of the different types of headers etc. Colors also help with that though, contrast affects eye fatigue. Does someone need to look away from the screen before they're done the article? Does the sidebar grab too much attention? All that stuff affects how useful the kb feels, and people won't contribute to something if they don't feel it's effective, or not as effective as it could be, but those changes are out of their control.

[malliz]

One thing that could help is more of this type of thing http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 76#2829376 from RobertJ
it's visual and easy to follow.
Too many of the articles are geek speak. Sure we know what they mean, but would your mother/ auntie/father?

[the-edmeister]

Q - "What's stopping you from contributing to the Knowledge Base?"

1. Overall disorganization of the articles, there is no master page or Site Map of all the articles, and the lack maintenance of the Category pages.

2. The UI sucks.

3. The sometimes willy-nilly editing of articles by persons other than the "original author" breaking the cohesiveness of many articles.

4. What I thought was the inability of the MediaWiki UI of being able to have screenshot type images; which is not the case, as I have noticed with recent articles that have screenshots included.

5. The mixing of Thunderbird, Suite/Sea Monkey, Firefox information on the same KB page.

6. When I want to say something I think is very important, I just add another page to, or edit an existing one, on my Firefox Informational Pages website.


Ed

[VanillaMozilla]

I think both Edmeister and Malliz said it very well. Darn, I'm getting into a discussion on how to write KB, but someone needs to point out that there are certain practical difficulties to overcome. In practice, certain things are not as simple as they might seem.

As for the "geek speak" of malliz, that's an inevitable consequence of having to describe all possible cases for all possible operating systems, and to do it verbally. Just how do you tell someone to right click? How many users know what a context menu is? How do you describe to someone how to find a file? How do you explain all those critical Windows quirks? How much does it complicate the situation to have to write for all operating systems, especially if you only have access to one? Some things are easier done than said.

Pictures help, but they require a lot of bandwidth, and may not be practical for all users. And how do you do this? Do you have a separate set of pictures for each OS? (Yes, this is required.) And another separate set of instructions for those with low bandwidth? That makes 6 sets of instructions for every little operation.

Careful organization and hard work help; both are easily destroyed by the next editor.

I guess Mozilla wants a simple "how to" site with simple explanations. Fine, but just how are they going to help users with diagnosis and repair? This just is not simple. Sorry.

[malliz]

Yes your right Vanilla. And I do realize, probably more than most, the difficulties in writing technical information for the non-technical. There is no easy answer. I see from the google group that some people are suggesting Films? This gives you some idea how far removed from reality people get. In a lot of countries (mine included) broadband is still not the norm and sending some poor bugger to a link that's unusable for them on dial-up is not going to make us popular. It's all very well doing this committee round table chat thing, that is almost obligatory for failed projects. But what about something concrete. Like donating some decent bandwidth. Seems to me Mozilla have had a free ride of this part of the "community" for a long time and still look down on us as poor cousins.

[Alice]

I'm really puzzled by the people who are using that thread as an example of a bad thing. The bad thing was that there was no great place to settle the disagreement and so it ended up in a back and forth. *I* thought it came to a good resolution. I think np, Alice and Vanilla also felt that way. I don't want to speak for them, but that's the impression I got.

We don't usually get such heated disagreements on the KB since most differences of opinion do get settled on the discussion page for that article (or sometimes on its category discussion page) or, in the case of issues that affect the KB in general, on the Knowledge Base changes page.

The particular disagreement about the Lost bookmarks article that initially took place on its discussion page and in PM between me and Lucy, which Lucy brought to the forums, did raise the issue of KB dispute resolution in general and that discussion ended up here and here(those sections of the Knowledge Base changes article are now archived) and resulted in a Dispute resolution process draft proposal.

Lucy,
When you say that you "thought it came to a good resolution" I'm assuming that you meant the Lost bookmarks article itself. You gave up on editing the article or continuing discussion on its talk page and you moved the discussion to the forums. Np and Vanilla basically took over editing it and I ended up recusing myself from editing the article for a long while (although I was in contact with Vanilla by PM and we did compare notes on drafts we had written on our respective user pages). I guess the end result was OK, if you mean how the article turned out, although I would have structured the article a bit differently.

In any case, I don't think that a disagreement about article content is a bad thing, as long as it doesn't degenerate into personal attacks or other nastiness. I don't think this one did, really, and in the end, it did result in something positive (discussion of dispute resolution and draft proposal for KB guidelines).

[Don Corleone]

I think part of the problem is that it seems like *every* disagreement here turns into personal attacks. No, it's not usually by the main people involved, but it's still hard to ignore people who jump in and don't offer much other than "you can't write."

I did not jump in, I was asked to explain. Did you want me to lie?

Don Corleone and Daifne, which "attitudes" are you referring to?

No one wants to chip in for risk of getting caught up in it. That's not just my opinion, that's what I've been getting from a lot of people who help elsewhere.

You see no irony here? That is what you are trying to do with me. You think that you can say majic words 'personal attacks', where none exists, and people will run away like vampire from a Cross? You think you can bully me like you have others by pretending that all think like you and by writing long posts until people just get tired of arguing with you ? You think again.

" Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? " Matthew 7.3.