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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: Wiki-based online help system for KDE
From:       Rinse de Vries <rinsedevries () kde ! nl>
Date:       2007-06-03 23:44:38
Message-ID: 200706040144.38868.rinsedevries () kde ! nl
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Hi Bernhard,

Wiki based help system have been discussed several times on this list. 
Please look into the list history to find out why it was turned down.

personally i don't see any real benifits in a wiki based system compared to the \
current situation.

In the current situation, developers don't need to write documents, if users want to \
they can write a document in plain text and the document team  will add the neccesary \
docbook formatting. Translating documents and maintaining it is a lot easier in the \
current situation (with po files) than with a wiki.  wiki means online documentation, \
while in the current system, users can access the help in offline situations as well \
current system with docbook makes it possible to use different output formats, like \
html and pdf. kde already has a wiki, and looking at the current state of it, there \
aren't many kde users that are interested in maintaining a wiki documentation.

Regards, Rinse


Op zondag 03 juni 2007, schreef Bernhard:
> Hello all,
> 
> yesterday at the linuxtag I talked to some of you about a wiki-based online 
> help system for KDE4. Following your advice I sent the idea to this list. The 
> question we discussed was about what's wrong with the current help system and 
> how it could be improved.
> 
> As a motivation, let's first have a look what the drawbacks of the current 
> help system are:
> - Help contents have to be written and kept up to date by KDE developers which 
> means lots of work for them. At the same time, the need to get svn access and 
> setup the tools to help documenting might be too much effort for users to 
> help.
> - Considering the developer's limited time documentation often stays behind 
> new features.
> - Small but useful features often don't get enough attention in the 
> documentation.
> - When a certain feature doesn't work like expected it is hard to figure out 
> whether it's a limitation of the application or if it is not configured 
> correctly.
> - Howtos and other step by step instructions are spread all over the internet.
> - Quality and quantity of documentation varies a lot. (there are good ones, 
> though)
> - ...
> 
> In the end, users tend to search the internet for solutions instead of 
> consulting the help system. This is because they expect to find the answers 
> to their questions much quicker this way.
> 
> So how can an improved help system solve the issues mentioned above? Here are 
> some ideas that cross my mind:
> - The documentation should be a central knowledge base for the application.
> - Provide context sensitive, task oriented help contents from within the 
> application. (howtos, step by step instructions)
> - List the limitations for each feature or subsystem of an application. 
> Provide more information (links to bugs, whish lists, etc.) for each 
> limitation and how to work around them.
> - Involve users. Power users know many details of the application which they 
> could share with the community. Let users help structure the documentation 
> and provide easy access for them to keep it up to date.
> 
> Looking for a way to address those demands, a wiki seems to be a good solution 
> for an online help system. Wikis are very common today where people need to 
> aggregate information and share it in a compact and structured way. They are 
> both easy to use and easy to access, so there is a low barrier for people to 
> contribute. From that point of view, wikis are virtually ideal candidates 
> serving as an online help system.
> 
> From the application side, wiki pages could be linked directly from within 
> applications in order to provide context sensitive help to the user. This can 
> be done via a link in a "What's this"-window, for instance.
> 
> For the user, the wiki-based online help system turns into a pile of know-how 
> about the application. This means less searching through the internet, 
> scanning through lots of web sites and forums until some interesting 
> information is found.
> 
> With all its benefits a wiki-based help system has to offer, there still are 
> some questions that remain:
> - How does the wiki handle different versions of an application?
> - Likewise, how to handle different distributions?
> - How can the wiki-based help system be implemented to co-exist with or be a 
> good supplement to the current help system?
> - What are the usability aspects?
> 
> Do you have an idea or further thoughts?
> 
> Cheers,
> Bernhard
> 


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