Filling the EN FAQ

Documentation General
#1

Hi Sophie

Hi all,

Just for information, I'm filling the EN FAQ based on the FR one. There
is some proofreading greatly needed, and don't hesitate to laugh at my
mistakes :slight_smile:
Kind regards
Sophie

Could this be clarified by the BoD? The Ask.LibreOffice.org site was meant to replace the FAQ pages. This is why there is no more FAQ link on our website.

IMO, this defeats the purpose of the Ask site. We are supposed to refer people looking for faq's to look it up on the Ask site and also "ask" questions there. The answers are then graded according to the most valuable response and then considered a FAQ by itself.

There should be clarity on this, as well as a "clear stated purpose of the FAQ". IMO, we should not have a FAQ page if we have the Ask site OR we should not have the Ask site if we are going to have a FAQ site that needs maintaining.

If we are to have both, then someone should update the Ask site to make sure that both FAQ correspond, otherwise we risk confusing our users with the possibility of 2 different FAQ answers. If we are to have both, then we should have a link on the FAQ page stating there is the Ask site and also a link on the Ask site to the FAQ page.

I really don't see the point in confusing users.

Cheers,

Marc

#2

Hi Marc

Hi Sophie

Hi all,

Just for information, I'm filling the EN FAQ based on the FR one. There
is some proofreading greatly needed, and don't hesitate to laugh at my
mistakes :slight_smile:
Kind regards
Sophie

Could this be clarified by the BoD? The Ask.LibreOffice.org site was
meant to replace the FAQ pages. This is why there is no more FAQ link on
our website.

Why should the board clarified that?
Another question : how a NLP translate and maintain the
Ask.LibreOffice.org site in his language and benefits from all the
exchanges when his community don't have all the users/moderators
resources to populate it?
My purpose is to provide an international basis that could serve a the
quick/intermediate documentation for the NLPs that don't have the
resources to run an Ask website or to translate the guides. It's much
more easy to deal with a FAQ article when you have few hands or time
around than to run a whole site.

IMO, this defeats the purpose of the Ask site. We are supposed to refer
people looking for faq's to look it up on the Ask site and also "ask"
questions there. The answers are then graded according to the most
valuable response and then considered a FAQ by itself.

There should be clarity on this, as well as a "clear stated purpose of
the FAQ". IMO, we should not have a FAQ page if we have the Ask site OR
we should not have the Ask site if we are going to have a FAQ site that
needs maintaining.

As I said, having a Ask site as a cost that several NLPs can't offer,
that should not mean that we won't provide this help if it's already
available. The FR project is building this FAQ since 15 years, we won't
abandon it and it could be really useful and helpful for other NLPs once
it's in English.

If we are to have both, then someone should update the Ask site to make
sure that both FAQ correspond, otherwise we risk confusing our users
with the possibility of 2 different FAQ answers. If we are to have both,
then we should have a link on the FAQ page stating there is the Ask site
and also a link on the Ask site to the FAQ page.

Imho that could be just another resource, there is numerous
documentations on the Net, this is only another one.

I really don't see the point in confusing users.

I don't share your point of view, users in other language could find it
really helpful once translated, even if it's only the most
important/read items, unless there is an easy way to translate and
maintain the translation of the English Ask site items.

Kind regards
Sophie

#3

Well then, there should have been more consultation before going on to the Ask site without nl group support. Is there not a push to provide native language support for the Ask site?

Also, there should be a disclaimer left at the top of the FAQ site that the Ask site for EN is available. I can see your point about the nl teams not having any FAQ support on the Ask site, but, the EN Ask site has been up and running for a while, so to make the FAQ more rational, there should be some type of coordination done at both levels FAQ maintainer and the Ask site maintainer ... has the Ask site maintainer been told of this?

Or you could just leave the FAQ site in FR and announce to the other nl teams on the Project list that the FR FAQ page is available for them to translate. I don't really see a point in translating the FR FAQ site into EN when the EN team has gone on to the Ask FAQ system. The risk of confusing the EN users is not worth the effort.

I think this is not really fair to the EN community to be treated this way. I am sure that if this were done to any of the nl groups that there would be some kind of comments about it.

Cheers,

Marc

#4

Marc,

I really don't see the point in confusing users.

I don't share your point of view, users in other language could find it
really helpful once translated, even if it's only the most
important/read items, unless there is an easy way to translate and
maintain the translation of the English Ask site items.

Kind regards
Sophie

Well then, there should have been more consultation before going on to
the Ask site without nl group support. Is there not a push to provide
native language support for the Ask site?

As I said this is question of resources. Most of the NLPs don't have the
resources to run the site.

Also, there should be a disclaimer left at the top of the FAQ site that
the Ask site for EN is available. I can see your point about the nl
teams not having any FAQ support on the Ask site, but, the EN Ask site
has been up and running for a while, so to make the FAQ more rational,
there should be some type of coordination done at both levels FAQ
maintainer and the Ask site maintainer ... has the Ask site maintainer
been told of this?

I absolutely don't know. I only take care of the wiki, the NLPs and the
FR project, from my side, I can't do more.

Or you could just leave the FAQ site in FR and announce to the other nl
teams on the Project list that the FR FAQ page is available for them to
translate. I don't really see a point in translating the FR FAQ site
into EN when the EN team has gone on to the Ask FAQ system. The risk of
confusing the EN users is not worth the effort.

Do you really think that most of the NLPs has the French for common
language? :wink: that would be great, but English is the common language of
the project, it's not only for those who are English native speakers.

I think this is not really fair to the EN community to be treated this
way. I am sure that if this were done to any of the nl groups that there
would be some kind of comments about it.

I don't see why it's unfair, the EN speaking community is the largest
one and have the necessary resources to run forums, sites, etc... I, for
myself, didn't find it unfair when the Ask site was open while the FR
community didn't have the manpower to run one in his language. I don't
think that anybody has thought so, on the contrary it's great that it
can works for this community.

So what is the solution?
- let the NLPs without resources because they don't have them to run a
Ask site, I don't think this what you want too,
- provide what can be provided for most of the NLPs projects and say
that it's not the official FAQ for EN language? We can add on the wiki
that the FAQ page is a dedicated resource for NLPs and only a second
hand resource for the EN community because Ask is the first one, would
that be ok for you?

And as another example too, I've already installed our FAQ on some
private company intranet, this is a useful resource during migration
time, and I won't abandon it for that reason too. I don't think that
could be possible with the Ask site.

Kind regards
Sophie

#5

Well then, yes, I would say to write a disclaimer at the top saying that the Ask site should be considered in the first place for the EN users as this is their main FAQ go-to place. And as well place a disclaimer advising that this FAQ is a resource page for the NLP's for their resourcing their own FAQ pages in their own language.

This way, our EN users will still go to the more updated FAQ page that is maintained through user input and the FAQ page can then be maintained by you.

This will make it clear to everyone of the function of the FAQ resource page and of the purpose of the Ask site.

How does this sound? I could write the preface if you would like.

Cheers,

Marc

#6

Marc,

Well then, yes, I would say to write a disclaimer at the top saying that
the Ask site should be considered in the first place for the EN users as
this is their main FAQ go-to place. And as well place a disclaimer
advising that this FAQ is a resource page for the NLP's for their
resourcing their own FAQ pages in their own language.

ok

This way, our EN users will still go to the more updated FAQ page that
is maintained through user input and the FAQ page can then be maintained
by you.

oh, it's not me, the FR project is maintaining it based on our users
list input :slight_smile:

This will make it clear to everyone of the function of the FAQ resource
page and of the purpose of the Ask site.

ok

How does this sound? I could write the preface if you would like.

not for the moment, I've still a lot of work to do on the pages to make
them more attractive and readable, if you look at the FR part, the
presentation is quite well organized and I want to do the same.

Kind regards
Sophie

#7

Hi Sophie,

Marc,

Well then, yes, I would say to write a disclaimer at the top saying that
the Ask site should be considered in the first place for the EN users as
this is their main FAQ go-to place. And as well place a disclaimer
advising that this FAQ is a resource page for the NLP's for their
resourcing their own FAQ pages in their own language.

ok

This way, our EN users will still go to the more updated FAQ page that
is maintained through user input and the FAQ page can then be maintained
by you.

oh, it's not me, the FR project is maintaining it based on our users
list input :slight_smile:

This will make it clear to everyone of the function of the FAQ resource
page and of the purpose of the Ask site.

ok

How does this sound? I could write the preface if you would like.

not for the moment, I've still a lot of work to do on the pages to make
them more attractive and readable, if you look at the FR part, the
presentation is quite well organized and I want to do the same.

Kind regards
Sophie

OK, this sounds all like a good compromise for everyone that it impacts. Let me know when you are far enough to announce the FAQ and I can help write the text if you want.

Thanks for doing all of this. It's a shame that the Ask site is not available for NLP's otherwise it would just be a question of putting in the data on the Ask site. But, as you say, one can just post the wiki-FAQ on one's own intranet.

Thanks for doing all of this.

Cheers,

Marc

#8

Hi :slight_smile:
I think the different Faqs have different aims&objectives and cover different types of issues.  There is some overlap with that but for users that means getting legitimate confirmation from 2 sources.

Some people prefer looking things up in wikis others prefer more glamorous sites such as the Ask LO site.  Some prefer static documentation rather than either of those and many will never Rtfm at all and just ask on the lists, forums or down the pub.  The only one we don't cover right now is the pub, unless people get very lucky in their choice of pub.

With the English Language community it's not so much the case that different access points dilute the ability of the community to keep things updated.  it's more likely to be the opposite = that more people get drawn into the community and then expand what they get involved with here.  Clearly there are quite a few people doing far toooo much and TDF could do with some of those being promoted to more senior positions and delegating areas of responsibility.  However, output quality is great this way!

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#9

Well then, there should have been more consultation before going on to the
Ask site without nl group support. Is there not a push to provide native
language support for the Ask site?

(Note: I'm one of the mods on the Ask site and sometimes roll up my
sleeves and poke at the backend)

AFAIK there was some initial support for NLP Ask sites, but the
backend dev support has been limited for most of 2013. We do have a
PT-BR Ask site up and running (as a test, I think?), but it's not
clear to me if we ever got the correct technical pieces in place to
roll-out multiple NLP Ask sites from the same installation (which I
believe was the original plan).

Also, there should be a disclaimer left at the top of the FAQ site that the
Ask site for EN is available. I can see your point about the nl teams not
having any FAQ support on the Ask site, but, the EN Ask site has been up and
running for a while, so to make the FAQ more rational, there should be some
type of coordination done at both levels FAQ maintainer and the Ask site
maintainer ... has the Ask site maintainer been told of this?

I haven't looked at the FAQ in quite a while. When I tried typing-in a
url, I found that this url doesn't even go to a page with wiki markup:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/FAQ

(maybe something we can as infra to poke at...)

Quickly glancing at the FAQ (or "Faq," I should say :slight_smile: there are a
number of pages that are more How-To's than questions (e.g. "Tutorial
on the use of the 'Report Wizard"). These types of pages definitely
seem out-of-scope for the Ask site. Perhaps some of the content here
would be more suited to live in the Documentation proper than in an
FAQ?

Take, for instance, the section regarding Base Forms: these questions
seem like they could happily live as examples in a short chapter
demonstrating hands-on use of Base Forms (with some nice screenshots,
perhaps?).

My general feeling is that an FAQ usually contains a number of
disparate pieces of information that don't really "fit" anywhere else.
The sections of closely-related articles about Base Tables or
Extensions seems like we're closer to assembling a knowledgebase than
a set of "Frequently Asked Questions."

Cheers,
--R

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