Frequent Tech Questions (Was: How much to quote?)

On Mar 7, 2007, at 9:46 PM, Adam C. Engst wrote:

> One thing I've always wondered is just how something like this would
> differ from Wikipedia's entries on the same topics.

Well, because the Macintosh community is very enthusiastic, I would
hope that the existence of a Wiki devoted exclusively to the
Macintosh would create a lot of interest and hence would be more
detailed than the entries for Wikipedia.

I can't tell if Mac Wiki's entries are sparse because the site isn't
well known, or if it is because the site is too new, or if there is
some other reason.

Maybe others can have a look and let us know what they think.
<http://mac.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page>

I could set up our own Mac Wiki if this one is somehow deficient, but
otherwise it seems to me that there is no reason to reinvent the
wheel. Or do folks think that the entire idea is without merit?

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

On Mar 8, 2007, at 12:46 AM, Tom Gewecke wrote:

>
> On Mar 6, 2007, at 9:48 PM, Richard Rucker wrote:
>
>>> I'd be curious what subject areas you found the Apple forums not
>>> useful for.
>>
>> The fate of my most recent posting is pretty typical:
>
> Thanks for the feedback! The synchronizing of address book smart
> groups is an interesting problem. Did you find answers to that or
> your other questions anywhere else?

No ;-)

It's on questions like these where the absence of knowledgeable input
from Apple leaves a void.

My guess is that there are folks out there who know the answers, but
they don't frequent Apple discussion boards. Perhaps they do frequent
TidBITS outlets and might contribute if TidBITS offered an easy-to-
use, smartly searchable database of such knowledge.

Dick

On Mar 8, 2007, at 11:35 AM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

>
>
> I could set up our own Mac Wiki if this one is somehow deficient, but
> otherwise it seems to me that there is no reason to reinvent the
> wheel. Or do folks think that the entire idea is without merit?


Can anyone explain what this would offer that is not available at
places like macosxhints.com, macnn.com, macfixit.com, macrumors.com,
macintouch.com, discussions.apple.com, etc? I think it's hard to get
people to participate in another "forum" when there are already so many.

On 3/8/07 12:35, "Randy B. Singer" <randymacattorney.com> wrote:

> I can't tell if Mac Wiki's entries are sparse because the site isn't
> well known, or if it is because the site is too new, or if there is
> some other reason.

In the tech sector, it's because there's not a lot of advantage to a Wiki
over google.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On 3/8/07 12:35, "Richard Rucker" <rruckerverizon.net> wrote:

> My guess is that there are folks out there who know the answers, but
> they don't frequent Apple discussion boards. Perhaps they do frequent
> TidBITS outlets and might contribute if TidBITS offered an easy-to-
> use, smartly searchable database of such knowledge.

Google

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

Randy B. Singer wrote:

>> One thing I've always wondered is just how something like this would
>> differ from Wikipedia's entries on the same topics.
>
> Well, because the Macintosh community is very enthusiastic...

About Audio and Visual: I checked it out and found the visuals on the
'SwimMan' site, for example, under 'See more applications...
<http://mac.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Newpages>' I didn't find
significant GUI or A / V on Wiki, itself.

> I could set up our own Mac Wiki if this one is somehow deficient, but
> otherwise it seems to me that there is no reason to reinvent the
> wheel. Or do folks think that the entire idea is without merit?

The idea is with as much merit as there is A / V / GUI content. So
real Mac users would have to provide real examples: screen capture of
how they do things, photos of gear. Text is to fill in some kinds of
details for many Mac users: not so much to solve problems. Of course
text suits most TidBits very well, but we are not the ones with real
problems, in the sense of not being able to find answers we can understand.

George

On Mar 8, 2007, at 11:35 AM, Richard Rucker wrote:

>>
>> Thanks for the feedback! The synchronizing of address book smart
>> groups is an interesting problem. Did you find answers to that or
>> your other questions anywhere else?
>
> No ;-)
>
> It's on questions like these where the absence of knowledgeable input
> from Apple leaves a void.

That's true, Apple itself does not participate in the Apple forums,
and there is no place where Apple provides answers to specific user
questions. (And as I noted before, I've seen many cases where
"Apple" knows less than the users.)

>
> My guess is that there are folks out there who know the answers, but
> they don't frequent Apple discussion boards. Perhaps they do frequent
> TidBITS outlets and might contribute if TidBITS offered an easy-to-
> use, smartly searchable database of such knowledge.

I don't think it that likely myself. Some questions have no answers
-- they are bugs with no fixes or related to features that don't
exist. If you can't find the answer now in places like the Apple
discussions or the forums at macnn, macosxhints, macintouch, and
macfixit, I doubt there is one.

On Mar 9, 2007, at 8:18 AM, Tom Gewecke wrote:

> Can anyone explain what this would offer that is not available at
> places like macosxhints.com, macnn.com, macfixit.com, macrumors.com,
> macintouch.com, discussions.apple.com, etc? I think it's hard to get
> people to participate in another "forum" when there are already so
> many.

Well, first, newbies especially find it hard to find the specific
answers to their questions using something like Google. A FAQ site
would make it easy to find answers, precise answers that are
comprehensive, in one place.

Second, the sites that you mentioned aren't really answer sites.
They are news sites, tips sites, etc., and they can be hard to wade
through for some to find the answer to a specific basic question.
They also aren't necessarily for newbies or average users, but more
for the enthusiast/power user.

But it sounds to me as if there is no enthusiasm for the idea of
creating a Mac FAQ site. That's fine. I needed to know that up-
front because I don't have the time or energy to put such a site
together and populate it with answers entirely on my own.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

On 3/9/07 10:18, "Tom Gewecke" <tombluesky.org> wrote:

>> My guess is that there are folks out there who know the answers, but
>> they don't frequent Apple discussion boards. Perhaps they do frequent
>> TidBITS outlets and might contribute if TidBITS offered an easy-to-
>> use, smartly searchable database of such knowledge.
>
> I don't think it that likely myself. Some questions have no answers
> -- they are bugs with no fixes or related to features that don't
> exist. If you can't find the answer now in places like the Apple
> discussions or the forums at macnn, macosxhints, macintouch, and
> macfixit, I doubt there is one.

Okay, it depends on the questions. For "serious" networking questions, the
best container of knowledge are the Apple, Omni, and Mac-Mgrs mailing lists.
As an IT person, I gave up on the forums in the sites you mentioned because
they simply aren't of use for my needs. (Face it, a question on SAN fabrics
is just not common outside of the IT community)

However, these are not...friendly...places in the sense of places like
MacFixit and the rest. RTFM is a watchword there, and if you ask a question
answered in the documentation that exists from Apple and other sources,
(GOOGLE), you'll get told to RTFM. That's just the way of those resources.

But I've found Google to be more useful than almost any forum out there.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

At 08:18 -0800 UTC, on 2007-03-09, Tom Gewecke wrote:

> On Mar 8, 2007, at 11:35 AM, Randy B. Singer wrote:
>
>> I could set up our own Mac Wiki if this one is somehow deficient, but
>> otherwise it seems to me that there is no reason to reinvent the
>> wheel. Or do folks think that the entire idea is without merit?
>
> Can anyone explain what this would offer that is not available at
> places like macosxhints.com, macnn.com, macfixit.com, macrumors.com,
> macintouch.com, discussions.apple.com, etc? I think it's hard to get
> people to participate in another "forum" when there are already so many.

I'd say the main advantage of a wiki is that it is not a Web forum. Forums
are message boards. Wikis are collaborative editors. Quite different.
Personally I find Web forums mostly useless. The odd useful tidbit is usually
buried deep down in way too much useless stuff. With a wiki, wrong or
incomplete answers can be improved by other participants. The end result then
becomes something that's actiually useful, as opposed to a big bucket of crap
with some treasures buried in it. (No wonder people keep asking the same
questions. A previously posted good answer is usually quite hard to find.)

Obviously you'll only get the wiki benefits if the wiki's editors behave
professionally, which won't happen automatically. So the biggest challenge is
to manage it steer that ship -- ensure "somehow" that only useful and correct
content is entered. That's more of a social challenge than a technical one.
Wikipedia is an example of how it's not that easy to achieve this, but how
much nicer the result can be than a forum.


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

At 10:35 AM -0800 3/8/07, Richard Rucker wrote:
>My guess is that there are folks out there who know the answers, but
>they don't frequent Apple discussion boards. Perhaps they do frequent
>TidBITS outlets and might contribute if TidBITS offered an easy-to-
>use, smartly searchable database of such knowledge.

Honestly, if I were to tackle a project like this, I'd want to think
very carefully about how to do it right, since it seems to me that a
raw wiki or discussion forum probably would crumble (from a usability
standpoint) under the load if it were heavily used.

cheers... -Adam

On Mar 10, 2007, at 12:02 PM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

>
>
> Second, the sites that you mentioned aren't really answer sites.
> They are news sites, tips sites, etc., and they can be hard to wade
> through for some to find the answer to a specific basic question.
> They also aren't necessarily for newbies or average users, but more
> for the enthusiast/power user.

I have to disagree, they are all places where people constantly ask
questions and get answers. And if you want newbies, the Apple
discussions and several other forums are full of them. In my
experience newbies are the last people to ever read FAQ's in any case
-- they want personal attention with their particular problem (and if
possible an audio/visual, rather than written, explanation:-)

http://forums.macosxhints.com/index.php
http://forums.macnn.com/
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/index.html
http://forums.macrumors.com/
http://www.macfixitforums.com/

>
> But it sounds to me as if there is no enthusiasm for the idea of
> creating a Mac FAQ site.

Again, here is one set of "FAQ's" which has to some extent been
"evaluated" by an audience in terms of the "number of views."

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=599

On Mar 10, 2007, at 12:02 PM, Adam C. Engst wrote:

> Honestly, if I were to tackle a project like this, I'd want to think
> very carefully about how to do it right, since it seems to me that a
> raw wiki or discussion forum probably would crumble (from a usability
> standpoint) under the load if it were heavily used.


My concern would be the other way, that because of large number of
existing endeavors, a new one could crumble from lack of use. I've
seen several attempts to launch new forums that went nowhere.

On Mar 10, 2007, at 12:02 PM, John C. Welch wrote:

> Okay, it depends on the questions. For "serious" networking
> questions, the
> best container of knowledge are the Apple, Omni, and Mac-Mgrs
> mailing lists.
> As an IT person, I gave up on the forums in the sites you mentioned
> because
> they simply aren't of use for my needs. (Face it, a question on SAN
> fabrics
> is just not common outside of the IT community)


This is definitely true -- there are some topics where the most
common forums may not be that useful. For Chinese issues, for
example, the only place it makes sense to go is the Chinese-Mac
Mailing List and FAQ. For Microsoft apps, usually better to ask in
their special microsoft.public.mac set of newsgroups than in the
forums devoted to Apple's products. Adobe's forums are often better
for its stuff. Filemaker and Eudora have their own forums. But
asking about iWeb anywhere other than Apple's discussions, where
there are over 60,000 messages on that topic alone, and several
FAQ's, is also probably a waste of time.

One thing which I think could well be useful is a list of the best
forums or mailing lists or newsgroups or independent FAQ's to go to
for problems not well covered by the already well-known forums, such
as the info just provided on serious networking issues.

On Mar 10, 2007, at 2:02 PM, Adam C. Engst wrote:

> Honestly, if I were to tackle a project like this, I'd want to think
> very carefully about how to do it right, since it seems to me that a
> raw wiki or discussion forum probably would crumble (from a usability
> standpoint) under the load if it were heavily used.

As Aaron Swartz put it:
"…the reason Wikipedia works is because of the community, a group of
people that took the project as their own and threw themselves into
making it succeed."
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia

There must be 5,000 wikis by now -- I scanned a very long list of
wiki URLs some months ago. My guess is that very few have enough
motivated contributors, plus a core of motivated pruners who work
continuously to free the garden of weeds, to make the effort
worthwhile. If it weren't for the team of pruners that Jimbo Wales
has managed to assemble and motivate, Wikipedia would not be the
surprisingly good reference site that it is.

John Welch is right to suggest Googling, but I find that works only
when the target range can be narrowed with a few well-chosen key
words. Too often what is being sought is more nuanced than that.

Dick

On 3/10/2007 1:02 PM, "Tom Gewecke" wrote:
> Again, here is one set of "FAQ's" which has to some extent been
> "evaluated" by an audience in terms of the "number of views."
>
> http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=599

Number of views isn't necessarily a good indicator of accuracy. A perfect
example is the article with the most views out of all of those listed at the
above URL: "kmosx3: Mac OS X 10.3/10.4: System maintenance." The article is
chock full of all the "maintenance" tasks you see recommended in message
boards and on email lists, most of which aren't going to help the typical
user. Another problematic article there is "kmosx: Updating MacOS X: Repair
permissions!" which includes a number of simply incorrect claims and
statements.

On 3/11/07, tidbits-talktidbits.com <tidbits-talktidbits.com> wrote:

> Message #27: Re: Frequent Tech Questions (Was: How much to quote?)
> Posted by: Adam Engst Date: Mar 10, 2007.
>...
> Honestly, if I were to tackle a project like this, I'd want to think
> very carefully about how to do it right, since it seems to me that a
> raw wiki or discussion forum probably would crumble (from a usability
> standpoint) under the load if it were heavily used.

I wonder if this were best approached from a meta-level; ie, have a
wiki *pointing* to the best solutions to come from other wiki sources.
That way, the actual content would be maintained in other places
(which already have a substantial start). So, all that would have to
be done is index the question to the location of the best solution &
this could be dynamic in the manner of a wiki. This is a bit more
detailed than the solution of Tom140, who posits a list of (best)
places for a *type* of question, but it got me thinking...

Regards,

GAM

>On Mar 10, 2007, at 12:02 PM, Adam C. Engst wrote:
>
>>Honestly, if I were to tackle a project like this, I'd want to think
>>very carefully about how to do it right, since it seems to me that a
>>raw wiki or discussion forum probably would crumble (from a usability
>>standpoint) under the load if it were heavily used.
>
>
>My concern would be the other way, that because of large number of
>existing endeavors, a new one could crumble from lack of use. I've
>seen several attempts to launch new forums that went nowhere.

That's absolutely true too, but if you don't design with success in
mind, sometimes the design itself can prevent success. :)

>One thing which I think could well be useful is a list of the best
>forums or mailing lists or newsgroups or independent FAQ's to go to
>for problems not well covered by the already well-known forums, such
>as the info just provided on serious networking issues.

Yes, that could be useful, and intersects some ideas that I hope
we'll be able to implement at some point this year.

cheers... -Adam

On Mar 10, 2007, at 11:02 AM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> I'd say the main advantage of a wiki is that it is not a Web forum.
> Forums
> are message boards. Wikis are collaborative editors. Quite different.
> Personally I find Web forums mostly useless. The odd useful tidbit
> is usually
> buried deep down in way too much useless stuff. With a wiki, wrong or
> incomplete answers can be improved by other participants. The end
> result then
> becomes something that's actiually useful, as opposed to a big
> bucket of crap
> with some treasures buried in it. (No wonder people keep asking the
> same
> questions. A previously posted good answer is usually quite hard to
> find.)

Exactly.

Try to find a good, comprehensive answer to some very common basic
questions with Google and you will not only find it next to
impossible, but you will also find a lot of simply wrong information.

For example, try to find the answers to these common questions using
Google:

- Do I need anti-virus software for my Macintosh?

- How do I use my WordPerfect files from my old PC on my new Macintosh?

- What are my options for dictating to my Macintosh and having it
transcribe what I say?


___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (3rd, 4th, and 5th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________

On Mar 12, 2007, at 12:15 PM, Richard Rucker wrote:

> John Welch is right to suggest Googling, but I find that works only
> when the target range can be narrowed with a few well-chosen key
> words. Too often what is being sought is more nuanced than that.

The allintitle: qualifier can help considerably with Google searches.

Just as a quick example, a search for

allintitle: macintosh printing xerox

produces two documents from Xerox (which may in fact be the same
document--I haven't checked.

A search for plain
macintosh printing xerox

produces 1,340,000 hits.

   --John

On Mar 12, 2007, at 12:20 PM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

> Try to find a good, comprehensive answer to some very common basic
> questions with Google and you will not only find it next to
> impossible, but you will also find a lot of simply wrong information.
>
> For example, try to find the answers to these common questions using
> Google:
>
> - Do I need anti-virus software for my Macintosh?
>
> - How do I use my WordPerfect files from my old PC on my new
> Macintosh?
>
> - What are my options for dictating to my Macintosh and having it
> transcribe what I say?

And what will drive new Mac OS X users to a new Wiki in preference to
all the sources they learn about from friends, Genius Bars, etc?

   --John

On 3/12/07 14:20, "Randy B. Singer" <randymacattorney.com> wrote:

>
>> I'd say the main advantage of a wiki is that it is not a Web forum.
>> Forums
>> are message boards. Wikis are collaborative editors. Quite different.
>> Personally I find Web forums mostly useless. The odd useful tidbit
>> is usually
>> buried deep down in way too much useless stuff. With a wiki, wrong or
>> incomplete answers can be improved by other participants. The end
>> result then
>> becomes something that's actiually useful, as opposed to a big
>> bucket of crap
>> with some treasures buried in it. (No wonder people keep asking the
>> same
>> questions. A previously posted good answer is usually quite hard to
>> find.)
>
> Exactly.
>
> Try to find a good, comprehensive answer to some very common basic
> questions with Google and you will not only find it next to
> impossible, but you will also find a lot of simply wrong information.

Especially if you google for things that have no definitive answer.

>
> For example, try to find the answers to these common questions using
> Google:
>
> - Do I need anti-virus software for my Macintosh?

I dunno, googling:

Do Macs need anti-virus software

gave me useful results right there. However, AV software usage isn't
something that any search engine is going to be of great help with, (Google
OR a Wiki), because it can't search contextually. Are you a home user, are
you in a SOX environment, etc., yadda. If you want *any* source to give you
"the one true answer" to this, then to be blunt, you may as well wear a
barrel and carry a lantern, because that's about the scope of your quest.

There is however a difference between "useful information" and "give me the
perfect answer".

>
> - How do I use my WordPerfect files from my old PC on my new Macintosh?

Again, googling

How do I use Wordperfect files on a Mac

Gave me several useful links on the first page of results. Is that the same
as the one true answer? No. If you only define "the perfect answer" as a
useful result, then there's no resource of use to you.

>
> - What are my options for dictating to my Macintosh and having it
> transcribe what I say?

Either:

Voice dictation on a Mac

OR

Speech recognition on a Mac

returned useful results with the second version being MORE useful as it's a
better query.

Wikis are not a magic spell. They are only useful to the amount of time the
people involved feel like putting in and the reliability of the vetting
process for the entries. Wikipedia does well because of the scope of its
maintainers (everyone) and the integrity of the vetting process, (pretty
danged high). If you don't have either, then it's not going to work. As
well, a wiki won't take away the need to know how to search. If you want to
help people out, teach them how to properly use Google or the others. That
will serve them far better over time than trying to create "the one true
source."

I know that while I was happy to put a rather large article on Nagios on my
site to update an earlier entry, it was sufficiently tedious, (dear lord
thank you Rus for your OCD issues with grammar!) that I'm certainly not
going to repeat the process just to have the same info somewhere else when
Googling:

installing nagios on Mac OS X

takes you right there. It's already up in one place, and easily found.
What's the value in having it somewhere else? It makes my workload harder,
because when there is a duplication of content I've created, I get the pings
when the other places don't get updated. The answers are out there, isn't it
a better direction to teach people how to find them instead of reinventing
the wheel?

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com