Project talk:Support desk/Archive 01

2006

Resolved topics?

Is there an archive or something of that sort where resolved topics should be moved to? Thanks. —dto 03:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The approach so far has been to do delete all the old items in a single edit, and add a link at the top of the page to the edit just before the material was deleted. Check the examples already in place (all from the old 'main page' - before it was moved here - but the principle is the same). Good luck! --HappyDog 03:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

A different way of organising questions, their answer, and this Support desk

We get a lot of useful answers on this article that are just going to get archived and useless to most users, meaning the question will be asked again. Also, lots of questions might have answers in MW.org already. I suggest that we ask users to ask the question on the talk page of the relevant article. That means that the question, and its answer will be more available to future users. Also it means they'll have to find the article and probably read it, answering their question anyway.

Second, we make a template for questions and their answers. When a user asks a question on a talk page they put it in a template (Something like User:Rick/QuestionTemplate though it needs a lot more work). The people who answer questions at the support desk can then look at WhatLinksHere for the template, and they have access to all the questions. When a question has been answered satisfactorily for the user, the template the user asked the question on is changed to a QuestionAnswered template (which has all the same field etc so only the template name needs changing). That means it stops showing up in WhatLinksHere. The results are

1. Users look at the article before asking a question, causing less questions.
2. Questions are placed on the talk page, meaning they're more accessible to users, causing less questions
   1. The answers can be integrated into the article if relevant.
3. The users enter information like MW version into the template, meaning we have to ask them less.

However LiquidThreads works may effect this idea (mainly it might allow a better method - I don't know enough about LQT though).

Its only a rough idea, what do you think? --Rick 03:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

In general, I think it's a very good idea, however it could be made a little more sophisticated, I think... I have added a couple of categories and a new argument 'topic'. Topic should be one of a set of known keywords, specified at FAQ topic areas, and will allow each question to be automatically categorised. (Actually - the name 'topic' and the page/category names I have used are pretty bad - please make sure something better is used before this goes live...) Also, unanswered questions are now dumped into a category for ease of retrieval/checking. There may be other improvements that people can suggest, so I would hold off making this live for the time-being (say a week or so) to see what other suggestions turn up. Good work though - hopefully it will make things a bit easier to manage... --HappyDog 03:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

For reference, the following discussion took place on IRC (irrelevant parts removed):

[04:10] <Rich234234> I just put a suggestion in [[mw:Project_talk:Support_desk]] 
          to maaybe help the project in questions being asked and they're answers being 
          useful for more people
[04:23] <HappyDog> I have responded there...
[04:35] <Rich234234> lol oops yeah I planned on it using categories for 
          answered/unanswered but forgot. 
[04:37] <HappyDog> RichNumbers: I will have a think about the usability of 
          a template-based approach.  It occurs to me that for this to be useful we 
          need to (a) be able to find unanswered questions and (b) be able to search 
          answered questions in a meaningful way.
[04:37] <HappyDog> The categories may have solved that, but maybe not...
[04:37] <HappyDog> needs a bit of thought.
[04:38] <Rich234234> Yeah unanswered questions via the category. Whats the 
          purpose of needing to search answered questions in a meaningful way?
[04:38] <Rich234234> definitely needs thought before its used
[04:38] <HappyDog> ...and of course, it needs people to actually answer the 
          questions.  Have you seen how many unanswered questions there are at 
          mw:Support_desk?
[04:38] <HappyDog> :)
[04:39] <Rich234234> At least it _might_ be an improvement ;)
[04:39] <HappyDog> by 'search in a meanginful way', I mean for people who want 
          to post a question being able to find out if it's already answered.
[04:39] <HappyDog> and also for people answering, I guess, although that's 
          less of an issue.
[04:40] <Rich234234> hmm yeah, i couldn't think how to do it and you can't 
          with the current system, so didn't consider it much. Semantic mediawiki 
          would help ;)
[04:41] <HappyDog> Yeah - In an ideal world it's a definite improvement.  
          If we end up with Category:Unanswered_questions containing 300 items 
          then we're in trouble... :)
[04:41] <HappyDog> *ack* as far as I can tell, semantic MediaWiki will 
          solve everything, including world poverty... ! ;)
[04:42] <HappyDog> Still - I think your approach is at least worth trying out.
[04:45] <Rich234234> heh. Hmm, it'd be changing what the talk page is meant 
          to be for. It's _meant_ to be for discussing the article, not for asking for 
          help (which granted is what its used for at the moment)
[04:46] <HappyDog> True, and the links in the categories would all go to 
          some fairly non-intuitive places, i.e. you wouldn't see the question when 
          browsing the category - just the page it was written on.
[04:49] <Rich234234> yeah a solution to that would be nice
[04:49] <HappyDog> As I said - leave it a week or so to see what other people 
          think, and to see if there are any other suggestions for improvements.
[04:50] <HappyDog> I'm signing off now.
[04:50] <HappyDog> I'll place a copy of this discussion on the wiki so people 
          can see where we're up to.

--HappyDog 03:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Improving the support desk is a great idea. I would, though, like to advocate splitting it up into (sub-?)pages rather than directing questions to the talk pages. Not all questions have obvious talk pages where they should be posted, some questions might be posted on more than one talk page and I don't see browsing through talk pages to be an enjoyable experience.

I'd rather suggest something along the lines of the w:Wikipedia:Reference desk, breaking it down into topics with a nice banner at the top of these, taking you between them. I've often seen support requests on talk pages and would suggest that we simply put a banner on those most prone to that, to direct those seeking help here to the Support desk. --Swift 23:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The idea would be that unanswered questions are tagged with a category, so we can look at Category:Unanswered Questions to see the questions not answered. HappyDog pointed out we'd only see the article its in, not the question, which isn't as informative as it should be --Rick 03:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually (I've been contemplating this for a while), might it be better to use something other than the wiki for this? How about a forum like http://www.mwusers.com/? Though versatile, the Wiki can't do everything ... and shouldn't. Every tool demands the right tool. --Swift 23:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Well - that's my general feeling. On older pages, such as Communication and Project:Help, and indeed in the Support Desk notes at the top of the page, you will see that asking questions on the wiki is very much discouraged, as they are unlikely to be answered quickly, if at all. However, more recently people have come along and advocated the use of the wiki as a one-stop shop, and have given the support desk greater visibility (e.g. Community portal (now a redirect), and the side bar). I have given them a free reign on this matter, as I don't know how the community will develop in this area and, to be honest, it is not an area I participate in very much.

Regardless of our approach though, people DO come here asking for help, and will post questions despite the warnings. Regardless of whether other forums are quicker/better there will always be people posting here. I created Project:Support desk in order to stop these visitors from scattering their questions all over the wiki (largely successful) and to increase the likelihood that their question will be noticed and answered (slightly successful).

If we instigate a more formal process of asking questions, more questions will be asked. If they are going to be answered, and the process makes it easier to answer them, then this is fine. If we are just making it harder for people to 'not get helped', then this extra process should be avoided. --HappyDog 00:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC) I am aware that there are a few people, including Swift, who are active and do a good job at the Support Desk, but currently this pool is very small. I don't know how well we'd cope if the rate of questions increased...

... btw, we could ask for implementing DPLforum on this site. It works quite well, the usage is very intuitive and MediaWiki-like. --:Bdk: 02:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think DPLforum would be a better alternative than the category-based scheme, simply because we can't watch categories for new additions. Titoxd^(?!?) 08:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

2007

Users support desk

There would be a Users support desk, a System Administrators support desk and a Developers support desk. See User_hub. --1 May 2007

If there's a lesson to be learned from the English Wikipedia, is that there is such a thing as having too many desks, and not enough volume to warrant them. Having more places to look for info just causes duplicated effort or missed discussions/replies. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What to do about this desk

Cross-posting another discussion for visibility: Project:Current issues#Project:Support desk. Please comment. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Still looking for an accurate, contemporaneous "MediaWiki Installation Manual"

Peter Blaise says: I cannot seem to predictably and successfully contribute to Manual:Contents/To do or other MediaWiki.org pages. So, I created one here: User:Peterblaise ... if I can only successfully log in more than once!

I look forward to anyone else trying to document the various roads to success implementing MediaWikis. As of 2007-05-18 there is no discussion on MediaWiki yet at Manual:Contents/To do ?!?

There is much fragmentation:

Installation

Project:Manual

Manual:Contents

... and so on. No one has taken ownership (I know, ownership is a Wiki no-no) of structuring a comprehensive Installation manual. And since I can't seem to contribute anywhere else on MediaWiki.org except at User:Peterblaise then I can't lend a hand. Even at the old m:Help:Contents I quote": "For Installers ... nothing yet?"

Sadly, I was officially unwelcomed here (speaking of ownership) once before, but I'll try again.

As I experience it:

- The beauty of MediaWiki is that everyone can contribute (except me!).

- The problems with MediaWiki.org are that almost no one actually does contribute, and when they do, it so horribly disorganized that it doesn't matter much.

However, I suggest that people NOT respond to me here.

Instead, if you think you *know* some answers, then first *try to find those answers at http://www.mediawiki.org/* ... and:

- If you do find answers at MediaWiki,org, then reply here with *links*.

- If you cannot find answers on MediaWiki.org, then *create answers there*, and then reply here with links.

Thanks!

I'm trying to put everything I have to offer on MediaWiki.org - please join me.

Here goes for today, Friday, May 18, 2007 (how long has this been going on? April 6, 2007 was my first post here, and February 7, 2007 was when I "officially" started searching elsewhere for this very same help):

My Struggle #1: prototype, building an intranet-sharable Wiki that does not require admin privileges on my local primary workstation. Cornelius Herzog's "Wiki on WOS" (Webserver On a usb Stick) from http://www.chsoftware.net/ works. However, it requires that I permit each visitor access by a manually entered list of internal-IP address. This is arduous and requires that I be here for newbies to achieve their initial success. This dampens their enthusiasm to stay with the Wiki learning curve.

My struggle #2: alpha/beta, building an intranet-sharable Wiki WITH admin privileges on my remote secondary workstation. I have yet to get ANY MediaWiki system working at all. I have yet to find a resource that clearly and concisely lists the linking steps and confirmation checks between MSWinXPPro, Apache, PHP, MySQL, and MediaWiki. (The book "MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide: Install, manage, and customize your MediaWiki installation" by Mizanur Rahman, 2007 http://www.packtpub.com/ says, page 19, "Since this book is about MediaWiki, we are not going to learn about the installation of a web server, database server, or even PHP." Well, all right, then! So much for fulfilling their own title! Thanks!)

My dream struggle #3: build multiple Wikis on one computer that share the same database, and also build multiple Wikis on one computer that do not share the same database.

If anyone has links to resources supporting resolutions to these struggles, please share! I've read most of the ones in Google's top search results and find they are missing specific linking steps and confirmation checks, and are usually out of date (MySQL 4 and PHP 4 and MediaWiki 1.3, for instance).

Here are some http://www.Google.com/ searches and results:

Search Terms:

[install mediawiki apache php mysql win xp winxp windows xp phpmyadmin] ... and so on.

http://www.Google.com/ results:

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Apache,-MySQL,-PHP,-and-phpMyAdmin-on-a-Windows-PC

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-phpMyAdmin-on-Your-Windows-PC

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-the-Apache-Web-Server-on-a-Windows-PC

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-the-MySQL-Database-Server-on-Your-Windows-PC

http://www.bicubica.com/apache-php-mysql/index.php

http://www.wikihow.com/Install-the-PHP-Engine-on-Your-Windows-PC

http://www.devside.net/

http://oss.segetech.com/wamp.html

http://www.wampserver.com/en/index.php

Manual:Installing MediaWiki on Windows Server 2003

http://www.sematopia.com/?p=28http://www.yafla.com/dennisforbes/Many-Ways-to-Skin-a-Wiki-Hosting-a-Wiki-on-Windows/Many-Ways-to-Skin-a-Wiki-Hosting-a-Wiki-on-Windows.html

http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.php

... and so on for ~1,100,000 others.

... NONE of which are contemporaneous, complete, accurate, nor do they include linking steps and confirmation checks for the entire suite of OS/WS/DB/PI/WP/E&E. Don'tcha love abbreviations? Anyway, these generic terms might help structure a "manual", as there are choices at each step (too many choices is perhaps why no one has built a manual yet!):

OS = *Operating System* - Linux, Windows ...

WS = *Web Server* - Apache, MS/IIS ...

DB = *DataBase* - MySQL, PostgreSQL ...

PI = *Program Interpreter* - PHP ...

WP = *Wiki Programming* - MediaWiki ... are there others?  ;-)

E&E = *Extensions and Enhancements* - FCKEditor, PHPMyAdmin ...

I'll contribute what I have, but I have scant little success because no one else seems willing to return to MediaWiki.org or anywhere with their notes while on the way to their own success, and I can't contribute to MediaWiki.org anywhere but my User:Peterblaise page (there's that ownership issue again!)!

HELP!

PS - "Thank you" to all who contacted and welcomed me off-list.

-- Peter Blaise peterblaise@yahoo.com peterblaise 13:45, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki in Wikimedia

I suggest create a Project:Wikimedia support desk about support for MediaWiki in Wikimedia projects. --77.209.38.240 21:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Archiving resolved and "assumed-to-be" resolved questions

Is anyone going to freak out if we start actively archiving questions that have not had any activity for a while (like over a week)? I mean - we can pry safely assume that whoever asked the question is no longer monitoring this article for a response if it goes a week without feedback.

And I mean archiving questions where the original questions was responded to, but the original poster has not responded. --Tim Laqua 30 July 2007

Is there any compilation/integration of answered questions into a general MediaWiki knowledgebase or whatever? I see recent discussions about creating such a system were archived but what was the result of those discussions? Otherwise, as Rick whoever mentioned, people will ask the same questions over and over since archives are rarely looked at... -Eep² 23:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Dunno - I think if we fail to archive regularly the entire discussion becomes moot because nobody is willing to read it anymore. Archives are indeed rarely looked at, but the base article doesn't get looked at either. As long as a few people are trolling the Support desk page regularly, we might as well just archive stale questions and let them be re-asked. I mean, the true problem is the core documentation, isn't it? Which is always being worked on. What do you think? Let the page become worthless? Or archive to keep it clean and usable for more questions (mostly repetitive)?
The entire wiki is a Knowledge Base - not this particular page, right? I thought this was 'supposed' to be for one-off questions.
--Tim Laqua 23:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

My primary argument is that this is not a forum, it's a Wiki article where people can ask questions - there is no expectation of searchability - the Project: and Project_talk: namespaces aren't default search namespaces (and haven't been assigned to be default here). Why don't we just do our best to answer questions as they arise, expand the core documentation where needed, and archive answered questions?
--Tim Laqua 23:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Because, again, without some way of updating the current documentation with questions/answers from this and other talk/normal pages, it's essentially a never-ending exercise in futility. I'd rather just say "refer to <link>" instead of rehashing the same reply over and over and, oh yes, still over again. Granted, I'm not a long-time regular here but this is a common problem in any support discussion forum (MediaWiki-related or not). However, in my days when I was into Active Worlds a lot, people who had object/model scripting-related questions would usually be diverted to specific links on my website that answered/covered their questions. The same could be done here (only to this and other Wikimedia-related websites, of course) but only if said links are updated with questions/answers from this and other related discussion/forum/talk pages/articles/whatever--otherwise we're "doomed to repeat". -Eep² 23:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

So... we should create a Project:Asked and Answered page - then call that the "answered archive" and only archive stale, unanswered, ignored questions in this page's archive? Answered Questions go there? --Tim Laqua 00:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. Instead, I believe the relevant site sections should be updated to reflect the questions (if the sections don't already address them). Basically, better organization of the site to reduce/remove duplicate/impartial coverage of topics (and the frustration involved in finding answers to questions) needs to occur. As others have already mentioned, the manual, FAQs, project pages, etc, contain duplicate info that should be consolidated. Categorizing such articles/sections is a first step in reducing/removing this duplication, but actually editing the pages in question is going to be necessary. It doesn't help that a movement from Meta is occurring now either...and that there is a conflict between its help files and this site's help files. I think MediaWiki sites need one (1) source of help files to be referenced from (with links to them in new MediaWiki installations by default)--this includes Wikipedia which also contains a lot of duplicate help file info. -Eep² 02:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha... So the core documentation needs to be worked on and we should take queues from commonly asked questions here to determine what needs to be addressed first in the core documentation. That still means we can agressively archive stuff here, right?  ;-) --Tim Laqua 03:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Cues, queues, clues--whatever, so long as the information isn't buried only to resurface in questions later. :P -Eep² 04:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

REDIRECT FAQ Discussion to this page?

The FAQ Discussion seems to get occasional Support desk questions - How about we migrate those questions over to Support desk, archive answered and stale questions, then redirect the FAQ Discussion over to Support desk? Maybe just migrate over here and put a template pointing to Support desk for Questions at the top of the FAQ Discussion... I'm a fan of redirection - most people just click through and ignore the notices.

Further - how about migrating answered questions here over to the FAQ page if they appear to have future worth? --Tim Laqua 15:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

A central repository of support would make it easier to manage, though the volume would require more upkeep. -Eep² 19:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Same amount of upkeep as the existing two-page style - only less people look at the FAQ Disc. I noticed Rob over there pretty regularly. --Tim Laqua 20:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

I posted another question (Project:Support_desk#HTTP_Edit_Call_via_POST) and it doesn't seem to be displaying - presumably because the article has just grown that long. Is it in need of some archiving? I don't know the standard protocol for that, so it's not something I'd do myself. 68.80.149.10 00:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems like I got it to display. Not sure why it wasn't doing it before...according to the history and diffs, it was saving the text. 68.80.149.10 21:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

How to categorise the support desk?

I`m not sure that the support desk is in the right category. It is in Category:Help, which intially seems to make sense, but that category page that it is only for pages in the help namespace (which is otherwise true, except for Project:Help}. Anyways, should this page be recategorised, or is there some kind of exception for the desk? If so, I`m not quite sure where it "fits" below the top level.--Brian 09:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think its fine. I think it kind of just so happens that most pages in the Help category, the category for pages supplying help, are Help namespace pages. --AnonDiss 09:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

A way to bump threads?

Wikia has that <forum> feature and it might be a good idea to implement so that comments are bumped to the top after being edited. PatPeter 20:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

2008

Cleanup of this page

Seriously, it's near impossible to leaf through this page and therefore get any decent and well considered support efficiently and swiftly. --AnonDiss 08:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? -PatPeter, MediaWiki Support Team 16:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably the mega-sectioned layout, the messy heady + introduction, and the way sections are being marked "resolved" ("(RESOLVED)" in the section header; a template could work a lot better for this for use in the section itself, much like w:template:resolved. AnonDiss 11:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Then please go ahead and make it/import it. The sections were made (by me) in response to the discussion here. I am not the best at creating intricate template syntax like ... I am trying to find one of those on Wikipedia if you know what I am talking about where they guide you through one colorful page to another (link to one if you do know what I am talking about this is driving me crazy), but I stated in Project talk:Support desk/Support team that I would need help making the Support desk look better, as I could and did do all the moving and linking and whatnot. -PatPeter, MediaWiki Support Team 22:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Like this. -PatPeter, MediaWiki Support Team 22:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Something similar to w:WP:AN would also be helpful, really. Complicated superheadings don't really help anyone. --AnonDiss 07:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Is our header really that complicated? -PatPeter, MediaWiki Support Team 00:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)