restarting our FAQ

[Crawford Currie]

Do you really need to translate the FAQ? FAQs are normally used to try 
to stop support channels from getting choked with trivia. I see 
questions on the subsurface forum 
<https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/subsurface-divelog> falling into three 
broad categories:

 1. questions that should be answered by RTFM
 2. questions that relate to specific hosts / dive computers
 3. questions that are too deep for the doc

- RTFM questions should be addressed by accessible, easy to consume 
documentation, and the project already does that really well,

- Deep questions is what I think the forum should really be about, which 
leaves:

- Specific hosts / dive computers. This is a constantly moving target, 
as dive computer tech moves forward apace, and trying to maintain a 
translated FAQ for the dozens of brands and models out there does not 
sound like an efficient use of developer or translator time.

Personally I'm not a fan of tablets-of-stone FAQs anyway, as they rarely 
answer my questions and just end up being a source of frustration. What 
is frequently asked today may not be so frequently asked next year - but 
the answers to last year's questions may still be relevant to someone.

For long-tail projects like Subsurface, I much prefer the stackoverflow 
approach, where answers can come from anyone and spam is dealt with by 
user moderation. Failing that, a wiki (again with user moderation) can 
also work, though it requires more work from the dev team to define and 
maintain an effective taxonomy.

With respect to translation, anyone seriously looking for answers is 
quite capable of pasting into Google Translate. ;-)

C.


On 08/02/2022 16:57, Dirk Hohndel via subsurface wrote:
> Hi Crawford,
>
> I thought about this - but that makes translations a lot more awkward. 
> And we have seen in the past that we have far more luck getting people 
> to contribute to things where they can simply edit text and send a 
> PR... admittedly, that may be self-selection bias :)
>
> /D
>
>> On Feb 8, 2022, at 12:32 AM, Crawford Currie via subsurface wrote:
>>
>> Just a thought, but wouldn't it be easier to just use the project wiki?
>>
>> https://github.com/subsurface/subsurface/wiki
>>
>> C.
>>
>> On 08/02/2022 01:33, Dirk Hohndel via subsurface wrote:
>>> Hi everyone
>>>
>>> The FAQ on the old website is horribly out of date and hasn't been maintained in forever.
>>> Instead of trying to deal with the completely defunct WordPress site (the website is actually a static export of the old WordPress site since I was unable to keep up with the thousands of automated hacking attempts) I created a new FAQ for our GitHub pages.
>>>
>>> Which means everyone can contribute!
>>>
>>> The syntax is... an acquired taste - I'm sure there would have been a better way to do this. But hey, it works.
>>>
>>> This is the user visible site:https://subsurface.github.io/faq/
>>> And this is where the sources are:https://github.com/subsurface/subsurface.github.io/blob/master/faq.MD?plain=1
>>>
>>> I'd love feedback, improvements, contributions.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> /D
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.subsurface-divelog.org/pipermail/subsurface/attachments/20220208/0181a9f0/attachment.htm>