Wiki anyone?
I see a couple of related issues that could be easily
solved. Namely, the help docs and forums.
Honestly, the first place I look for information is not the help
documentation. Although in some cases verbose, it generally lacks any
sort of real cohesion and generally doesn't go far enough. When faced with problems I try the various MS forums,
technet, msdn, etc but the site search functionality isn't that great and there
are a LOT of different places to look.
Usually I end up googling until I find sites that aren't just regurgitating the
MS help docs.
There is a better way.
How about moving all of the help and forums into a wiki format? Imagine
going to the MS site, finding the installation procedure for Team Foundation Server, and
seeing the list of issues and resolutions right along side it. Your
moderators would change into information organizers. Your users could
rewrite the help docs for you.
Perhaps this could even list the various service packs or updates fixing a
problem. Imagine finding the latest intellimouse drivers right along side
the issues it resolved, and proper update procedures when your 5 button mouse
keeps getting out of whack due to terminal services and supposedly uninstalled outdated mouse
drivers.
For developers this would be a godsend.Think about how to deserialize an xml doc in
C#.The help docs list one method, but
there are others; using a similar concept but different mechanisms.In addition, the help examples never really go
far enough.What if right next to the
example, users could post problems and the answers as to why it errors when XmlSerializer
encounters the xmlns=”<namespace here>” attribute in the top node.
To sum up, please don’t just try and add some new
features.Instead, rethink the whole
concept of MS’s place in the information war your in.The future is in distributing
knowledge, but specifically how that knowledge is created, related, maintained, and digested. Google and Wiki have a head
start, but they really aren’t that far ahead.
BTW, seehttp://www.php.net/manual/en/install.php
for one method of accomplishing this. The implementation isn't that great, but they have the right idea.
Thanks for reading.
Chris Lively
MRG Document Technologies
