Do you edit the FAQ on your forum?

You know how vBulletin/IPB/phpBB/MYBB/SMF have an faq section/page with information on how to use the forum, do you edit this section to make it more informative to members, relevant to your own site, etc?

I personally do. I haven't yet gone as far as I would like to (fully annotated screenshot based guides of how to use the entire forum would be fantastic, as would tutorial videos), but I do try to clear out the misleading examples of weasel wording these use (such as vBulletin's 'your administrator MAY allow you to...), and have added sections on various add ons installed and such like.

So, do you change the FAQ from the default to suit your forum more? It'd be interesting to see if there are any forums who've completely replaced it in some original way to be honest...

 

We use the faq on our site a lot. We keep all our policies/rules in there. I have often wanted to redo the way the faq works - I'd love to have categories on the left and then content on the right, but I haven't gotten very far in my redo of it.

 

Well, I don't edit completely, I just add bits here and there.

 

I haven't.. Personally, I don't like the FAQ manager in vBulletin. It is too complicated to do what needs to be done in my opinion. I understand what the original developers were going for with the FAQ Manager but I think it fails to deliver. This is why there was so much call to rewrite it for 3.8.0's release.

Hopefully, the new vBulletin Project Manager will take his User Interface experience from Sony and put it to work in refining the controls in the Admin CP when it is worked on. He came on board too late for 4.0 to touch much except for the CMS controls.

 

I've never been a fan of the current FAQ system either -- its wording and the FAQ Manager in the AdminCP.

I don't edit the existing FAQ, but I do add my own sections. For example: Under our Google AdSense ads we have a link, "Get rid of these ads" which takes users to a FAQ entry that explains by making a donation, the advertisements will not be displayed.

 

That kind of adding sections is hopefully what most people do at least, and in both your cases seems useful in helping members.

I know exactly what Nick and Wayne Luke mean as far as the FAQ manager and the FAQ's general wording. It definitely seems a bit archaic when adding or editing FAQ entries, especially with the lack of visual editor in the admin cp and expectation of knowing HTML for simple formatting. Out of curiosity though, wasn't there some kind of wiki or knowledge base type plan for the FAQ in the vBulletin 4 series? I swear I read something like this somewhere, although it's a tad upsetting that not much has been changed about the FAQ in vBulletin 4.

 

The only thing we tend to edit on ours is the link to it and by that I mean removing it. The majority of people searching for a forum can pick up the very basics of how to use one and if they need any support they are able to seek advice in our support forums where members can help them out too.

We have a subforum under our support forum called Useful Site Info which has our own FAQ's threads within it which covers most of our features, rules etc

 

Never been a fan of it either. I usually remove the link and redirect faq.php back to the index or replace it with a notice that the FAQ is disabled currently.

 

It is a matter of priority and very little development time allocated. If vBulletin 4 was started back after vBulletin 3.6 was released and the developers weren't instructed to create 3.7 in an effort to sale the company, than a lot more would be done by now. However since development really started in October of last year and only in earnest after the new year, not a lot of time.

As far as a Knowledge Base or Wiki addon... We spoke briefly at one meeting about a Knowledge Base content type for the CMS but not a specific addon. Wiki functionality isn't really needed though. You can already control who can add new content to the CMS as well as revisions. A Wiki doesn't really provide much more than that. A Wiki is just a type of CMS.

 

I haven't really edited the existing FAQ text much, but I have added a couple of sections explaining the chat room, ranks, etc. I would love to see a rewritten FAQ with video tutorials (we can build this! We have the technology!) and a table explaining all the ranks and titles.

 

I absolutely love it. It's one of the many areas of vbulletin that is useless therefore I often marvel at it. Often even give it a little hug before i go to sleep after reading long winded threads about what will be in 4.0 and probably won't deliver.

 

I forgot to mention that we have a "How-To" section of the forum where I post threads with information/tutorials/instructions on the use of some features we have implemented by way of modifications. I even include super-simple stuff like how to use the New Posts function and how to "View First Unread" post in a thread. Because of my demographic, these simple tips are extremely useful and helpful to my members.

 

So vBulletin 3.7 was released solely to add more value to the company as it was about to be sold? That's interesting, although you might want to keep it away from the people at the .com support forums. But thanks for clarifying about the knowledge base thing, I got that from part of the leaked information that was shown in some screenshots, and I thought it was a good idea personally.

That sounds quite good, got an example? I know it's not here at AdminAddict, and I can't find it at the forum in your user info beside your post...

 

I have un-important sections hidden from guests unless the direct URL is known: How-To and Feature Guides

 

Thanks. Seems like an interesting section, albeit more like a feedback forum than a help type system.

Out of curiosity though, why the 'viewable to all usergroups but only shown on home page to members' bit? I'm not quite sure what benefits that brings...

 

My philosophy is that it keeps visitors focused on the site's information and content. In this case, guests don't need to know how to use the features because very few (if any) of them are available to anybody except members.

 

That's interesting, but why not just make it members only to view?

 

I don't know. :shrug: I just set it to whatever was on my mind at the time. I don't think it would make that much of a difference.

 

I never have - to be honest I don't know what to put there.

 

I don't bother with the FAQ, to limited for my use.

I do create a How Do I forum and I've been slowly building an all encompassing Help feature thats indexed, cross referenced and searchable using an off the shelf Help Authoring Tool, Madcap's Flare. The content level is tied to usergroup permissions so there are sections for SuperMods, Moderators and Members. The goal is for a forum newbie to be able to find out how to use any site feature quickly and easily.