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  #31  
Old Mon 30 May 2011, 05:09
baseball43v3r
Just call me: John #96
 
Glendora (California)
United States of America
I've been an advocate of a wiki for a long time, especially for this forum. I think a full on wiki would be hard to start, as most people don't know syntax, and getting started wiking for most people seems daunting. an alternative to this could be wikidforum (wikidforum.com) where it integrates a wiki with a message board. I think lots of information is buried or hard to locate on here (for example, if I wanted to find information on indexers, I have to visit about 5 different threads to get an accurate picture) and with information centrally located and people adding to it, I think it could be immensely valuable.

I don't really care about the social media aspects that have been thrown around, but I do care if I can find information quickly and efficiently, something that is hard to do in the current setup. a wiki would provide precisely that sort of oppurtunity.
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  #32  
Old Sun 05 June 2011, 18:38
servant74
Just call me: Jack
 
Nashville (Tennessee)
United States of America
Cool

I have done product support for many years, both formally and informally.

Like we see in this forum, people post questions, and want their question answered without reading the history. (Both MechMate and ShopBot have great forums that are VERY big and have a lot of historical information that overwhelms nubies, at least to start with.)

We try wiki's and FAQs, and they help, but it doesn't solve the 'personal touch' issue nubies seem to need.

Even 'old hands' don't read the history, but they are more likely to.

'Social Media' tends to allow people to ask and answer the same question over and over again readily, but it has no 'easy history' that is easily searchable.

Using twitter seems like a broadcast media. Using Facebook allows documenting, and others to ask questions or make comments along the way. Kind of like a good build log does in the forums.

To answer questions I have used instant messaging, (think AIM). It seems good for product support q&A sessions. But the sessions are not logged for the public.

Using IRC is an old way of doing multiuser instant messaging and does work well both for work group interaction. Many 'new users' don't know about that, but it is still alive and kicking.

After using all these things, for real product support, like MM (especially since there are many knowledgable users) the FORUM is still what I like best.
I have seen some forum software that has a 'instant messaging' feature for the currently logged in users.

If your new product is to be more of a 'product' where folks call in for a question and there is little for users to share (unlike MM!) using a closed wiki and a instant message client on your web site is a good way I have seen a number of companies use.

Working for an oil company in IT, I was 'third level' support for the IT helpdesk. We developed software similar to a wiki (but a long time ago, in the mainframe days). I answered the same question over and over, so when I answered the same question the third time, I took the time to write a 'wiki page' describing the problem, what the issue was, and how to remedy the issue. It was searchable by both the helpdesk and users. I found that I only got one or two questions after that typically on the same topic. The helpdesk would use it by both reading the answer to a customer and emailing them the 'link' to the article. ... It worked well and even helped reduce the overall number of help desk calls, but we had to educate users and the helpdesk on how to search and why it would save them time (or they wouldn't do it!).

Sorry, ... I get carried away. I have a reputation for that (bummer). ... Jack
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