[pmwiki-users] Troubleshooting versus FAQ versus Error Messages versus ...?

[Joachim Durchholz]

Patrick R. Michaud schrieb:
> On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 07:26:01PM -0700, H. Fox wrote:
>>  The first FAQ Q/A pair is:
>>
>>     How do I get my question answered?
>>
>>     The quickest and best way is to join the pmwiki-users Mailing List
>>     and post your question there. If it really is a frequently-asked
>>     question, it will eventually be added to this page.
> 
> While I agree that this is often the quickest way to get
> an answer (assuming the answer isn't already in the documentation), 
> I'm not sure it's best for many people.  
> 
> First, I think a number of people will simply decline to ask
> the question and will start looking elsewhere.  Many mailing lists
> have a reputation of being unfriendly to newbie questions

Besides, subscribing to a mailing list is a lengthy process. If I have a 
quick question and want a quick answer, that's often too much ado.
(I remember myself looking elsewhere for exactly this reason on several 
occasions.)

> But the real issue has often been that I (and I suspect others)
> don't get around to answering things on the Questions page
> because I'm used to doing it via email, which is a push resource
> for me.  Maybe if I get the per-page/per-person notifications in
> place this would be easier, since I and others could subscribe
> for notifications of the Questions page.

Getting that one into PmWiki would *really* help.

I could, for example, start monitoring pages that I have an interest in. 
Not just those where I left a question, but also where I did a major 
overhaul, to see what questions are left on it so I can further improve. 
I could also cover any nonsense people are leaving on a page (though 
that can be the start of an "edit war", so monitoring a page to 
*prevent* something is usually not a good idea).

Regards,
Jo