Author Topic: A new forum board to help new users & relieve experienced contributing members  (Read 24862 times)

psychoadept

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Huh. There's already an FAQ page?  I missed that one somehow.

It already looks better designed for Hiccup's original suggestion as I understand it.
My new question then is, why aren't the FAQs under consideration just added to the existing FAQ page, instead of trying to shoehorn them into a forum format that may or may not work? (and creating what is now the third online resource to address them)

...so they can just copy and paste a link to the response instead of having to retype an answer every time.

That FAQ is sourced from the wiki and is updatable by anyone at any time: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ

"Copy and paste a link" was the vision for the wiki from the start, but frankz is the main person I've seen using it that way. I can't keep it up to date by myself and everyone else seems to be attached to the forum format (yes, Fandom has a lot of ads; I haven't seen one in years thanks to the magic of ad blockers). Anyone using virutal tags in MusicBee has done more advanced coding than wiki markdown. If it would actually help I'd be happy to write a guide on working with the wiki, but I gave up on trying to push people in that direction.
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

frankz

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If it would actually help I'd be happy to write a guide on working with the wiki, but I gave up on trying to push people in that direction.
Be advised they're changing their platform soon...again.  There's a notification of it at the top of their site so it must be imminent.

I'm not married to the forum format for this, by the way, especially the utilization proposed here. I'm more married to the "in house and under MB admin control and not subject to the whims of a third party" aspect of this proposal.

psychoadept

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Yeah, I'm curious to see what will be involved in that. But it's happened before and not been a huge deal. It would be a worse sign if they never updated their software. A few years ago I did a lot of research on it and concluded that Fandom (still Wikia then) was the best bet for free wiki hosting, in terms of both feature set and long-term stability.

I get your concern about having something under MB oversight. On the other hand, given the occasional trouble Steven has had with web hosting, even the forum isn't iron clad. That happened to another forum/wiki I was involved in. The forum went under but the wiki remains (and continues to be fairly active). [Added: to say nothing of the MusicBrainz forum which should have been ironclad but still went up in smoke.]
Last Edit: December 09, 2020, 07:37:25 PM by psychoadept
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

frankz

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Well there must be some reason people who seem to have no problem spending multiple hours a day writing here about Musicbee refuse to update it and peope with questions or curiosity about Musicbee who could benefit from the information there refuse to refer to it. Why do you suppose those things are true?

psychoadept

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Well there must be some reason people who seem to have no problem spending multiple hours a day writing here about Musicbee refuse to update it and peope with questions or curiosity about Musicbee who could benefit from the information there refuse to refer to it. Why do you suppose those things are true?

It's funny, I also see complaints there about the inaccessibility of the forum. People are using it, there's just not a lot of overlap with forum users. Boroda and redwing did a lot of work on guides and plugins, before this site had its own section for skins and plugins. And endeavour1934 did the theme. But they've all dropped off the forum for the most part.

I think their WYSIWYG editor may be one tripping point. I can show anyone with an account how to disable it so you just get a text editor. Then you can do most formatting you might want to do with about 5 characters.

Added: another thing that crosses my mind is that responding to support requests on the forum is a very different animal from editing the wiki. On the forum you're responding to a particular situation, whereas the wiki is, as suggested, more of a manual. Ideally you're answering ALL the questions, though if course that's never 100% possible.

Also, on the forum you've got the back-and-forth of interacting with the user seeking support, which while sometimes frustrating, I suspect is also the most gratifying for us when it goes right. The wiki is not at all set up for that kind of conversation, which is why my response to anything more than the most basic questions is "ask on the forum" (to the point that I created a shortcut for linking to the forum in my responses).  Relatively speaking, wiki editing is a solo endeavor and if you don't enjoy it for its own sake there's not much payoff.
Last Edit: December 09, 2020, 08:29:13 PM by psychoadept
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

phred

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I can show anyone with an account how to disable it so you just get a text editor. Then you can do most formatting you might want to do with about 5 characters.
Might that be a sticky post on the forum? Certainly not in the new FAQ, but somewhere.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

psychoadept

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I can show anyone with an account how to disable it so you just get a text editor. Then you can do most formatting you might want to do with about 5 characters.
Might that be a sticky post on the forum? Certainly not in the new FAQ, but somewhere.

I can add it the wiki thread when I get a minute.
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

Música

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FWIW, I've learned a lot just by reading through questions and responses in the MB Questions forum.

I recall when computer programs and packages used to be released with DOCUMENTATION. I recall a statistical analysis package manual that was released in a loose-leaf binder so it could be updated periodically by the developer/owner. Admittedly, this was a long time ago, and only hardware seems to come with guides these days. I think MB today is more elaborate, sophisticated than that statistical package was.

FWIW2, I would value a PDF user guide --which could be in any format that developers preferred and considered most doable and valuable, that I could read and search, with my Nitro Reader or other PDF reader, on my various devices.

MusicBee is a great package that deserves great documentation to document and further illustrate its excellence.


hiccup

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Let us know when you finish it - sounds like a good read!
That already exists.
Send me your credit card details and I will send you a copy:


phred

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This is really great!!! A tip of the ol' phred hat, hiccup.

Let me know how many orders you get from the unsuspecting and amazingly thick.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

hiccup

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Let me know how many orders you get from the unsuspecting and amazingly thick.

Just for the record: The use of the word 'Dummies' here is in no way meant in a condescending way.
These book series are really quite good, and I learned a lot from them myself.
But it's funny how it's always a bit difficult to recommend them to someone without him/her thinking you are taking a p1ss at them.

psychoadept

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Nice. Actually, somebody did a pdf guide based on the wiki some years ago, but it was out of date like the next week, lol. If there were a way to quickly get the wiki in pdf format that would be great, bit I don't think it is.
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

Música

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Let us know when you finish it - sounds like a good read!
That already exists.
Send me your credit card details and I will send you a copy:


Faaabulous, hiccup! Love the clever, creative response  ;D
I'll look for availability of the kindle version...