IPS Documentation Section Feedback

[.Peter]

So I hate to be blunt but on many sections of your documentation (especially developers sections) where it says "Was this article helpful?" honestly I want to say no. But I don't because I'd be typing all day long.

It's nice you've recently come out with the better search... it allows me to find the beginning of the answer I need easier, now to just fix the article and put in the REST of the answer.

If I'm not mistaken your documentation sections are powered by IP.Content right? If so allow the Wiki editing! I'd love to add my 5 cents on things I do know and hear about things that have been left out that other people add in. If not the Wki at least add comments!

I realize you may be worried that content will become incorrect and/or corrupt but I say just give a group of users like the community devs or something access to moderate the Wiki and correct data if you guys are too busy... I'm sure you have a few loyal customers (myself included) that would enjoy helping out in any way we can.

I also realize that the resources area is kinda like the way users can give back and write articles but often they're not organized well and its difficult to find what you're looking for, you already have a developed documentation area let us add to it.



So just to recap this short rant...

Allow user editing of the documentation sections and/or allow publicly displayed user feedback
Create a group to moderate those sections.

[AndyF]

The official documentation is limited to staff groups only for editing purposes. The 'Was this helpful' is so you can provide feedback / suggestions, a tracker report is created for each of these, so it is not possible any feedback is overlooked.

Regarding wiki style editing, this (or was, I cannot be sure as I can edit them anyway) is possible with the community articles, I've written (along with other members of the community) quite a few of these where possible to help people with common questions and hints, mainly on area's that would fall outside official documentation (such as small modifications and skin tweaks)

[Collin S.]

I've been working on updating documentation recently. I've worked on the Facebook Integration article and a couple others here and there.

If there are any specific articles that you would like to see improved, and how, please do let us know. :thumbsup:

Official Documentation can only be updated by a staff member, however anyone is free to write/update Community Articles. :thumbsup:

[.Peter]

I've been working on updating documentation recently. I've worked on the Facebook Integration article and a couple others here and there.

If there are any specific articles that you would like to see improved, and how, please do let us know. :thumbsup:

Official Documentation can only be updated by a staff member, however anyone is free to write/update Community Articles. :thumbsup:

Well my main frustration comes from the developers sections... like the how to create an application... if you understand everything thats happening in a mod then your documentation is very useful, but there really isn't any base tutorial.. I'm trying to create an app and due to the documentation I'm not sure what files are required, how to implement them, syntax or anything like that... I've gone through a few other 3rd party apps to see how they've written their own applications and I still don't entirely understand as each app changes, different files, different functions and yet they work.

[Jaggi]

I'm a developer and have been using IPB for a very long time and even I say the documentation is inaccurate and confusing in parts. I've submitted a few reports a while ago about inaccuracies in the documentation but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Does anyone look through those reports? I think a wiki style solution would be better suited to what you're trying to achieve with the documentation, or at least let the contributor groups chime in on documentation.

[.Peter]

I'm a developer and have been using IPB for a very long time and even I say the documentation is inaccurate and confusing in parts. I've submitted a few reports a while ago about inaccuracies in the documentation but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Does anyone look through those reports? I think a wiki style solution would be better suited to what you're trying to achieve with the documentation, or at least let the contributor groups chime in on documentation.

Yeah I agree about the contributors. We're a small number of people so "moderating" us would be a lot easier than allowing any member to add/change content.

Additionally.. I was thinking maybe on each section allow comments like php.net? So we can leave tips and tricks behind instead of making us go search in the Community Resources or forums to an answer that probably isn't there.

[bfarber]

We do have the public articles section that is wiki-style, however the official documentation we need to maintain some control over for obvious reasons.

I have made a note internally about the documentation falling out of date. All of the feedback and comments ARE stored (they weren't lost or anything), and we'll look into incorporating that feedback into the docs soon.

[.Peter]

We do have the public articles section that is wiki-style, however the official documentation we need to maintain some control over for obvious reasons.

I have made a note internally about the documentation falling out of date. All of the feedback and comments ARE stored (they weren't lost or anything), and we'll look into incorporating that feedback into the docs soon.

Yeah it makes sense.

So like you mentioned incorporating the feedback into the docs... it'd be nice to at least as I mentioned see a php.net like setup.