is it pos to have a repository of articles?

Shawn,
seeing questions repeatedly posted - in slightly different ways - but most of which already have exaustive answers / threads - would it be pos to have something like nuggets of wisdom where simply articles could be posted - no threads - just plain facts only able to be edited by the originator.

E.G. I see PR questions link questions mod rewrite questions etc. popping up all the time - a full text search on a restricted area would probbaly also lighter on the servers?

It's just an idea

M

 

perhaps an "articles" section of the forum?

anytime someone wants to write a "how to" it could go in there..

 

Having a resource centre is a good idea, and would be useful, but it would be a waste of time, trust me on this one.

I mod on a couple of forums, and have one or two of my own (non web stuff) people come on every day and ask the same newbie question. They come to a forum, don't read anything, skip the pinned notice at the top of the forum, and go right ahead and post their request for help. Day in Day out, same questions. All you can do is post a link to where it has been answered previously, and close the topic down.

it is also no co-incidence that the bulk of posts end up in the forums near the top of the board, most are too lazy to read the entire list to find the most relevant, they just dunmp it into the first one that appears to be relevant.

People are people, and by and large they ignore the rules as they don't think they need to read them as they don't intend to do anything wrong anyhow do they don't apply!

 

I think its a good idea, though some people might still ask the same question but some will search and find the article themselves even if its 5% ... its something.

I think it will also help the forum grow ... discussions are good but well researched and written articles are always better and ofcourse are still open to discussion/debate.

If the sig of the person who wrote the article is also kept it might push more people to writing well researched articles and sharing what they know ... and you might start finding other sites linking to the articles which would be a boost for the Forum as a whole.

 

even if the new people don't search for it, they're still useful.

content-heavy threads + SE-friendly forums = new targetted users.

 

I know I shoot me in my own foot but to an extend I can understand the frustration searching through boards for answers. It's very very time consuming e.g. search for mod rewrite and try to find a good threat with answers. I know there are at least two on this board but can u find them easily?

Maybe a solution could be to assign up to 5 or so keywords to a thread.....
It's late over here no further ideas today
M

 

well, Shawn, even if the "current" visitors don't use these "FAQ"/how-to/tutorial threads, that doesn't mean that people from search engines that're actively looking for information on a given subject won't find them

I'd say it's an easy way to attract more visitors. I'd be willing to do some of the threads, and I'm sure others would be too

 

ja, what I meant was more like a section of the forum dedicated to those sort of faqs/how-tos.. if they're just stuck in the regular forums randomly, I'd imagine they'd be push down fairly fast