Off-topic help?

[vgaetera (Vladislav Grigoryev)]

@SampsonF, here it is:

• Off-Topic Tech - Fedora Discussion
• Off-Topic Fun - Fedora Discussion

[ND8801]

hmm, obviously why i desnt’t went to ‘fedora discussions forum’ and was create my topic in ‘fedora ask’. mistake, sorry.

[ankursinha]

@SampsonF

Is discussion.fedoraproject.org mainly focused on problem solving?

Yes, primarily. A large number of topics here are “drive by” topics—people run into an issue, they ask a question, hopefully get a good answer, and then they move on until the next time they run into an issue.

The community discussions happen on the various mailing lists and on discussion.fedoraproject.org. We kept Discussion and Ask Fedora separate on purpose to ensure that they didn’t disturb each other since they serve different functions.

I encourage all regular members on Ask Fedora to participate at discussion.fedoraproject, and all the other community channels that they may find interesting

[mattdm (Matthew Miller)]

@FranciscoD

I encourage all regular members on Ask Fedora to participate at discussion.fedoraproject, and all the other community channels that they may find interesting

We could make a category called “off-topic” with a single post pointing out and describing the other site, and then lock that category to new posts. Maybe a silly idea, but could help with discovery.

Over on Discussion, I’ve added links directly to Ask at the top level descriptions of several categories, which makes it show up on the front page:

but I think our front page is busy enough here.

[ND8801]

Why fedora ask and fedora discussions have different account base and section of site? Maybe they can be merged?

[ankursinha]

@grsm

Why fedora ask and fedora discussions have different account base and section of site? Maybe they can be merged?

No, we explicitly decided to keep them separate. Discussion.fedoraproject.org is for regular community discussion. You’ll see that many Fedora teams use it for their daily workings. The common language for community discussion is English, so Discussion.fp.o does not have different categories for different languages. On the other hand, Ask Fedora is for troubleshooting, which is mainly “drive-by”. People ask a question when they have a problem, hopefully solve it, and then don’t return until they have the next issue. So, Discussion.fp.o is ill-suited to troubleshooting—it’ll be very confusing for people not well versed with the Fedora community to use. They won’t even know what category to ask questions in. It risks disrupting both troubleshooting and community developer discussion. Ask Fedora, similarly, is not set up for daily discussions. It is set up with categories etc. to give users the simplest possible path to getting help when they run into trouble.

(On a technical note, Discourse allows only two levels of categorisation. So since the first category level is used for languages, we only have one other left for topic wise categorisation, which means we cannot add the category tree used in Discussion.fp.o here).

@mattdm

Over on Discussion, I’ve added links directly to Ask at the top level descriptions of several categories, which makes it show up on the front page:

Should we do this? Perhaps a better method than a locked single topic category?

[ankursinha]

@mattdm

but I think our front page is busy enough here.

Ah, hrm, true. We could just let people ask their query and redirect them + close the topic (what we’re sort of doing now)? That way they get an initial response from a community member?

[vgaetera (Vladislav Grigoryev)]

It might be worth cross-linking the sites Ask Fedora and Fedora Discussion using the top bar.

[hhlp (Héctor Louzao)]

Yes you’re right, but askfedora top bar is busy enough with:

• Code of conduct
• Documentation and
• Search

if we can implement this here:

https://meta.discourse.org/t/search-banner-theme-component/122939

and write a message like:

Welcome to the Community!

We're happy you're here, please search before you posting, if you would like to discuss another part of FEDORA please go to [Discussion](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/)

As was discused here:

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/should-we-ask-for-a-new-banner-theme-from-fedora-design/66726/3

Regards.,

[ankursinha]

@hhlp

if we can implement this here:

Sounds good. Would you have the time to enable this @hhlp?

The text could be something like “Welcome, please search the forum for existing topics before asking a new question.” (I’d written a much longer text initially, but thought its best to keep it short).

We can keep the CoC and documentation links in the top bar, and replace the “Search solved…” one with “Community discussion” that perhaps links to this wiki page: Communication in Fedora :: Fedora Docs

@mattdm: the wiki page needs to clearly note that Discussion is primarily for community discussion, like the mailing lists (and that a few teams no longer use mailing lists?). At the moment the wiki page says " Ask Fedora is a community knowledge base and support forum hosted by Fedora Project. If you’re looking for something a bit more conversational, visit our new forum at discussion.fedoraproject.org.", which doesn’t clearly state how they are different. It suggests that Discussion is also a support forum, but “more conversational”. What do you think?

[hhlp (Héctor Louzao)]

@FranciscoD

Sounds good. Would you have the time to enable this @hhlp?

Yes of course, as soon as possible

Updated

Plug-in Options:

show on — this determines where the banner appears and has the options

• top_menu (latest/categories/top/new/unread)
• homepage
• all (all pages except the default search page and admin pages)

show for — this determines who sees the banner

• everyone
• logged_in
• logged_out

Regards.,

[ankursinha]

Thanks, I’ve updated the links in the top bar also now.

How does this look, everyone?

[hhlp (Héctor Louzao)]

you’re Welcome:

if we add to the message:

Please search the forum for existing topics before asking a new question, If you’re a new USER please considere read our FAQ

WDYT?

NOTE

looks prety nice, now

Regards.,

[mattdm (Matthew Miller)]

There’s a balance between giving people too many warnings up front (doesn’t feel friendly) and telling people they’ve done it wrong after they’ve posted (also not a nice feeling — see Stack Exchange.)

I think the wiki page link is a good compromise, although it’s unfortunately one of those wiki pages which really needs a big update and moved to https://docs.fedoraproject.org/. I guess that’s really something that should be done after the Matrix server comes online, though.

[ankursinha]

@mattdm

I think the wiki page link is a good compromise, although it’s unfortunately one of those wiki pages which really needs a big update and moved to https://docs.fedoraproject.org/. I guess that’s really something that should be done after the Matrix server comes online, though.

I started a topic with Commops here:

Updating the communicating and getting help wiki page

Hi everyone, I noticed that this very important wiki page has been marked as “old”, and the admon says that it may be removed in the future: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicating_and_getting_help What can we do to ensure that it remains up to date? Should it be moved to docs somewhere?

[ankursinha]

@hhlp

Please search the forum for existing topics before asking a new question, If you’re a new USER please considere read our FAQ

@mattdm

There’s a balance between giving people too many warnings up front (doesn’t feel friendly) and telling people they’ve done it wrong after they’ve posted (also not a nice feeling — see Stack Exchange.)

+1. @hhlp, I think your text is fine. I’ve tweaked it a bit to make it sound less like a request and more like a general note that they could use the search box if they want. How does this sound?

Welcome! Before asking a new question, you can use the search box below to check if your query has already been asked and answered. New users, please start here.

[ankursinha]

@mattdm

We could make a category called “off-topic” with a single post pointing out and describing the other site, and then lock that category to new posts. Maybe a silly idea, but could help with discovery.

It’s just hit me that we do already have a locked category: the #start-here category. A single post here about “Off topic discussions” could be added, if you think that’s useful? It’ll direct folks to the wiki page/discussion.fp.o etc?

[mattdm (Matthew Miller)]

Yes good call.

[hhlp (Héctor Louzao)]

Looks great on Mobile…

Regards.,

[vgaetera (Vladislav Grigoryev)]

Please remove the new extra search form.
This is a waste of space resulting in a significant usability regression.

The Discourse forum already provides a built-in search function.
The default search button is always visible and easy to access from the top bar.

The new form goes against the common Discourse workflow and disrupts expected behavior.
This leads to negative impact on usability of other forum features.

@FranciscoD, @mattdm