Project talk:Support desk/Archive 1

Users support desk
There would be a Users support desk, a System Administrators support desk and a Developers support desk. See User_hub.
 * If there's a lesson to be learned from the English Wikipedia, is that there is such a thing as having too many desks, and not enough volume to warrant them. Having more places to look for info just causes duplicated effort or missed discussions/replies. Titoxd (?!?) 03:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A suggestion about Wiki link format
But this form would also be useful and would use less text space in files (but does not seem to exist now):- That would e.g. allow ing|ed :: link to scuba diving, display scuba dived. Anthony Appleyard 08:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If the name of an article is not the same as that name's invariant stem form, often when linking, the whole of the name (which may be long) must be repeated, e.g. scuba dived . That problem is worse in languages that have case endings, e.g. Russian. At the moment these forms are allowed:-
 * xxxx :: link to xxxx, display xxxx
 * yyyy :: link to xxxx, display yyyy
 * yyyy|zzzz :: link to xxxxyyyy, display xxxxzzzz.
 * Good idea --77.209.38.240 21:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki in Wikimedia
I suggest create a Project:Wikimedia support desk about support for MediaWiki in Wikimedia projects. --77.209.38.240 21:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Archiving resolved and "assumed-to-be" resolved questions
Is anyone going to freak out if we start actively archiving questions that have not had any activity for a while (like over a week)? I mean - we can pry safely assume that whoever asked the question is no longer monitoring this article for a response if it goes a week without feedback.

And I mean archiving questions where the original questions was responded to, but the original poster has not responded.


 * Is there any compilation/integration of answered questions into a general MediaWiki knowledgebase or whatever? I see recent discussions about creating such a system were archived but what was the result of those discussions? Otherwise, as Rick whoever mentioned, people will ask the same questions over and over since archives are rarely looked at... -Eep² 23:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Dunno - I think if we fail to archive regularly the entire discussion becomes moot because nobody is willing to read it anymore. Archives are indeed rarely looked at, but the base article doesn't get looked at either.  As long as a few people are trolling the Support desk page regularly, we might as well just archive stale questions and let them be re-asked.  I mean, the true problem is the core documentation, isn't it?  Which is always being worked on.  What do you think?  Let the page become worthless?  Or archive to keep it clean and usable for more questions (mostly repetitive)? The entire wiki is a Knowledge Base - not this particular page, right?  I thought this was 'supposed' to be for one-off questions. --Tim Laqua 23:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * My primary argument is that this is not a forum, it's a Wiki article where people can ask questions - there is no expectation of searchability - the Project: and Project_talk: namespaces aren't default search namespaces (and haven't been assigned to be default here). Why don't we just do our best to answer questions as they arise, expand the core documentation where needed, and archive answered questions? --Tim Laqua 23:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Because, again, without some way of updating the current documentation with questions/answers from this and other talk/normal pages, it's essentially a never-ending exercise in futility. I'd rather just say "refer to " instead of rehashing the same reply over and over and, oh yes, still over again. Granted, I'm not a long-time regular here but this is a common problem in any support discussion forum (MediaWiki-related or not). However, in my days when I was into Active Worlds a lot, people who had object/model scripting-related questions would usually be diverted to specific links on my website that answered/covered their questions. The same could be done here (only to this and other Wikimedia-related websites, of course) but only if said links are updated with questions/answers from this and other related discussion/forum/talk pages/articles/whatever--otherwise we're "doomed to repeat". -Eep² 23:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So... we should create a Project:Asked and Answered page - then call that the "answered archive" and only archive stale, unanswered, ignored questions in this page's archive? Answered Questions go there? --Tim Laqua 00:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)