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It seems like we get the same questions over and over in the programming forums, and no one wants to search. What about a page with hyperlinks with some of these common questions. Like "How do I insert a record with a datagrid?"
_____________________________________________
Flea Market! It's just like...it's just like...A MINI-MALL!
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Like an FAQ?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Hey, I started collecting the answers to those popular questions that I was answering to,
so I wouldnt have to retype the answers over and over (or search for the link!).
Right now I have 11. I wasnt sure yet whether I should turn them into an article.
I guess a few of us together would soon have a couple hundred of them. That's too many
to just put in a sequential FAQ.
So I would suggest a structured FAQ, not just a list of Q&A, but a few multiple-choices
first to get to the right sub-FAQ. (less than 30 to avoid "wrong FAQ" situations).
Alternative 1: use checkboxes to show/hide some topics (database, networking,
language-specific, etc; similar to the advanced forum search) If so, I want cookies
to keep up to three preferred choices.
Alternative 2: not my favorite, would be a regular search engine on top of a flat FAQ.
And then one needs to make sure the content of the FAQ is trustworthy, without long discussions and lots of small additions... Who could be responsible for FAQ content ?
Is it possibe to organize the FAQ as a forum ??
I like the FAQ idea, but it seems its approach needs some functional analysis...
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Alternative 3: Pick a keyboard macro recorder/player from SF.net. Record all your tips in its database. Upload the db to CP, so other people can add to it. Then, when you see a FAQ, just hit the macro hotkey + FAQ number. Since your copy of the db is under your control, you can verify its accuracy.
No load on CP, no work for CM.
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leckey wrote: seems like we get the same questions over and over in the programming forums
Just write a FAQ type of article. I've seen it done by another CP member a couple years ago. He did like all the VC++/MFC stuff, I think...
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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Hi Paul,
Paul Conrad wrote: Just write a FAQ type of article
Sure, but then the problem remains: there are lots of articles, people that are not inclined
to do a search, wont find what they need. Having a special system for simple things, a FAQ,
might reduce the number of simple question on the forums.
With a FAQ, a portion of the members will react as "hey, a have a problem; this must be
a very simple thing that many people encounter, I'll check the FAQ first".
So it should have a lower threshold than searching inside articles...
Greetings
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Luc Pattyn wrote: there are lots of articles, people that are not inclined
to do a search
Yes, since the people that are the intended audience are too lazy to search in the first place 
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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Are you thinking of my FAQ[^]?  Unfortunately, I haven't updated it in ages. 
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Michael Dunn wrote: Are you thinking of my FAQ
Yes! This is one of them. The other one used to always pop up in the article competition. If I find it, I'll link it
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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cppfaq10dec04-23jan05.asp[^] by ThatsAlok. He did a series of them.
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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That is most probably the article I've most linked to in the past few years.
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It would be nice to be able to add forum threads to "my bookmarks" page, this way you can easily manage and follow threads that interest you without going through email notification.....
I am who I am because of who everyone around me is.
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Working on that
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Yes,
andthe possibility to organize the bookmarks into our own categories (like a mail archive)
and to do searches in the bookmarked articles+messages with a filter based on those categories
as well as one or two dates (before... and after...).
Greetings
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Recent day's programming forums is getting same type of question which are posted earlier. This looks like no one is using Search feature before posting question. What I suggest is, How about an option like Auto Search ?
When someone is starting a new thread in programming forums, do a quick search with the post contents automatically and display the results. Also an option to Continue with the post can be provided. If user is getting solution from the search result, that saves waiting time for getting reply. This will also keeps forums with unique topics and reduced DB size.
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Searching is an expensive operation and if every post was submitted to the search engine before posting (or during typing via AJAX) then the site would grind to a halt due to load
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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OK, it should not be automatic (it would even send the wrong signal, people would never
search any more).
But how about making it easier.
There have been some comments and ideas about that as of late, including this one.[^]
And how about a simple text shown (in bold!) on the form that one uses to formulate a
question; it would just explain there are articles, discussion boards, MSDN, and Google;
and provide a link for each of those (so I can trim down my sig again ?).
Regards
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Yep - we'll have to do something this.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Ok. Then as the previous poster suggested, how about some hint that tells them to do a search before posting ? The message that is on top of all forums which explains guidelines is not visible easily, and most of the people won't read it fully. Some hints on the message posting window will be helpful for the posters to fine tune their messages.
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Should let Chris know 
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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The article was mistakenly marked as C++. This didn't affect the outcome of the comp, but we will try and be more careful with attribution
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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I've been seeing it for weeks but nobody else commented, so here goes. There's only one thread titled "What's inside a package?" but the pane on the left has two entries for it. 
Here[^] is the screenshot saved for posterity.
-- moved by ed. at 22:51 Monday 30th July, 2007
Cheers,
Vıkram.
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
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I assumed it was Chris's attempt at subtle humour....I nearly posted in the lounge a while ago but Satips bashing was in full flight so I got sidetracked.
"More functions should disregard input values and just return 12. It would make life easier." - comment posted on WTF
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