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Forwarded from the previous thread:



Good thing you asked. Since thinking about it yesterday, I thought of a possible new idea that might also work. Just like my earlier suggestion to use or forward threads from the Map Releases forum to represent their respective DLDB entries (to avoid ending up with two seperate discussions between its "official" thread and the DB entry's comments thread), what if we restructured the tutorial system altogether as a sort of FAQ/Tutorials setup using the MMA forums itself as the basis? Extract the best posted replies of a given problem from the MMA forum itself and provide that as the tutorial. Allow also the option to clean it up/format it seperately for a stand-alone tutorial, as well.

Here's why I think that:

1. Most questions in the MMA forums are repeats. Most people turn to tutorials to find solutions for common, repeat problems, anyway.
2. Sometimes solutions provided for problems posted are occasionally worthy of being tutorials in their own right. Yet often they never end up as more than just posts in a thread, which goes to waste when the problem gets solved and the thread sinks out of sight.
3. If you're looking for or giving help, you're already in the place you'd be doing it anyway. Why have to jump on over to a seperate wiki or have to browse/search a seperate db, when you can just have them taken on the spot?
4. Though posted solutions/tutorials may lose some of their context if made stand-alone, there's no reason you can't still link it to its original context. That way, in addition to allowing the reader to trace the context better, if there's any new discoveries or developments regarding a given tutorial there'd already be an outlet to discuss it.
5. Plus, if the post is out of context as a stand along anyway, there's no reason you can't allow editing or formatting for it when it gets selected as a tutorial.

I hope that explains what I'm trying to get at. Instead of making the tutorial db a seperate entity (or rather, instead of putting it in a seperate location), try to integrate it with the MMA forum itself.

Make sense?

There are links for "related threads" and "related files" on the Tutorial DB already. Too bad the Tutorial Keepers never used them. All they did was approve and deny tutorials, but rarely did they maintain anything. *cough*
That's just one of the many things I want to fix. I plan to make it so any member can "propose an edit" to an existing tutorial, this way the lazy tutorial keepers will have a much easier time maintaining the Tutorials DB.

I also plan to have a few wiki style links... perhaps a "dictionary" type thing included as a part of the tutorials DB. Kind of like a better version of the Map Making Glossary.

Well making a tutorial means you have to go looking for threads. Using an existing thread means you start with one already. Plus there's no reason you can't also tack on additional threads to the tutorial entry as is done already.

Yeah, but it'll need moderation like any forum then. That'll be the tutorial keeper's new jobs I suppose.



Good idea. My old glossary suffered from its requirement for manual editing, though. That might not be so bad if it were more wiki-like, though, where people can edit it themselves with contemporary terms/definitions.

Yep.


Bingo. There will be a "terms" category in the v5 tutorials section... and hopefully the keepers will add links, or I'll make a BBCode to do it.

Only thing I'm still pondering now is how to "integrate" tutorial/FAQ with the MMA forums. I'll get back to you on that one.

Hm.... maybe we don't need a wiki at all, but rather more power for the people and better leadership by tutorial keepers.

My idea was to automatically highlight words in a given dictionary. Sort of how the parser tries to find bbcode, a tutorial parser could look for references to hyper triggers, for example, and link them to it's faq/page/whatever. Hyper triggers page itself should link to any relavent dldb submissions (I think there is a trigger file you can download?) and any threads where hyper triggers are the problem or a solution, such as, further reading. Getting more complicated, ajax can search for tutorials as someone writes out a post...

I don't understand how you could integrate a tutorial system into a forum other than highlighting those keywords that the tutorial system would be highlighting.

Well I mean giving people the option to set a given post as a tutorial.

For instance, you could add a new button to each post in the MMA forum. When clicked, it brings up the tutorial submission page. There the post's contents and title gets automatically imported, where you can edit them, suggest a category, add "see also" links, and then finally "upload" it as a tutorial. The original post will stay the same, except its post/thread could have an embedded link to its corresponding tutorial entry. Likewise the tutorial entry will automatically link to its original post/thread. If the discussion develops further in that thread such that the tutorial needs revision (for instance), then you'd already be in the right place to do it.

I'm still thinking of how a good integration implementation would work, but that's at least what I've thought up so far.

Hmmm... interesting enough...

Great thinking, Tux!
Here are some thoughts for consideration that I've had about making-over the tutorial system:

1. Allow members to "request a tutorial"
2. Allow comments (not questions, those are for MMA) on tutorials
   • Alternatively, have a comments/questions thread dedicated to each tutorial (this is most like Tux's MMA-Tutorial integration idea)
3. Allow multiple tutorials on the same topic
4. Implement a ratings system for tutorials

---

1. Allow members to "request a tutorial"
This would be a really useful tool for encouraging people to write tutorials, not just answer questions in MMA. There are some questions that are really quite specific and should be kept to MMA, but then there are lots of questions that don't quite fit Tux's description of "common" questions, but are useful to have a tutorial for (to demonstrate concepts, and just for public knowledge) - these are things that potential tutorial writers could easily overlook when deciding to write a tutorial.

An example: http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=225399

2. Allow comments on tutorials
This has been quite effective for other tutorial systems (see examples).

This is really useful for members who know what they're talking about to make "minor edits" and additions to tutorials, whilst still having the security that none of the old tutorial is lost. It would be less daunting to add a comment to a tutorial than to actually change it, even if only making a minor addition or change - and this system is much less susceptible to things mucking up than a wiki.

Example: http://au2.php.net/manual/en/tutorial.firstpage.php

~ Have threads for tutorials

This is similar to what Tux is suggesting, I think. The tutorials can be linked to related threads, and vice versa; alternatively, the tutorials can be simply the first post of a thread with discussion following. More forum-like/forum-integrated threads are easier to ask questions in than comments pages; but then the question is whether the tutorials system works best in a forum thread setting or as a standalone article: I think standalone articles are more effective/"professional", but I really like Tux's idea of allowing users to suggest posts as the tutorials to be submitted.

Example 1: http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/135/6.php
Example 2: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117709

3. Allow multiple tutorials on the same topic
This is really good for getting a diversity of knowledge, and allowing different people to take different approaches to the same problem. To avoid having massive tutorials all combined into one (e.g. the current randomisation tutorial), to allow more specific implementations of methods and designs, and simply to avoid the danger/fear of destroying other people's tutorials as in a wiki system, just change the tutorial keeping rules to allow more than one tutorial on any one topic. It's not like searching for a tutorial turns up too many results already.

Plus, this will work really well with a ratings/feedback system implemented as well (see below). This won't be hard to manage if you have a good system of categorizing the tutorials into more specific sections like "randomisation", "visual effects", and so on rather than simply "triggers", "design", etc.

Example: http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials.php

4. Implement a ratings system for tutorials
This is a really good way of getting feedback on how useful or clear tutorials are, especially when combined with other forms of feedback (comments/threads). It's also really useful for users who want to get a good idea of what to expect from a tutorial, or don't have the time to look through many different tutorials. In this respect it's useful in the same way as the "difficulty" rating currently is useful.

A ratings system also serves as an incentive to write good tutorials.

Example 1: http://www.phphelp.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph...a4579008a4bc850
Example 2: http://www.zimmertech.com/tutorials/expone...me-tutorial.php

Hmmm. Requesting a tutorial would already by covered if it were integrated into the MMA forum, as simply posting a help thread would be the request. Once someone solves the problem, then you can forward that post to be the tutorial itself. Plus your last idea of adding a rating system would help highlight the good and bad tutorials, and indicate which ones might need to be updated.


The comments, yeah. Making them like either DLDB entries, or just making the tutorials as a subforum to the MMA forum itself (except with submission "approvals" like news posts in the news forum), wouldn't be a bad idea. And of course keep the seach functions and categorical sorting in place.


I'm not sure about having multiple tutorials, though. Hmm. Let me break it down:

Pros:

• Issues missed with a given tutorial might be covered by another.
• More diverse explanations means if one doesn't work, there'd be another to try out.
• New tutorials can be created with updated information as new discoveries are made/changes occur.

Cons:

• Spreading out solutions for a given problem may help breadth, but may limit depth; individual tutorials need to be more generalized when made stand-alone, as authors can't as easily focus in on a given point as with simply modifying/adding to an existing tutorial/topic.
• Disparities in information between two or more tutorials can lead to confusion. Centralizing information means incorrect information need only be corrected once.
• Not every topic needs more than one way for it to be explained.

It seems to go either way, now that I think about it. I think what might be best is keeping one topic as the main one, and then appending additional ones as "See Also" links. That way, the main one can be updated with information or points found from the new ones, the new ones can be refered to for additional reference and discussion (like for new developments), and people can turn to the others if the main one fails them. Best compromise I can come up with.

Nothing is stopping anyone from taking a well written MMA post, formatting it, and submitting it under the original author's name.

Yeah, except that no one really does. People will jump at the chance to help solve a problem with someone who has it now, as with the MMA forum, but volunteering a solution in general by writing or submitting a seperate tutorial adds an extra step, and isn't something that presses people to consider doing right away (in the same way a specific help request does, I mean).

I'm merely suggesting bringing them closer together, so that needs are what'll bring about tutorials instead of casual generosity.