Suggest a Toubleshooting sticky for forum - pugo3 - 03.01.2012
Hello, I'd like to offer a suggestion for a dedicated sticky topic for troubleshooting.
As a non-tech guy looking for answers, it occured to me that it would be helpful to have a dedicated sticky topic for troubleshooting. Perhaps a fill in posting to keep the verbiage down and aid quick searches, and a solution final entry box when the actual problem is positively identified by the one posting the problem. No quotes, signtures and logos or other clutter in the headings and footers would help to make the information easy to absorb and quickly review.
This would allow one having an issue to quickly review all postings with soultions for the various common problems we all encounter without tedious searching through meandering postings from too broad a search result.
Please consider this for the AAS forum, as this would be a great benefit to helping to quickly identify and solve common problems.
p3
Re: Suggest a Toubleshooting sticky for forum - Fireskull - 03.01.2012
Thanks for the suggestion, pugo3.
We have seen that approach in the past. Let me explain.
As it stands now, threads which are dedicated to a specific issue of a technical nature are usually short in length. Often the title of the thread indicates the topic of it, which is very important for the Search function to be able to reveal it to the user. The topic often results in a concise collection of posts which are easy to browse.
Putting various technical problems in one thread has in the past resulted in a large thread, many times, and people complained about too many pages to search in the thread or they could not find the topic in Search. They must read a lot of things which are not relevant to their issue in one like that.
General trouble-shooting threads cause intertwined conversations as people post and respond over each other's topics.
Another issue is that what constitutes trouble-shooting can be open to wide interpretation, which has its own set of challenges.
With that being said, if you would like to start a trouble-shooting thread and give it a descriptive title, then I would be happy to Sticky it for you and hope for the best. Be sure to explain the simple rules of the thread in the first post of yours. Good luck!
(Pardon my scholarly explanation: I hope that it was received in good stead. :mrgreen: )
Thanks for the suggestions - all are welcome.
Fireskull
Re: Suggest a Toubleshooting sticky for forum - pugo3 - 04.01.2012
Hello Fireskull,
To better explain my thinking, I'm not really suggesting a typical thread with conversations and various inputs; rather, let those threads continue as they are the means for exploring and searching for solutions, and by nature require much dialog and inputs, and invariably must follow there meandering course to [hopefully] a successful discovery of the actual problem.
My idea is to have a post only thread, with a limited size 'fill in' form, where one would only post after having arrived at the answer sought from the various forum dialogs. One would thereby give a concise summary of operating system, problem and symptoms, attempted solutions, final fix solution. There might be a brief comments box, and a reference address to the pertinent thread(s) where the problem was hashed out on the forum in more detail should someone wish more detail of the solution. No entertwined conversations here, just the pertinent facts and actual solution.
This would allow a very useful summation of actual solutions for the common problems encountered in software/hardware troubleshooting, whereas now one must search multidues of postings with blizzards of talk and discussion trying to obtain the essence of what the thread is discussing. Simply put, it would serve as an index or reference section, with the added benefit of providing a very quick summation of possible solutions.
By keeping these postings to a concise 'fill-in' form, you allow a easy to absorb and review troubleshooting aid. And as the postings would by force be brief and consistent in format, with 'solution only' postings rather than 'solution sought' postings, the threads would take less space and could be easily cataloged in common groupings.
The concept would require a 'fill-in form produced by the forum sponsers (you I suppose!
) for this to work as envisioned, rather than a typical unlimited dialoge thread posting. Of course it is for yourself and the forum participants to decide, but I thought I would put the idea forward as I can say from experience that this would have been a great help to me these past years, and I'm sure others as well.
thanks for your time, something to [hopefully seriously] consider.
p3
Re: Suggest a Toubleshooting sticky for forum - Fireskull - 04.01.2012
Hi,
Well, I will discuss this and get back with you.
Fireskull
Re: Suggest a Toubleshooting sticky for forum - pugo3 - 09.01.2012
Hello Fireskull,
As an example of the benefits of forums incorporating this 'solution info capture' method, a participant in this forum, Katdog, posted a ongoing intermittent issue he experienced with tearing and other graphic issues in you 100K 'Tweaking' post. I saw his posting on another site while research my Nvidia 285.62 issues, so what he was encountering was I believe the same driver issue. I don't believe he came back here to post the results, but had a posting been available, the effort and time taken to discuss and search the problem could have been captured in a concise, easy to reference and find manner. As it turned out, I had to indepently follow the long seach as well, and others will no doubt experience graphics issues and try [as I did and posted in my 'intermittent sticking joystick issue' posting] different fixes, and ascribe the most recent effort as the solution, only to have the problem reappear.
I know it's time for you to set up, but hopefully the forums can begin to better capture solutions to ease the load of finding possible remedys and avoid endless duplications of froum postings re the same issues. Of course, a suggestion.
Regards,
p3
Re: Suggest a Toubleshooting sticky for forum - Fireskull - 09.01.2012
Hi, pugo3
One thing we all must remember is that there are literally thousands of technical problems in the past with IL-2 and related equipment such as computers and joysticks. Added to this is the fact that solutions become obsolete fairly quickly with changes in software (drivers included) and new hardware introduced while previous ones are all but forgotten.
I am still discussing your suggestion.
Fireskull