The number of posts on this forum that don’t include basic information required for troubleshooting is ridiculous. There are pinned posts about what to include, but it would be far better to include prompts for that information at the point of post creation.
Can the webcode for new forum post dialog be modified to include basic prompts for information when creating a new post?
i.e. replace the ghost text “Type here. Use Markdown, BBCode, or HTML to format. Drag or paste images.” with text asking for system information etc?
The Type here. Use Markdown, BBCode, or HTML to format. Drag or paste images “ghost text” that you mention only appears when creating a reply to a post. When creating a new post it is different completely.
At the moment there is no such addition, but there has been.
Something similar to what you describe was trialed for some two years, and ultimately it became obvious that virtually no-one paid any attention to it.
Even when asked for more information, and given the tools to provide it, a majority of (especially newer) forum users often react with the equivalent of a blank stare.
I can only agree.
Something is needed, however, the forum software (Discourse) isn’t necessarily geared to facilitate much custom work that isn’t in the form of a specially crafted addon.
We appreciate your interest in making the Manjaro forum a better experience for all.
This is something that baffles me. I’ve worked infodesk, written documentation and instructions, written study material, and I’ve just come to the conclusion, that this is an unsolvable thing. Either you make it so, that it screams for attention and people bypass or ignore it out of annoyance, or you don’t and their mind apparently filters it out.
But I do understand that categorisation can at first be difficult, like I still struggle sometimes with if this is an issue I should add the inxi result and the whole shebang, or if its something that is easily solved without it. But still, if you are asked for and given the tools to answer and you are still lost…
That’s why the implementation needs to be unobtrusive but preemptive. Having a template already created in the post box works quite well on other forums. Yes some people just delete the lot and ignore it but ultimately they get less help. At the moment anyone helping wastes a lot of their time telling people to include information that should already have been included.
It only appears for new users and in their first post. It then appears inside the post editor, but with special tags, rendering it invisible if left included.
And has now been removed, likely due to the unsuccessful trial period; it was largely ignored/dismissed by users. @Yochanan might be able to shed some light on when it was removed; I hadn’t noticed it missing until very recently.
Ah, the root Support category itself, and nowhere else. Regardless, it hasn’t worked effectively, however, with the forum software being used it’s unlikely a better solution can be easily engineered, and survive a Discourse update.
Indeed! But IMHO it isn’t very useful because it contains links that can’t be used because they’re not active and it directs the poster to visit another topic which in the majority of cases isn’t going to happen once someone has decided to post already. It’s just extra information a good number of people will automatically discard straight away.
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Whilst I acknowledge there will always be people that struggle with instructions perhaps something like the following would provide better results?
Suggested template for posting:
REPLACE this line with the description of your issue, problem or question. In most troubleshooting cases the sections below are the minimum required to troubleshoot your problem.
Output of inxi -av8:
REPLACE this whole line with the output of `inxi -av8`
Output of journalctl --boot --no-pager --priority warning
REPLACE this whole line with the output of `journalctl --boot --no-pager --priority warning`
However, a form template – which is effectively what you suggest – isn’t a practical solution at this time, for several reasons, including some I’m not at liberty to discuss.
In any case, and has already been stated (above);
There are no existing “off-the-shelf” addons that I’m aware of that would adequately satisfy Manjaro forum requirements – only a custom-made solution might.
The currently used system with the Compose window is incompatible with what you suggest.
Don’t get me wrong, arguably a more structured form (pun intended) of collecting Support information is certainly warranted, and is something I’ve personally had in mind for some time now.
For the time being, there is little option than for it to remain in the “To Do” list for future consideration.
I’m not the one you need to tell Whilst you or I have no problem doing so, there are a whole bunch of people that would never think to do so if its not an actual link. UIs should generally be designed for the lowest experience level intended to use them.
