asterisk users - Feb 2005 - Suggestion for noise reduction on Asterisk-Users

Hello all,

	This might be one for Digium, but I would like to see some type of Wiki 
that people would have to wade through before they would get the 
information on how to subscribe to the list.

	This wiki should cover most of the basic stuff that gets asked over and 
over again just to help reduce the amount of repetition that most of you 
have probably noticed takes place here.

	I understand that there is no good way to solve this problem, and 
speaking of repetition, it has been covered before.  However, it seems 
like list traffic has surged in the last several months and the HUGE 
majority of it are questions that usually are answered with a link to 
the voip-info.org wiki, because it has been asked before and someone 
thought to add it.

	I think that this URL:

http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=support

	Instead of saying "Blah, blah, blah and here are the lists", it
should
say something like:

"...Digium is the corporate sponsor of Asterisk.  Support may be 
purchased from us, and more information is available here...

Alternatively, free support may be obtained from the wonderful Asterisk 
community.  The best starting point is the wiki at voip-info.org [link]. 
  If your question cannot be answered there, Digium does provide mailing 
lists where questions may be answered by members of the community on a 
volunteer basis.  Please see [link] for more information."

	Where the second [link] would go to the wiki with clearly-stated posted 
guidelines and some kind of whizzbang links that take care of a large 
percentage of these typical newbie questions.

	I have nothing against newbies, but I know that I get tired of people 
asking the same questions over and over, and sometimes I just don't feel 
like saying the same thing that has been said over and over - "go to the 
wiki first".  The problem with this is if we don't answer the question,
the person asking the question probably never solves his problem and 
possibly ditches Asterisk altogether, or they just bang at it until they 
either ditch Asterisk or waste a lot of time in the process.

	How many more times do we have to read posts of "I just downloaded the 
Asterisk and now how do I talk on it?"

	Let me know what you think...

--
Kristian Kielhofner

The same has been proposed several times over the last nine months,
both on -users and -dev, and its simply been ignored.

------------------------
  From: Kristian Kielhofner <kris@krisk.org>
  Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Suggestion for noise reduction on Asterisk-Users
  Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:13:38 -0600 
  To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com>

> Hello all,
> 
> 	This might be one for Digium, but I would like to see some type of Wiki 
> that people would have to wade through before they would get the 
> information on how to subscribe to the list.
> 
> 	This wiki should cover most of the basic stuff that gets asked over and 
> over again just to help reduce the amount of repetition that most of you 
> have probably noticed takes place here.
> 
> 	I understand that there is no good way to solve this problem, and 
> speaking of repetition, it has been covered before.  However, it seems 
> like list traffic has surged in the last several months and the HUGE 
> majority of it are questions that usually are answered with a link to 
> the voip-info.org wiki, because it has been asked before and someone 
> thought to add it.
> 
> 	I think that this URL:
> 
> http://www.asterisk.org/index.php?menu=support
> 
> 	Instead of saying "Blah, blah, blah and here are the lists", it
should
> say something like:
> 
> "...Digium is the corporate sponsor of Asterisk.  Support may be 
> purchased from us, and more information is available here...
> 
> Alternatively, free support may be obtained from the wonderful Asterisk 
> community.  The best starting point is the wiki at voip-info.org [link]. 
>   If your question cannot be answered there, Digium does provide mailing 
> lists where questions may be answered by members of the community on a 
> volunteer basis.  Please see [link] for more information."
> 
> 	Where the second [link] would go to the wiki with clearly-stated posted 
> guidelines and some kind of whizzbang links that take care of a large 
> percentage of these typical newbie questions.
> 
> 	I have nothing against newbies, but I know that I get tired of people 
> asking the same questions over and over, and sometimes I just don't
feel
> like saying the same thing that has been said over and over - "go to
the
> wiki first".  The problem with this is if we don't answer the
question,
> the person asking the question probably never solves his problem and 
> possibly ditches Asterisk altogether, or they just bang at it until they 
> either ditch Asterisk or waste a lot of time in the process.
> 
> 	How many more times do we have to read posts of "I just downloaded
the
> Asterisk and now how do I talk on it?"
> 
> 	Let me know what you think...
> 
> --
> Kristian Kielhofner
> _______________________________________________
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> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
---------------End of Original Message-----------------

Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
> Hello all,
>
>     This might be one for Digium, but I would like to see some type of 
> Wiki that people would have to wade through before they would get the 
> information on how to subscribe to the list.
>
>
>     How many more times do we have to read posts of "I just downloaded
> the Asterisk and now how do I talk on it?"
>
>     Let me know what you think...
>
> -- 
> Kristian Kielhofner
Dare I suggest that a MUCH better job of documenting would go a long way 
towards eliminating the problems  you mention?

Now I realize that programmers are much more interested in writing code 
than documentation, as well as moving on to the next hot feature than 
making sure the current set work well, but . . .

I have found the Asterisk handbook Version 2, to be kind, poor, and the 
Mahler book sold for a small fortune obsolete as well as lacking. Most 
of what is published in that book is a rehash of what is available on 
line free for the taking.

Just my opinion, of course.

John Novack