IT Wiki / Repository

[Tomshawk]

Hello Everyone, I got John's "jcgriff2" permission to post this before you wonder. LOL

I am thinking of doing something and I would love your opinion and thoughts.

While this site sysnative is kewl. I like the sections you have it broken down to, BSOD, Malware remove, Network Support, Tutorials, I like it here and will be around.

I am thinking of a creating a project, basically a repository of problems, symptoms, and fixes for those issues.
They will be based on forums like here (vBulletin) with Tutorials and Articles like here and techsupportforum.com but I would want the site to be more about the repository, Almost like an IT Wiki of issues and fixes.

The site will be MS, Linux, Cisco, Mac, Web Design, ETC. All IT will be fair game.

I would have links to here and Techsupportforum for BSOD help and Basic computer support as well as other specific sites I frequent, my gaming site, certforums.com for people working on getting their certs.
The site will have basic computer help forums as well but very basic.

Again, I am just trying to get opinions before I put the time and expense into it. Expense is not really a problem, but I'm more curious as to whether you think it would be worth it. I know most techs use Google or Bing to find answers than anything else but if they have single place to go to find what they are looking for, instead of searching hundreds or thousands of links provided by those search engines, the chances of people returning are greater.

It's a big project that will take alot of time to grow into something worthwhile and I am hoping over time sites like this one and the other sites I frequent can collaborate like between here and TSF.

Thoughts?

 

[Corrine]

Not quite the response you're looking for but I couldn't help thinking of this based on

I know most techs use Google or Bing to find answers than anything else . . .

As to the actual project, more than any expense, I think that it would take a massive amount of work to create a worthwhile collection. "Submissions" might help but would still need to be verified.

 

[Tomshawk]

Well, because many things can cause issues, the Submissions would end up in the end with multiple possible solutions, very few submissions would have one correct answer, mostly because if someone does a half dozen things in an attempt to fix a problem. there is no way to say for sure which thing you did fixed the problem if you are not maticulas. nature of the beast.

Yes, this would be a huge project spanning years, with probably multiple people assisting, hopefully.
In the beginning, it will take alot of personal experiences, what you can remember or pull from your own notes type of thing, not to mention scouring the net for related problems and fixes, posting on the new site, with a link and stating the source.

I expect that, and it would have to be noted on the site in multiple places.

It's kind of like BSOD's error codes, codes stated in BSOD's can be caused by multiple factors.

If someone submitted a BSOD error and their fix, someone else may reply to it with what they did to fix it as it may not be anything like the first

 

[Laxer]

I think instead of this, you would be better off writting/using a custom search engine.

Google offers some options.

Where for example you could just search for content in the first post of certain sites X,Y,Z,....

Creating a massive repository would be a lot of work and upkeep unless you wrote a script and could convince people to run it. (CRON task or something similar)

The next problem, believe it or not problems with the same symptoms are often not the same. Just ask John how many BSODs share the same stop codes...

 

[Tomshawk]

Thank you Laxer for your input.

I realize many problems will have multiple symptoms and multiple fixes, this is why I am thinking a Wiki. It's an editable, living document that can be changed, edited, and added to on the fly.

Even if we get a massive team together, this will be years in the making. It wont be overnight, thats for sure.

Any other thoughts?

 

[Laxer]

Manual entries just seem messy unless you can get them user submitted. A wiki would work fine if you had multiple contributors... If not that is a ton of work.

If you don't want to go the search engine route another great implementation in my opinion would be some type of bot/web crawler.

Most big forums have a XML output that is available online, you could read this in VIA a script manipulate it and grab the data you need. You could then create a page for the wiki from this automatically. The last thing to do really would then just be to prune bad results or adjust them.

I don't know if its just my philosophy on programming or what but, I prefer to do all the "heavy lifting" up-front so that after the project is complete it is a stand-alone living creation.

Regardless of your implementation I think the idea is great and when completed will be a very valuable resource. :thumbsup2:

 

[Tomshawk]

I think that is one of the keys

Admitting, I could not program my way out of a paper bag, and programmers I have talked to in the past want way to much money that little old me cant afford.

Not to say your idea has no merit, it does, I just cant afford it and don't have that kind of know-how. Sadly!

As for messy, there will be groups(editors) that actually do the wiki entries that will have to do some verifying before entries go live which will make the process even that much longer. I'm sure it will be messier in the beginning but once we get the hang of the process it'll pick up speed.

I guess out of curiosity, since you brought it up, would you be willing to assist by possibly making a bot/crawler to do this, or maybe even the search utility that results come in in a webpage looking results page or text files? Whatever.

 

[Will]

I realise this isn't your main intention here, but I don't think automated content would be a particularly desirable solution. Unless the sites your grabbing data have given you explicit permission to do this, you'll be flooded with DMCA requests which will significantly hurt your Google rankings.

When posting on a forum, the user still owns the content - they hold authors rights. What they're doing however, is granting the forum a license to publicise their work. The author still owns the content, and unless they've specifically agreed to allow your site to publish content (e.g. it was in the T&Cs of the site they signed up to), then you don't have permission to publish their work. That opens you up once again to DMCA takedown requests.

Even without DMCA requests, there are duplicate content issues. Google bots can't tell the intention behind a webpage, if a new site appears which is filled with duplicate content from other sites it'll likely believe it to be malicious and drop it out of search results altogether. Even without a malicious flag, Google doesn't display every site that contains search keywords. The original content site is going to take precedent in search results, and search engines may believe your site is a "print friendly" page or similar that it doesn't need to display. Potentially you could also hurt the SEO results of sites your grabbing data from. On occasions Google might decide your wiki should take precedent for content that appears on another site - a knock on effect is that the original site won't perform as well in search results. Even without any negative effects on the original sites rankings, you're still taking users away from another site. Site admins want users to visit their own site, not a third party site. You're gaining users from content from site A and as a consequence taking users away from the site the content was posted, who would otherwise have visited the original site.

That aside, from a users perspective you also don't want to be automatically grabbing content. If I sign up to site A - I've signed up to site A, and not a third party site. If I suddenly see that my posts appear on a third party site without my permission - guess what, I'm not posting on site A again. When I sign up somewhere, I don't want to be given a third party account on another site. But, if you don't do that then how do you credit the poster who wrote the content? Do you add the username? I don't want my username appearing on a third party site - if my username and my post is there, it gives the impression that I added it and am condoning the site. You would be using my name (however insignificant) and content to gain visitors to your own site, without my permission or knowledge. On the other hand, if you don't credit me - then you're just stealing my content. The intentions of a site may be as good as possible, but you'll become an untrustworthy site - as will the sites who are allowing you to copy their content.

Even small wiki's can take a lot of time and effort, but original content and manual submissions are the only way to go. :thumbsup2:

 

[Tomshawk]

WOW, thank you for the thorough, thought out response Will

Lets get this out of the way real quick.

I would never knowingly steal (Copyright) or rip off others work so, many things will have to be verified and this will obviously make the project take that much longer.

Nor will I allow obvious copyrighted material on the site, a user that posts such material on the site without explicit approval would be banned without me blinking an eye.

"If" I use a crawler, it would be used only to find relevant content that would be emailed to me, or posted to a private "hidden" forum on the site for review. It would never be posted live.

Only Editors and Managers (People in certain groups) will be able to post things in the Wiki itself, keeping clutter and junk from filling it up as well as only relevant verified content.

I also do not want to hurt other sites or their rankings which is why Wiki content will be limited to only Problems, Symptoms, and Possible Solutions only.
Articles when written will only be original written by Authors of the site and even those will be verified by Editors and Managers of the site for validity and copyright infringement.

Again, Thank you for the post, I respect it and appreciate it.

Any other thoughts

 

[Laxer]

That's very interesting regarding the true owner of the content Will. I was not aware anywhere near the depth you seem to be... :banghead:

As for my idea above, link backs and agreements with the contributors before hand(The boards) would be ideal.

As for the scripting, I am busy with school and moving out this summer to go to a new school so won't really have time.

I will see if I can dig up a custom search engine script though, at the very least it will streamline your research.

 

[Tomshawk]

Well, from lack of interest here as well as other sites I posted about this, there seems to not be enough worth to do this.

Thanks for the feedback and comments though.