Thread

Ok, think about it like this:

Bubba Billy Bob Joe Friday (not his real name) decides to purchase EE for his new website, “Buckskin Raider Giblet Gerkey”, but Bubba’s got a problem: He doesn’t know anything about expression engine or how to do something specific, like post turkey call sample audio to the website. Also, he needs help configuring and connecting to a website that does a non-EE specific shopping cart.

Bubba decides to get on the help forums and ask a question, “How do I get my turkey gobbles sample audio files online? Also, I need JoeJoeLiveCommerce.com to work.”

You, being the enterprising helper you are, immediately understand the question is not a “simple” solution, but somewhat involved, needing examples and so forth. You don’t know how to do the specific example, although, in a pinch, you could walk him through the docs and get it done.

BUT… First you fire up Google and find, in the first search, using generic terms (“expression engine post audio”, for example), 1 result pops up first that answers one of the questions exactly, with example code. As far as you can tell, this is what Bubba is looking for.

Do you post the link, with the long-term issue of the site disappearing and the forum value of that information also disappearing?

Or leave it for someone else to answer more in-depth, someone with actual experience with the problem? Something that will be saved in the EE forums.

This is distinctly different from information actually found searching the EE website, too.

You decide… :zip:

From what I’ve seen in this forum there is a usually a combination. Someone might just post an off-site link, but someone usually chimes in with a more in-depth answer.

As long as the off-site link is still working at the time of posting, I see no problem in adding that extra value. If I’m searching the forum for an answer, and the only reply is a broken link, I just reply asking for more help so the topic gets bumped back to the front page and we start from the begining again.

I guess this is where the closing of issues will start to be a problem though.

I see no problems with external links. Nothing on the internet is permanent, old posts become old posts. I actually would like old posts to be deleted after a certain time since the information usually is outdated. EE has changed, add-ons no longer exists or have proven instable, the internet has changed, new technologies have emerged etc etc etc..

And besides, you cannot expect the EE crew to have an answer for everything, at least not for that which go beyond technical support of EE.

The original question was about a how to scenario. How To items aren’t closed. The areas where entries get closed are the technical support areas and the Pre-sales area.

I post links to offsite resources frequently. Sometimes the links become invalid after time.. but that’s the nature of the Internet.

If the link is invalid in a closed entry, you can open a new entry with the link to the old one. It’s easy enough to edit the original entry with an updated link as needed.

Just to put in my two penneths worth. I don’t think there’s too much of a problem linking to off site documentation of a problem but myself I will only ever do this if I either :

1 Understand the problem myself anyway so if ever the link does die then they can still ask me a question about it and I will be able to help - or
2 Print off a PDF of the page linked to if I don’t understand the problem so that I can always post that at a later date if needs be.

Best of both worlds really! 😊

Best wishes,

Mark

Thanks for the responses so far! 😊

The thing that got me thinking about this was a recent topic where someone was looking for a specific usage of categories. The poster was obviously frustrated. I didn’t know the answer, but I suspected what he/she wanted to do with categories wasn’t typical.

So… After posting some links to EE docs and saying so, the response was, “I’m sure I’ve done it before.”

Which got me to searching. Google and the EE forums/docs/user guide.

So, by now I’m not directly offering support, but really lending a hand in searching for his solution.

The answer turned out to be found in a post on Veerle’s blog. So, I started to post the link to the blog entry when I realized, if I just posted the link with no explanation of what was found, maybe one day someone would search the forums and need the same answer, and it may not be available.

So I posted the link and a short explanation below it. Easy enough.

But it got me to thinking, how many times have I just posted the link for a how-to without regard to the usefulness of that information. A link is not very useful; it’s the content the link references that’s useful, eh?

And then I noticed on several other occasions after that that I could find what someone was looking for (I search doggedly, using keyword combos and audience language), but was it best to just post a link? Obviously, the poster, if the information is useful, will go away helped in their need or frustration, but what about those who come after?

When I’m looking for a solution to a problem, I don’t care where the information comes from, as long as I get help from somewhere. I would rather someone post an off-site link than not help at all.

When I’m making a post to help someone else though, I always try to include enough information that the linked page is more of a reference or an example, rather than the answer itself.

I think it really just comes down to crafting a good post to go along with the offsite link.

I think it really just comes down to crafting a good post to go along with the offsite link.

I agree entirely with that. If you understand enough to be able to find the correct answer off-site then it is more than likely you understand the question and would be able to answer it yourself without any off-site information to back you up if needs be but off-site information can be very very helpful especially when it’s things like CSS bugs as so many thousands of really great coders will have come across bugs before and have spent many many hours figuring them out that even if you do have an answer it may be that it works in all browsers bar one (we all know that one now don’t we 😉 ) and then you have to go back to square one. In this kind of scenario I think they (off-site links) can be really invaluable.

Best wishes,

Mark

If you understand enough to be able to find the correct answer off-site then it is more than likely you understand the question and would be able to answer it yourself

Yes, but it does no harm to back it up with a link for those who want to look further into the matter. Besides, documentation is always good as so much gets borked up in transmission, especially in fast forum replies.

Yep agree entirely Yvonne. My point in case about the CSS was that entirely in a nut-shell 😉

Jared do you have enough responses yet? Are you doing market-research or something for EllisLab and we haven’t been told?

Can we get paid for our responses? 😉

Best wishes,

Mark

@Mark: :zip:

@aircrash: Well put. I feel the same way; leave some context and a bit of information, even if the link goes bad. At times, though, I think it does help to have one of the pro’s who help walk someone through something, I’m just not sure how to identify those situations, and in those cases I sometimes believe it’s best to stay out of the way (myself).

@yvonne: If the question is answered, and then a link is left to greater insight, I’m not sure that’s exactly what I was getting at. I think a lot of the times it helps to add links to docs and such, but what about the times when you can’t actually answer the question but find something that might somewhere else?

Jared, a forum is a collective, user-generated ‘thing,’ and as all user-generated stuff, some of the input is valuable. The problem is to sift through it, and then a link to a (pro) source comes in handy. No one is omniscient, which is why the internet is so fascinating. If you engage in the forums, I believe it is because either you want to strut your stuff, or you’re in a learning curve, or you simply want to give back to the community what it has given you. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re in the know, and a link might be more appropriate.

The question should maybe be, how should I respond to this and that user? is it a newbie to the web? is it a programmer? a web designer? an EE ‘oldie’? That is, who is your addressee?