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Last Update: Fri, 05/30/2008 - 19:01 — Paul E. Coughlin
One thing I would like to see here is an option to be notified when anyone posts a reply (following a posting etc). This would enable me, and others of course, to respond to people who reply without having to remember and go back and check each post.
Otherwise it can give a false impression that a responder is being ignored.
So far, as a newcomer with about half a dozen posts on this site, I have had kind replies and, very fortunately, I happened to pass by, so to speak, and noticed those replies and so I answered them both. Obviously, that is a more and more difficult thing to keep up. An option to be notified would be good I think.
Hope that's helpful.
PEC
Most of the comments in this debate have been moved to:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/site-goals.htm#comment-4811
Please continue discussion there.
It might also help to have a references or footnote section following each article. Not to sound snobbish, but this cannot become a Wiki style resource unless article writers are forced to cite their sources. For example, the excellent article on firewalls makes a claim about Zone Alarm Free's poor performance on leak tests, but it does not cite the source of the test. The leak tests I look at do not even include the free version, but I didn't look all that hard. Perhaps their could be an editor team that marks articles that need references so that others can help search and provide them, just like the Wikipedia site does. Wikipedia even removes articles if they take too long to make the necessary changes. The best online example of a near perfect free encyclopedia is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has good editors, great articles, and many scholarly sources and references. Or, there could be a split between opinion articles and research/regular articles, just like they do it in newspapers.
By the way, I think this site is the very best. It kills MajorGeeks and FileHippo easily.
SEP is an excellent publication
Their current fund raising goal is $1.125 million. Does that answer your question?
It probably does cost a lot to get the professors and grad. students to write all of those articles, and SEP has this message that they might not stay free without sufficient funding. But does Wikipedia cost that much? Wikipedia also requires references and citations.
And students are required to provide references in papers that write in highschool and college: for FREE!
And this site's just started evolving from a one-man newsletter...
By the way, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy looks like a useful resource, though still imperfectly balanced in its content -- Thanks.
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One direction I personally feel this site might usefully take would be to provide more pointers to the best available free online resources, ranging from reference (like SEP) to how-to-guides and tutorials on a broader range of subjects.
For instance, I've been wondering what free material is available online to help understand the principles of digital image editing (irrespective of any particular programme). I suspect some site users night have some interesting suggestions beyond what I've caught via Wikipedia etc.
As another example, I've also been wondering whether it could be appropriate for me to create a page with some suggestions on high-quality free streaming radio stations for classical music. But it would have to start as a personal selection with no pretence to completeness or citational rigour!
I don't know what you mean by imperfectly balanced. It is biased toward traditional/analytical philosophy, so they tend to avoid the crazier stuff.
I didn't mean to criticize. It is an excellent site already, but if the goal is to make it a Wiki of the computer software (and that is the stated goal), then it cannot succeed in that goal without some attention to sources. And it might also help the site avoid anything like instances of plagarism if editors require references for any facts or research or claims made in the articles.
We welcome criticism and debate.
I think you're misunderstanding. You seem confused between a wiki and Wikepedia. And we just do freeware.
Our goals evolve, they aren't fixed ....
We'll never demand that "editors require references for any facts or research or claims made in the articles."
We like to see it, but we're just not that demanding.
And we're not about to attempt any kind of mission statement, either.
See here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/writers-rules-ok.htm
Peter
If your goals aren't fixed, then it is contradictory to say "we'll never demand."
Our goals are fluid, but we won't cross boundaries without acceptance and consensus.
We prefer to exchange information.
So our only demand to our editors, to our writers, is that they try to provide information.
You don't have to tell us about the problems of verifying that information.
It seems an inherent problem involved in Publication.
But we are untroubled by contradictions.
I forgot.
Why don't you become a "site editor"?
Please write some" suggestions on high-quality free streaming radio stations for classical music."
Plz tell me any publication that is NOT "imperfectly balanced in its content".
You can for example, search for "Digital Imaging" and be served a linked list of topics which all explore this theme. When you've opened one link, you can use "Related Topics" to find others.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/tutorials
http://www.techsupportalert.com/article-lists
http://www.techsupportalert.com/user-lists
http://www.techsupportalert.com/techsites
Thanks for the reply Peter.
And for your zesty articles.
I will do my best to make some suggestions on high-quality streaming for classical music.
(I may be missing something, but I didn't find any articles on digital imaging techniques outside the software recommendations.)
RE "Plz tell me any publication that is NOT 'imperfectly balanced in its content'":
Sorry -- Just obliquely pointing even excellent stuff ain't all perfects ...
But this site rocks!
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-photo-noise-reduction-software...
THANKS
On the search engine, it would be helpful to be able to click to the text that you search for. Right now you can only go to the relevant article and you only know the person who wrote the article and not the text you searched for, so you have to hunt around for what you want by doing Find... on every page until you are lucky to find what you want. For example, search for "Comodo Memory Firewall" (with quotes) and you have difficulty locating the phrase in the relevant articles.
This isn't quite true.
But I can see that we need to provide some "User-Help" about using search.
You can for example, search for "Digital Imaging" and be served a linked list of topics which all explore this theme. When you've opened one link, you can use "Related Topics" to find others.
What? I meant if you search for a piece of text and want to jump to that text within an article. I should have clarified. The articles are getting quite large and the comment section provides very interesting information, so if I want to jump to a specific comment that has the information I searched for I have to click around the comment section until I happen to find it, instead of just clicking to the thing that I searched for.
How would you feel if we moved that kind of comment debate to a dedicated Forum?
It would probably include automatic reply notification?
It should also prove possible to do a full-text search on the Forum.