Open Stack

Hello folks,

I have been talking with Anne and Tom about trying to capture more
effectively feedback from users that browse the Documentation and at the
same time, capture the doubts/pain of users back into the
document-writing process.

One idea I've been toying with is to provide a place for users to ask
questions if/when they have doubts about the documentation and get those
questions answered by a wider community. At the same time, I thought it
would be good to have a way for doc writers to identify the parts of the
documentation that are more likely to attract questions.

With these ramblings in mind, I spoke with the developers of Askbot
(powering https://ask.openstack.org) who happen to have been thinking
about similar ideas, expanding Askbot capabilities beyond 'one' website.

Evgeny here in cc sent me his thoughts about how Ask OpenStack could
integrate with docs.openstack.org using 'widgets'. I invited him to join
a wider discussion on the docs mailing list (keep him in the loop in the
answers).

> Below is a bit more detailed proposal for the widget feature.
> 
> The doc page in the right sidebar we could have a minimizable widget
> (when minimized it would take a small sidebar strip and would be 
> displayed in muted style), when unfolded it could take say 50% of the
> width.
> 
> Content of the widget would be a simplified version of the Askbot
> layout, with just the content and the basic pages (question listing,
> question details, login page - we'd have to create a stripped down
> version for all pages used here).
> 
> Another use case could be - via inserting markers into the text of
> the doc page where the questions are or around the paragraphs. When
> you click on the marker - a corresponding question opens in the
> sidebar. I.e. - questions can be tied to specific paragraphs, where
> possible.
> 
> If a paragraph does not have questions - hovering over the text of
> the doc page will display a prompt to "ask a question" about the
> paragraph over which the pointer is hovering.
> 
> It could be useful to link authors of the page with the profiles in
> the Q&A system, if they exist, in order to notify the authors of the
> new questions.
> 
> On the "regular" forum question pages there would be "backlinks" to
> the relevant doc pages.
> 
> Questions may be assigned/reassigned to one or more doc pages.

What do you think?

/stef

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