So since the release of PFSense series we have been seeing a lot of basically the same question about pfsense builds and such.
Should we set up a sticky that is pinned to the top and have everyone read that first and then ask their questions they are unsure of and or still need further help. I dont mind helping I just think we keep answering the same question over and over.
Also if you are going to ask a pfsense question maybe we need to have a set of guidelines of info needed in initial post.
What is your connection speed?
What services do you want to run with pfsense? (Openvpn,Snort,etc.)
Do you want to run VLANS and if so do you have hardware capable of running it?
Home use, Small Business use?
How many users?
Anyways not sure if mods want to do this and I do not mind with the help of community writing up something we can use to help people that need initial information get that and get more threads about helping with issues or special use case scenarios.
this is and always has been a problem. Does not matter if its pfsense, pcie passthrough, zfs, etc. when ever a video goes up about how great a thing is then the forums get flooded with people wanting help on that thing.
Yea i noticed with the other things like passthrough and such that this happens. Should we setup some sticky posts in each community with the specific issue that comes up alot and keep it updated so we can keep thread post to specific issues and or use case scenarios?
not really a options since everybody will have a different use case on different hardware running different operating systems and etc.
hmmm well i guess your right. I t could be done but would probably be pretty lengthy.
Generally speaking people tend to ignore sticky posts when they have an issue and will make a new topic instead of reading through a load of text to maybe find the answer they are looking for, this is a forum for discussion and they usually require specific advice for the particular setup and directly asking in a new topic in most cases is the path of least resistance for them to do it.
This isn't really a bad thing, it can just get a bit overwhelming in instances when a video is released about new topic and the community wants to explore it, this is really what its all about. @wendell always mentions in his videos that people should come to the forums and ask for help if they need it and that is exactly what they are doing.
I would be so inclined to have a forum dedicated to help-desk things, while a separate forum dedicated for the other forum material.
Likewise 'annoyed' of seeing the same question asked. Blocking 'help-desk' tag feels more like a stopgap solution.
We really need 3 separate things: Forum, help-desk, wiki.
People on the forum can contribute to the wiki, people on the help-desk can reference the wiki, and people on the help-desk have a more direct route to getting issues resolved.
i feel we need to keep the help-desk/help-me stuff separate from the forum, because people come here to see interesting projects. If they see a bunch of help threads they either mute them or ignore them and this leads to people needing help being buried and forgotten.
Well I am willing to help with wiki or however we would like to proceed albeit the mods are cool with going this route.
This is fine, but if most of the traffic for the forum if for helpdesk stuff then why doesn't this just become that? It would be far more effective. I feel that this makes people like this place is just a help forum and not someplace they can share content and be creative. Which is why there are certain corners (megathreads), where people actually share interesting stuff.
I'm not sure if you remember, but at one time we had many sticky posts and it encumbered users from reading threads; especially those on mobile.
If we have too many threads pinned, it hinders the user experience.
Well maybe just one general sticky thread that has general info and points to our community wiki for more in depth information. I am with you on not having a sticky post for every small question that is asked but PFSense info could probably fit into one. Also in this sticky post encourage people to ask questions once they have read sticky. I do not want to turn people away by saying we will not answer these questions but maybe it will be worth a shot and help reduce these questions. If it does not delete sticky post and go back to our old ways. This could be done for passthrough also which would be probably short and sweet and point to our wiki or community blogs/articles/etc for more info. I would also like to see people search and find the info they need instead of asking the same old question that we have already answered 10 times in two weeks. I have been at fault of this also by just being frustrated or bored and asking a question and someone here or another forum basically as polite as they can tell me we already covered this read here. Anyways just trying to get a feel for if this is something we want to all want or not and in the end I assume @wendell @Eden and other mods decision.