Tips for using the debianHELP web site
How you use the web site depends on what you're here for. There are basically 3 "modes" in which people use this web site:
1) Do you have a problem and need assistance?
If so, the single biggest tip is to use the site's search function! There are good odds that your issue has been already dealt with. If so, doing a search and finding the existing answer will be much faster than asking a question and waiting for someone else to help you.
Of course, to create content/post things on the site and to fully participate, you'll need to create an account and then log in. (See the Drupal user's manual for more info.)
But before you post a question, think about your question and make sure you ask a smart question. If you do, you'll be helping yourself and everyone else.
2) Feeling isolated and want to hang out with some GNU people?
Well then yeah, we can sympathize. We know what it's like to be isolated in a place with only Windows users and/or people that think that "free software" are the AOL CDs that arrive in the mail -- you've come to the right place!
You'll find that the site includes a few ways to interact with other users on the site. Our forums specifically include non-technical areas. The site also has a blog ability for you to write your own thoughts and for others to comment. We're a fairly laid-back bunch, so just explore and enjoy!
3) Do you have some useful information that you want to share?
If so, bless you!
The site's content creators -- whether someone answering a forum post, someone posting a story, or someone writing a mini-HOW-TO or book -- are the people that make the whole site function and are critical components to the overall our community.
This page is meant to give a bit of a conceptual overview of this web site and to highlight some of its differences compared to many web sites. If you were around with our old debianHELP site, that site was primarily a Q&A help forum -- basically a forum with some frills.
Content
This site may seem similar to our old site but it isn't. The focus on this site is not a forum -- the primary focus is on content.
Content is anything written/submitted by you or I or other users. Content could be an entire book or a book page. Content could be a blog entry. Content could be a story intended for the front page. Content could be an image uploaded, either into a photo gallery or a graphic used to illustrate a web page you created. And content could be you creating a new forum topic.
All of the above are examples of content and all are viewed the same way by the web site -- they're just content of different types.
Comments
Any and every piece of content can have zero, one, or more comments attached to it. This is a key point. You can comment on any book or web page just like you can comment on a forum topic or even an uploaded image/graphic.
Now bear with me, but I want to make sure you grok this point to realize the difference between this site and many others.
Since we have many different types of content and each piece of content can have conversational threads of comments attached to the content, there's no telling where conversations will pop up.
You'd expect to have meandering conversations in the comments attached to forum topics -- that's only logical.
But let's imagine you created a HOW-TO web page about recompiling your Debian kernel. You might have conversations attached to that web page. Hopefully those conversations will be focused on the topic of your page, but they could be conversations nonetheless.
Now imagine conversations attached to images or blog entries -- the old (and frankly more restrictive) idea of conversations only in the forums is blown out of the water.
Organization
With many sites seeing what is happening is easy -- you look at the forums and you look on the front page.
With debianHELP's decentralized layout and the ability to attach comments to any content, it makes the process of seeing what is happening more difficult.
To make this easier, there are two blocks on the front page:
· One displays recent new content -- any and all types of content.
· The other displays new comments -- comments attached to any and all types of content.
Since the key focus of the site is content, you'll also want to make extensive use of the site's tracker. You'll see the tracker listed above left in the menu as recent posts -- people posting new content.
The site's front/home page is actually pretty simple.
Aside: Simplicity is a key goal of this site. The site aims to avoid the heavy use of graphics both for speed and to keep the site clean. Rather than force many items onto massive web pages the site tries to keep pages uncluttered -- thereby simplifying things.
Think of the front page as having four sections:
• On the left side are a column of menu links and boxes. While some of these boxes may change when you go to different parts of the site, this column provides basic navigation.
• Two boxes near the middle of the page -- Recent content and Recent comments -- show just that: a limited, quick glimpse of what's new on the site. These content/comments boxes do not include data from the forums.
• Below the two boxes are summaries of forum content.
• And finally, front page content. These items are typically submitted as a "story" content type. But any content can be promoted to the front page.
When creating content (of any type) you may see an option for "Publishing options" just above the Preview/Submit button. (If you do not see the "Publishing options", that just means that option is using default publishing options.)
If you do have access to the publishing options, one of the items will be a "Promoted to front page" checkbox. Checking that box and then submitting the content will publish the content -- but the checkbox will also cause the content to go into a moderation queue for an admin to determine whether the content will be published on the front page or not.
Warning
The debianHELP site does get quite busy sometimes. When you add to that the fact that the site is on an underpowered, overworked, lazy dog of a server, this can spell problems.
You should be aware that thanks to the free software the site runs, we have configured the site to automagically turn off site features/functions when the server gets too busy.
For example, debianHELP brings in quite a few syndicated RSS news from other web sites which are available in our news aggregator function. But guess what? If the site gets really busy we shut that feature off.
Similarly, you'll see some "blocks" on the front page disappear if the server gets too busy.
Don't worry too much about this -- the main functions of the site remain functional (though maybe a bit slower) at all times. Only the "bells and whistles" types of features are throttled off during busy periods.
Once the site goes back to a normal traffic load, those features will come back on automatically.
We get many questions about site procedures and policies, along with lots and lots of "why" and "how come" questions about the site. This path of this book will answer some of those Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
If you have some question that you think belongs in this FAQ, just leave it as a comment to this page. The admin will then either answer it and add it to the FAQ or delete it.
To find content you have created -- anything from web pages to your participation in various forums -- do this:
1) Click on the "My Account" link, either in the menu to the left or in the bar at the top of the web page.
2) Then click on the "Track" tab.
When viewing the track tab you may think that it is also showing other people's content; not true. If you posted a comment to someone's forum topic or content, this will be listed as the original forum topic or content, not merely as your comment. This is done to make it easier for you to locate a specific topic item you might be thinking of.
This software powering this site is the Drupal content management system (CMS). It is free software licensed under the GNU GPL.
A Drupal user's manual is also available.
You don't know what a Zorkmid is?! This link will give you some background and history on the word.
Zorkmids are the site's currency.
You can earn zorkmids mainly by creating content. Some content created will earn you more zorkmids than other types of content.
The main purpose of zorkmids is to collect them and to show off how helpful you are and what an asset you are to the debianHELP community.
However, with that said I'm brainstorming ways to allow you to spend your zorkmids. That way you'll go broke and will have an incentive to earn more -- just like a real economy. :-)
Privacy policy?! Privacy on the Internet?!?!
The year is 2000-and-what? We're way past 1984 if that hasn't dawned on you. Big brother is here -- and you're just wrong if you're not bitching about it constantly to your gov't representitives.
The fact is that many governments monitor the Internet. Just what we know publicly about the US government's monitoring of the Internet should make your toes curl and renders this site's privacy policy as next to worthless.
But hey, I'll answer the question.
Here's the deal:
We need you to use cookies for login/customization purposes. Those cookies do not get sent to third parties, nor are they used by us to track your movements on the Internet nor to otherwise violate your privacy.
Any personal information stays with debianHELP and only debianHELP -- we don't sell or give away information on you.
If police show up and want information on you from this web site I will politely tell them to go piss up a rope and refuse to provide any information. I'll continue to tell them to piss up a rope right up to the time that they produce a valid court order. They'll then get your information because I'm not about to go to jail for you.
But be advised: If you post messages into the Imported debian.org Mailing Lists forums, that message will be sent out to the mailing list using the "from" address for the e-mail as the same e-mail address as you used on the web site here.
There are two possible reasons why blocks on the site will change and/or disappear:
1) Some blocks are area-specific. For example, when you enter the forums the left column of blocks will display a block containing recent/new forum topics. This block is only displayed while in the forums.
2) If the web server gets too busy, some blocks (and even some minor site features) will turn themselves off to save memory and CPU power for more essential parts of the web site. These blocks/features will turn themselves back on once the server is not so busy.
There are actually a couple of reasons.
First and foremost was the speed/system load/efficiency of the old software.
Add to that the fact that the new Drupal software had a wider range of features that would be useful on debianHELP, and that sealed it.
Of course, the idea of playing with a new toy never entered into the decision -- I swear.
Note that most of the old forum posts and articles were not moved over with the software switch; there are two reasons for this. The first is sheer laziness. Converting the data between sites could've been done, but it would not have been smooth and would have meant doing some kludges. I don't like kludges.
But more important was a licensing issue. About six years ago a decision was made to have posts to debianHELP made under the GNU Free Documentation License. Some people took great offense at that, especially when Debian's legal group declared the license to be non-free. (Note: This site is not an official part of Debian.)
With the site change a decision was made to have all content licensed under the Creative Commons License, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Thus, the license for the old content cannot be changed by anyone except the person who created it. Sure, I could've closed my eyes and just converted it and probably no one would have cared; but that's shady.
So those two factors -- laziness and the license -- equalled leaving the old content where it was. We link to the old web site in an archived state so the content can be searched. And if you have content in the old site that you created that you think will help others, please feel free to copy it to this new site. Since you're the copyright holder, you can do that.
The single best way to learn about creating content is to "just do it". Experiment and check things out. But while experimenting, please remember this: since you created the content you can also delete it. If you create some "test" content remember to delete those tests so I don't have to.
Right now, not only you are learning this new site but so am I. There's a huge difference between doing a prototype site with test users and doing debianHELP live with thousands of real users.
With that in mind, your options to create content may change as I define new roles for users and try to put as much responsibility and management for content as possible into the hands of users.
add more...
- add a verbose page w/screenshots for each content type.
Okay, you've already heard the tip about using the search function to see if someone else has already answered your question, cool -- please remember it.
add tips...