TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: WIKI to produce customer documentation From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- oddpost -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:39:06 -0800 (PST)
A wiki might be possiblek in this context; however, it would take continuous monitoring by someone to eliminate the "edits" that are misleading or inaccurate...and what happens to the material in the interim?
It could be that someone in Cheryl's company has seen this tool on the Web somewhere and became excited about its possibilities. However, if your product can be misused, the material which "appears" from the clueless may open your company to liability for innocent misuse of the product following the contents of the wiki at any given time.
It should be relatively easy, however, to produce a modified HTML site with the present information on it but with customer message-entry fields on each page. That way, you could have a reasonable degree of interactivity and fast feedback without having customers able to directly modify the primary information.
In addition, each section of the document could be allocated to one or more individuals, who would receive the messages as email from the relevant portions of your help website.
If I were to implement such a system, I would probably host it on a Zope site or comparable, with the built-in content management capabilities in place. That would also allow you to easily roll out a discussion group for users that would allow them to compare notes and get even more interaction with the documentation people and the developers when and as necessary.
David
-----Original Message from Steven Jong <SteveFJong -at- comcast -dot- net>-----
The company that Cheryl Webber <CWebber -at- seagull -dot- nl> works at is
thinking of using a WIKI methodology for documentation. Disclaimer: I
haven't worked with WIKI, so it sounds fascinating. I'm sure we'd all
like to hear how it goes...
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
