Allow Users to Collaborate on Knowledge Base Documents

[daredogg]

There's a great resource on Community that I think can be better utilized to share how-to information with new and existing PM customers. It's the Knowledge Base.

My idea is as follows... Allow community members to assist PM in developing better and new KB documents. Recently we've seen a lot of users wanting to better help by posting step-by-step or how-to informational content. @alexzxn @bryanbreguet @ute1978 @neilselden @makkahn28 have all contributed to this in the last two weeks, and others I probably missed (sorry about that!).

It would be great if the KB could work like Public Lab in that an idea can be posted and have users collaborate on it. In this "development stage", PM staff or the Oracles would post a topic like DRAFT – Provincial Calling Collaboration and then we can all contribute information, graphics, charts, etc. to work TOGETHER in developing content.

If you've sifted through the Community, you'll notice that former PM employees @Lachlan_M,  @Mansi_G, @Mat_F and @Moid_I have all posted how-to documents, and more recently you'll find posts from @Jeremy_M, @Val_T and others. These posts are great, but some of them are now outdated and could use an update (or a refresher at least). I'm sure PM would do it themselves, but they seem a little too busy bringing us great plans and add-ons! 

I would suggest the following... 

- Only registered users can contribute the content (no guest allowed)

- Only PM staff or the Oracles can post new KB documents to collaborate on

- Collaboration time can be limited to say a month

Once the collaboration period is over, PM can then review and put together the final KB document to be posted, changing the title to something like, How Does Provincial Calling Work Anyway? (as per our example). Graphics, formatting and the writing need to be consistent in the PM style. As much as I applaud others for getting the information out there, some of the graphics are difficult to read and are just ugly (sorry, but I'm a graphic artist).

So, PM, what do you think? Will you let your users help you get more useful content on the Community? Help us help you!

[jun3280]

I agree with this completely.  For someone brand new to the service, it would be nice to have a single source to get started.  Look in one spot for a guide that provide's prospective customers/users with 90% of the information they need.  Any supplemental/useful information can be linked from this one spot. The goal is to make the transition as easy as possible, and having to search through forums can be daunting.  I'm of the opinion screenshot explanations are the best to avoid ambiguity.  

The Knowledge Base is good - but there have been contributions from forum members that go one step further into providing answers to common questions.

The thought of self serve, with non-realtime support can be a bit daunting for many.  The forum can probably be simplified to be : Setup, Support, Suggestions, Announcements

[Brooke_C]

Hey @daredogg,

This is a great idea, and you are right when you said that we would do this ourselves, but that we have been so busy that we just haven't gotten around to it. Stay tuned for an update on when the change will take place and how it will work!

[daredogg]

Yay!! @Brooke_C This is great to hear! Now that you've added a few more oracles, for sure we have people wanting to help author some KB documents.