Need some input ---

[Brandon Martus]

When a white paper is updated -- the old one is taken offline, and a whole new file & record is put up in its place. Now, with the new discussion link, there will be an abandoned thread...

What I want to know is, should the association be updated.. so the new paper points to the old papers discussion? Or should the new paper have its own new discussion, and the old discussion be removed? Or -- should the new paper have its own discussion, but the old discussion is left there, without a paper to reference?

Neeeeeeeeeeed input........

[rbayer]

Could you create a new thread with the first post being a link to the old one? At least for me, one of the biggest things discussed is bugs, which should be fixed in the new version. However, some people also ask more general questions that should be preserved.

--Rob

[Tom Schindler]

Any way you could have the auto-generated thread when the person clicks the "start discussion" button inlcude a link to the previous thread..... so it would say, "this is a new version of the white paper, but there is past discussion here: (link)"

Tom

[Brandon Martus]

After thinking about it, I think the best option is going to be to keep the thread for the old white paper, and associate it with the new updated white paper.

I could possibly add a 'This paper has been updated' post in the thread. Hmm..........

[Jack]

This is just a thought. If you are going to be using the 'extra discuession' forum for all this stuff, it might be get a little of a mess. Mabey have the white papers go into a seperate forum. Also, will the 'click here to continue' only be in the Q&A forum? I have a feeling that someone will ask a question, a 'Q&A Answerer' will respond, but then people will click the continue link so that they can put in their answer. I'm just a little worried that it will be like putting half of the current Tech. forums into one forum. (100's of new topics every day) Yes, you could moderate it, but it would be very hard with all of them. Mabey you could have it so that the 'continue' link would add the topic to one of the current tech. forum. (of coures, the one that the topic applys to) (Yes, i know. You're yelling at me right now ) I really wouldn't know how to do it except for having the 'Q&A Answerer' that replys select where the 'continue' discuession would go if one were to occure. Have fun

[Joel J]

Originally posted by Brandon Martus
After thinking about it, I think the best option is going to be to keep the thread for the old white paper, and associate it with the new updated white paper.

I could possibly add a 'This paper has been updated' post in the thread. Hmm..........

In the first post, you could have links to the postid of the first post after each update or to the post in which you state it has been updated to blahblah. For example:
-------------------------------------
Thread created automatically to discuss a Whitepaper.

RoboTools 1.07

Updated: Jump to posts created after version 1.07 release [10/30/02]
Updated: Jump to posts created after version 1.06 release [10/19/02]
Updated: Jump to posts created after version 1.05 release [10/16/02]
Updated: Jump to posts created after version 1.04 release [10/13/02]
Updated: Jump to posts created after version 1.03 release [10/02/02]
Updated: Jump to posts created after version 1.02 release [9/29/02]
-------------------------------------

Sound about right? Of course you'd have to worry about post referencing in the event a post gets deleted, but that "aint nothing but a *thang*" because you could set the system up in such a way that the first post after a whitepaper gets updated is the bot telling everyone that the whitepaper is updated... no referencing problems, unless the bot says something inappropriate

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by Jack
This is just a thought. If you are going to be using the 'extra discuession' forum for all this stuff, it might be get a little of a mess. Mabey have the white papers go into a seperate forum. Also, will the 'click here to continue' only be in the Q&A forum? I have a feeling that someone will ask a question, a 'Q&A Answerer' will respond, but then people will click the continue link so that they can put in their answer. I'm just a little worried that it will be like putting half of the current Tech. forums into one forum. (100's of new topics every day) Yes, you could moderate it, but it would be very hard with all of them. Mabey you could have it so that the 'continue' link would add the topic to one of the current tech. forum. (of coures, the one that the topic applys to) (Yes, i know. You're yelling at me right now ) I really wouldn't know how to do it except for having the 'Q&A Answerer' that replys select where the 'continue' discuession would go if one were to occure. Have fun

The Q&A 'continue discussion' link currently takes you to a confirm page, as do all extra discussion links. Soon, I will have it ask the first person which forum the thread should be posted in, so there arent 100's of threads in the Extra Discussion forum. I just wanted a place to dump the other threads that wouldn't be browsed much (ie: white papers, pictures, etc).

So -- hooray for flowcharts.

                             (if no thread exists) -> [choose forum] -> [reply]
[paper] -> [click discuss] < 
                             (if thread exists) -> [reply]

I thought about having the Q&A Answerer choose where the discussion would go -- but that was too much like work. The flow chart above wasn't an idea until people started making tons of new discussion links by accident... i had to put in a confirm page. And just a few minutes ago, I realized that the confirm page would be a perfect place to choose a new forum, if they were making a Q&A discussion thread. So...thanks for indirectly sparking an idea

[Greg Ross]

Hey Jack,

I understand you are not a good speller, but please use the *NEW!* spell checker. It would sure help the rest of us a lot -- and you just might learn to spell better!

[Jack]

Originally posted by gwross
Hey Jack,

I understand you are not a good speller, but please use the *NEW!* spell checker. It would sure help the rest of us a lot -- and you just might learn to spell better!

Ya. Sorry. I try to run most of my posts though MS Word (which, I sort of prefer over the CD spell checker ) But, at 12:00 AM, I was just a little too lazy. Also, I'll have to say really didn't explain myself very well, but I think that brandon got the idea.

And to Brandon, sounds like a good idea!