More Categories?

[wagley 2 10-18]

Hi all,

Are you finding the categories in the HP-UX Forum useful and does it reduce the amount of time you spend searching for a topic? Also, do you think the categories are too broad? For example, should System Admin. have sub-categories? If so, what would you like to see under System Admin?

I'm interested in hearing your suggestions, please reply to this message in the forum or send feedback via the forums home page.

Kind regards,

Shayne
ITRC Forum Administrator
Hewlett-Packard

[Dhanesh Patel]

Hi,

A search facility would be really useful for us newbies who need to look through all the older messages/replies.

[Andreas Voss]

Hi,

as Dhanesh says i would agree that a search facility would be a great benefit for the forums.
Another topic category in my thought would be "System Recovery" for system panics/crashes and IgniteUX.
Also it would be a fine topic "Kernel tuning" because it's very useful to collect system kernel parameter issues in one category.

A nice thing would be a counter at the individual member page to see how often someone has posted replies (just for self statistic purposes).

Greetings

Andrew

[Andreas Voss]

Hi,

i've forgotten something:

i think it would be useful, that the toggle button for "Email Notification: emails sent to you whenever someone replies" should be default ON.

[wagley 2 10-18]

Hi Dhanesh,

In response to your reply,

"A search facility would be really useful for us newbies who need to look through all the older messages/replies."

Do you use the 'Search' button on the left-hand sidebar?

1. Go to Search on the left-hand sidebar
2. Choose 'Search the Forums' from the search type pull-down menu.
3. Choose a search category from the pull-down window (MPE-iX, HP-UX, etc.)
4. Enter keywords or phrases

Please let me know if you were aware that you could search the forums by using the Search button on the left-hand sidebar. If this doesn't meet your needs, please let me know how you would implement your own search mechanism.

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

Shayne,

I think that although many of us know of the Search button on the Left side of the Page, that is would be MORE useful to have a Search Button next to the New Message Button.

This search button would default to performing a search in the current group which is already selected in the Forum. But, you shoul also allow that the search examine all of the Forum Groups.

Placing the Search button next to the New Message Button, would pprobably help users locate more answers from previous posters.

Just my two cents worth.

Have a Great Day!

[Midrange Team]

As an emerging tecnology a Storage Area Network Category would be nice.
Thanks...

[Dave Wherry]

One thing that I think would be very helpful is to retain the original posting date. Each time a reply is posted the date changes. If I'm looking for something I know was posted two weeks ago, but, someone replied yesterday, the date is changed and I can't find what I'm looking for.

[Tim Malnati]

The Search tab on the left column looks just like the search tab on all HP pages. The problem here is that in most cases that it means a global search of all of HP instead of the site that a user is actively in. I thought the same was true here until one day that it searched the forums when I was actually attempting to perform a global HP search.

My suggestion is that you place two search tabs in this location; one 'Search HP' and the other 'Search Forums'.

[Tim Malnati]

After thinking about this topic a bit longer, I've come up with a few things that would be very helpful. I know that it may not answer the question of more or less sub areas specifically, but your message tends to suggest that you would like to see some improvement suggestion feedback... so here goes...

When posting a reply to a post, the original post and the other replys to it are not there as a reference. It's particularly important when the original post has many aspects to be addressed or specific technical details are important (like a command string). There are a couple of ways you could implement this. You could either tack on all the previous corresondence on the bottom of the reply page, or you could spawn off a separate window for the reply (better from a network traffic point of view). Extra credit item: let the users select the method they prefer within their profile. Spawing a new window to a post thread from the message list screen would be helpful too for us that have to live on a 56K connection.

Many of us in the computer industry would be living in a homeless shelter if our salaries were directly proportional to our ability to spell correctly. A method of performing a spell check in the reply form window frame would be a godsend.

Sometimes I like to keep a copy of the information discussed in a thread local on my pc. I may not be working with the topic being discussed at the moment, but I know that next week I will be (for example). Sure I could do a 'Save as' from the browser, but this saves along with it a lot unnecessary junk too. A button that would email me the meat and potatoes of the thread would do the trick. Sometimes there is another member of the SA staff that I know is having trouble with a topic that's being discussed. Being able to email the thread to them as an option would be a nice touch (and hopefully spur their interest in this forum).

Navigating back to threads that you have participated in can be painful. I'm familiar with the last 5 listing in your point status screen, but this is far from adequate (particularly for frequent contributors). I know that what I'm suggesting here can be a bit disk hungry but I bet it's a better trade off than having me use the search engine instead.

Along the same lines... It would be helpful to be notified if any pending messages are out there to a thread that I have started. An intermediate screen right after login would be best and possibly a tab on the left to recall it anytime. The current email option is helpful, but we all know the problems out there in the email world (slow, lost, etc). This would really help out with the points thing as well. The best trigger for this would be any messages that have not received a points acknowledgement.

I'm sure I can come up with more, but this should keep your plate full for now...