| Author | Message | ||
     Blake |
Let's please try to avoid filling up the topic list here with tech related stuff that would be appropriate for the Knowledge Vault. If you don't already, please try using the "New Messages..." search utility to browse the board. The KV stuff appears up top/first in the list when you do that. I'd sure appreciate it.  Thanks, Blake (your friendly BadWeB custodian) | ||
| Blake |
If you see me posting a lone "172689" to a topic, that is a marker for me to find and eventually move that thread to its applicable KV topic. It would be wonderful if y'all could help me avoid that time consuming scenario. Thanks again, Blake | ||
| Shortie |
Constructive comment as a newbie Blake. The knowledge vault takes a bit of a trawl to find stuff and as most interested XB riders seem to frequent this part of the board answers to questions take time. No one's answered any of my questions on the KV board yet.  Isn't just a fact of these boards that the same question is likely to be asked a gazillion times? | ||
| Blake |
Am waiting for the constructive part.  | ||
| Blake |
Sheesh, you have one singular question just posted earlier today. I may have to send the Rocketman your way to give you a good bricking. | ||
| Shea |
Yeah, the XB board gets answers fast. BTW, I looked everywhere for a new messages function and can't find it anywhere. I looked for almost a week when I first joined, then assumed you didn't have one. | ||
| Sgthigg |
I will most definetly try to help you out I understand what you mean. It does take alot of time to keep appropriate data where it can be accesed effeciently. However when we need a answer and dont get it in the KV, here is the last resort. For example I found my answer with the vdsts in the xb board...Didnt get it in the KV at all. If you got to move my tech questions NO offense will taken. I think you are like I am and would rather see it END up there and ANSWERED so the next poor bueller can get his answer faster than me, and in the right category(KV). I love this board. It is without a doubt the best web forum I have ever been across!! Keep up the good work. Thanks (Message edited by sgthigg on March 31, 2006) | ||
| Shortie |
Actually you are right. That wasn't very constructive and I see that there is a section for improving badweb that might have been a better place to post anyway. Still I've started now... Thanks for answering the query by the way Blake  It was a little unfair to expect instant response perhaps. Kinda makes my point though that you saw and answered this first though  So a little more constructively; from my perspective I would prefer to post on the XB board that obviously gets most of the traffic and gets answers quickly (hey, i'm impatient sometimes ok? ) The Knowledge vault seems more like a great big technical library rather than something worthy of the quickest interactive chat forums. So having first looked in the KV it appears sensible to ask anything remaining unanswered on the main XB board. I doubt anyone has the time to condense advice into FAQ style text in the KV and I don't think that would be a benefit as things would get omitted. Quite happy having stuff moved from XB to KV boards once there has been a few answers like some of the others have suggested. I think questions could be asked in one of the main boards Thumper, XB etc and then transferred to the KV if it warrants being a technical reference. Maybe the original poster should have to choose a topic heading from a list of KV subjects and then after a set time on the XB board it automatically gets transferred to the correct KV section? Not sure how easy that would be to do but in the long run it would cut down your work and keep the high view rates and instantanious responses that would satisfy impatient people like me. The KV contains too many headings to browse as it stands, so someone who could post a valid comment is quite likely to miss something posted there if they just look at the XB board or other main topic during a lunch hour. Obviously it is not my board or time spent organizing things so my comments count for little but it's a really useful forum that I just find a bit daunting/infuriating/slow for finding out some things. Just too complicated a layout for a discussion forum IMHO. Not sure that is really any more constructive but my opinions appear to be shared by at least some others so I'm not ashamed to have piped up in the hope that it is considered useful. If I come across as a know it all trying to tell you how things should be done I don't mean to, so ignore me at your pleasure. I would like to echo the other comments though about good work and keeping it up too. Thanks again Shortie. | ||
| Blake |
"BTW, I looked everywhere for a new messages function and can't find it anywhere. I looked for almost a week when I first joined, then assumed you didn't have one." Click on either of the "Search" links, one atop, one at the bottom of every page. Take note of "New Messages" utility there. Thanks Jason (Sgthigg), I REALLY appreciate your help and understanding. Mark (Shortie), "Actually you are right." You are obviously oblivious to the grave risk you are taking in making such a blatantly irresponsible statement!  Quick, We need to start a new main topic, "Blake Was Right" and document this kind of wonderful stuff! I think this is like the 3rd or 4th time this month! Alas my celebration is destined to falter since, most likely, the apocalypse draws nigh. Seriously though, all in good fun, thus the " " smily. When I'm dour or serious, I'll adorn my post with the dreaded " " face. "Thanks for answering the query by the way Blake It was a little unfair to expect instant response perhaps." Kinda makes my point though that you saw and answered this first though." You are welcome. Please note that I would have likely caught your KV question and answered on my next "New Messages" queery. Was still operating off the morning's first queery executed prior to your post there, so had not yet seen it. "So a little more constructively; from my perspective I would prefer to post on the XB board that obviously gets most of the traffic and gets answers quickly (hey, i'm impatient sometimes ok? )" I understand your preference and that of others. It might be interesting to note that I currently count four tech questions on the XBoard that have no reply. I did just notice that the KV topics do not seem to be displaying the "  " markers. I think I know why and will be correcting that asap. Maybe that will be helpful to those who don't take advantage of the "New Messages" search utility. I'll also put a new messages link atop the page. Might take me a bit to do so, but I'll get it figured out and make it happen. "The Knowledge vault seems more like a great big technical library rather than something worthy of the quickest interactive chat forums. So having first looked in the KV it appears sensible to ask anything remaining unanswered on the main XB board." You are right, it isn't intended to be a chat forum. It is meant for serious discussion or inquiry about Buell related technical issues, parts, apparel, accessories, tools, and other moto-informative topics. Despite appearances, I'm pleading that all that type content be reserved for the KV. I hope the changes I'm planning will help make that more acceptable for everyone. Why am I so adamant about having all the tech stuff on the KV? To prevent the XBoard from being over-run with so many topics. When the XBoard displayed thread listing reaches 100 threads, the oldest 40 get archived. With tech threads appearing there too, sometimes that kicks in the archiving leaving only three days of active threads remaining. "I doubt anyone has the time to condense advice into FAQ style text in the KV and I don't think that would be a benefit as things would get omitted." That is a very astute observation, though it remains a lofty aspiration of mine. Most likely, I'll try to take advantage of Google, or convince the Discusware folks to provide a "by Subtopic" option for the board's built-in search utility in order to facilitate efforts to find existing information in the KV. Then ideally I'd like to offer a form driven question utility that would automatically title and appropriately place new tech related questions. It would require the person to choose at a minimum the applicable motorcycle model and year, and the applicable subsystem (engine, transmission, tire, brake, suspension, etc.). "Quite happy having stuff moved from XB to KV boards once there has been a few answers like some of the others have suggested." This might be something we'll have to live with, but if so, I need to come up with a less click-intensive method to do that. It is also a problem that when moving threads to the KV, they get placed at the bottom of the thread listings. I can probably find a way to fix that if I only knew how to program in perl/cgi. "I think questions could be asked in one of the main boards Thumper, XB etc and then transferred to the KV if it warrants being a technical reference." It is currently a lot of work to do that. Which is why I am making this plea for folks to please help me with that and simply post tech stuff to the KV to begin with. Is that really too much to ask? For those who are stubborn, maybe. I'm pretty stubborn too. Thus this thread. "Maybe the original poster should have to choose a topic heading from a list of KV subjects and then after a set time on the XB board it automatically gets transferred to the correct KV section?" That would be WAY cool! An automatic marker akin to my ham handed "172689" but more specific, relating to the applicable KV subtopic. Yep, that would be outstanding. If only I was a perl programmer. If only Reepicheep had no life/family/job. "Not sure how easy that would be to do but in the long run it would cut down your work and keep the high view rates and instantanious responses that would satisfy impatient people like me." Yes, bless you for seeing that. "The KV contains too many headings to browse as it stands, so someone who could post a valid comment is quite likely to miss something posted there if they just look at the XB board or other main topic during a lunch hour." I understand. But the XBoard on average displays double the thread headings as the KV. Might the inclusion of the " " marker help solve that issue? Better yet, use of the "New Messages" utility makes it a moot point, no? Yeah, I know, how to get everyone to use the "New Messages" utility. I'm working on that too. "Obviously it is not my board or time spent organizing things so my comments count for little but it's a really useful forum that I just find a bit daunting/infuriating/slow for finding out some things." Between the google search where you can designate specific topics and the built-in database search, I rarely require more than a few minutes to find even the most obscure information. It does take some experience and practice to get the full power of the search engines working for you. Judicious use of the various search parameter options is very helpful. In the future, we plan to add even more functionality, for instance a date capture range, rather than just a time period might be helpful; I know it will for some of my search efforts where for instance I know the post/information I am looking for was posted back in 2002, or maybe in February 2005. We'd also like to be able to combine the various options, like search for author and for certain text. I'd also like to see the ability to search for a match of all keywords within one post instead of the entire page. "Just too complicated a layout for a discussion forum IMHO." There are some things we could do to reduce the number of main KV page thread headings. For instance, right now there are multiple "Drivetrain - ..." and "Engine - ..." headings. We could simply show a single general "Drivetrain" and a single "Engine" heading that would then take you to another heading page with the various related subheadings. Do you think that would be a better format? It would reduce the number of headings by ten, over a 25% reduction (from 39 to 29). We could also move the non-tech related topics like the "Classic Buells...", "Crashes...", "My Garage" and some others somewhere else. That could reduce the heading count further to around 25 or less. But maybe the option foresaken during initial formulation of the KV format is the better choice? Follow the chapter and section format that Buell service manuals use. The Buell manuals have seven chapters as follows not including forwards and appendices: 1. Maintenance 2. Chassis 3. Engine 4. Fuel System 5. Electric Starter 6. Drive/Transmission 7. Electrical We could probably put the 18-page chapter 5, "Electric Starter" into chapter 7. Then we'd need to add all the requisite subheading pages. And, the manual doesn't cover everything, which is why I think we decided to go with the existing KV format. But there is always room for improvement. "Not sure that is really any more constructive but my opinions appear to be shared by at least some others so I'm not ashamed to have piped up in the hope that it is considered useful. If I come across as a know it all trying to tell you how things should be done I don't mean to, so ignore me at your pleasure." Not at all. I appreciate the dialogue as it helps all the custodians understand the user issues and to better formulate a more optimum user-friendly BadWeB. I kinda enjoy working on this kind of stuff. Time and ignorance are the only problems.  "I would like to echo the other comments though about good work and keeping it up too." Mucho gracias amigo. That took a lot of thoughtful authorship on your part and I appreciate it. I'm thankful for all the great contributions by so many here. it is amazing that after eight years, the place still holds my interest, more so than ever in some respects. (Message edited by blake on March 31, 2006) | ||
| Rocketman |
What year was that brick throwing pic eh? I must have a strong right arm as it's not landed yet. I do hear it's on this side of Mars now though!  Rocket | ||
| Skyguy |
Blake, How about adding a XB specific knowlage vault? I have looked up a topic before and found myself thinking I was reading and XB topic only to find out it was a tuber I was reading about. regards | ||
| Shortie |
 That's a very comprehensive response Blake. You have obviously thought a great deal about how it works and how this could / should evolve. Reducing the multiple engine subheadings in the KV is a sound idea. Pretty much what I was thinking as 10 or something like that would probably be optimum I seem to remember from basic lessons in "how to structure a web site". The Buell manual chapter idea sounds just as good though. Must go food is on the table but I'll be back and make better use of the search facility next time  | ||
| Ronlv |
this topic has been beat to death before, but the powers to be doesnt agree we all know if you want and answer you post it here and if you dont you post in the knowlege vault this power trip is why i havent posted here in months | ||
| Jak |
Blake- I'm a big fan of your site. I will agree with the others in that it seems to take longer, how long just depends, to receive answers back in the area outside of the "XB" forum. I also hang out at chevyavalanchefanclub.com and I like the way they have separated the different subjects. You might take a look and see if there are any ideas that could cross over to this site. My two cents. | ||
| Blake |
I'd take a look and thank you for the thoughtful suggestion Jak, but apparently I'm on a power trip, so I may have to get back to you later. People sure are funny. | ||
| Blake |
Thankfully that was a quick trip. I like the look of that site. Beyond that I'm not seeing anything much different in the forum organization, or anything that impresses me as better than what we have here. Can you clue me in on what you like in its organization better than how BadWeB is layed out? Do you prefer more main topics like they have, 29 in all, or are you seeing the preferrable archiving method where archived pages merely show up as little numeric links rather than our clunky subtopic/date formatted versions. If that is it, I couldn't agree more strongly. We're looking to adopt that more efficient format with the next version of the Discus software. If it doesn't happen soon, we may switch to another forum platform entirely. | ||
| Blake |
Hey Ron, are you really serious about not posting here in months because you disagree with my plea for folks to post tech content to the KV? Really?  So you can see no validity in my reasoning, or | ||
| Josh_ |
Maybe put people in charge of different sections (like the mods) and make it there responsibility to copy relevent threads to the KV? no I'm not voluntering | ||
| Blake |
"no I'm not voluntering" ... he adds hastily. | ||
| Ronlv |
blake, yes i have been posting at other buell sites no not just because of this issue but it does get old to here you come on just to tell people were to post i have come to terms with, it is yours and you are going to run it your way its just sad that we cant freely share with each other without you correcting us i havent had problems with any mods on any other sites (just something to make you go hmmmm) | ||
| M1combat |
"i havent had problems with any mods on any other sites (just something to make you go hmmmm)" And which site exactly offers the best knowledge, wisdom and quality? Hmmmm indeed... | ||
| Skyguy |
Argh! Just did it again. I was looking at the steering head thread on the tech section and after reading all the stuff about the front isolator issue I discovered it was for a model other than my own. I go to the XB board to read about XB specific items in an attempt to cram as much knowlage about my bike into my tiny brain as possible. The problem is that I retain to much of what I read and it only leads to confusion to read about issues with other Buell models. I bet I am not alone in this. Love the board and do my best to make it easy for ya Blake but us XBers need a little spot of our own! Okay maybe only I do............. Anyone know the difference between and Admin and God? God does not think he is an admin! No offense intended Blake just messing around.  | ||
| Adrenaline_junkie |
I'm going to agree with skyguy on this issue. I think the KV should be broken into groups (i.e. XB, Tuber, Blast) or several sections inside each of the boards. (A knowledge vault inside the XB board and another one inside the Thumper board, etc.) On the other hand, I guess I don't see the problem with posting everything XB related in the XB board. That way, anything I want to know about XBs is one search of the XB board away. I will admit that I haven't been computer savy since pre Windows, and I wasn't that savy then, so maybe putting it all on one Board is creating some file issues I don't grasp. I know you have a tough job Blake, just wondering if you are making it harder than it needs to be. | ||
| Blake |
Ron, Welcome back then. I obviously underestimated unbearable irritation that I would cause some folks by asking them to please post tech content to the KV. Hope I didn't alienate too many others like I did you. I'll try not to nag you too much. Just one small little favor to ask if you don't mind: Would you please help me out and please post tech content to the applicable KV topic? Sky, I appreciate the levity. But I shall still smite you. Rou (Adrenaline Junkie), Making things hard for myself? No doubt!  There certainly is validity to the thinking that separate Knowledge Vaults might be the better way to go. Where would we best draw the line between the various KVs? Do we include all XBs or separate just the Uly, or separate all the basic models? Would that configuration help convince folks to post in the applicable KV topic? I'm doubtful. I think it would make it tough for our many gracious resident answer givers to cover all the bases. And really, aren't many issues still common to all Buell motorcycles? While I empathize with and understand Skyguy's issue with the current KV; is it the reason that folks don't post in the KV? The idea at one time was that folks would include the model and year of their Buell in their KV thread titles. Too much to ask? Yes, obviously so. Thus the idea to implement a form-based input for KV thread titles/subtopics. That'll solve the issue of mistaken model applicability. Thanks Don! | ||
| Jak |
After a little consideration I think having different subject groups for each model would work better. At the Avalanche site there is only one model, here we have a variety of models. If there was a specific place within the "XB" area for tires, engine mods, lighting, etc., I think that more people would post in the relevant areas. | ||
| Thansesxb9rs |
I don't think I have ever looked in the KV once. If I don't get an answer here on the XB I just make a few calls to some people that are in the know and buy some beers. But as good of an idea as the KV is, no one really looks at it. Just seems easier to post up in the XB to find your answer. | ||
| Thansesxb9rs |
Oh ya guys don't let Blake scare you away, he is only tough online, in person he is a really nice guy. | ||
| Ducxl |
Well i haven't but,i'll look at the uhh..."KV"? that said i value badweb greatly for the large amount of knowledgeable posters.Tramp.....,who first informed me of this board over on ATC called this one a "high hitting" board.And when i'm stuck,confused,frustrated,at the end of my rope/w a mechanical Buell dilema,i'd wish to converse with the knowledgeable folks here who could set me straight and ease my mechanical pains.Just my opinion,but i'l try to abide by the rules...oops! updated...the "kv" is very informative.I NEVER looked at it,but it still lacks a little "in the moment" conversation. (Message edited by ducxl on April 01, 2006) |
