RE: RTFM? (Full Version)

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DWReese -> RE: RTFM? (3/25/2018 9:29:03 PM)

Hahahha

"Aim for the notch. Aim for the notch, damn it."

Doug



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/25/2018 10:02:09 PM)

Hehe! I always reckoned it was a North marker, as it always appeared in the same place no matter your orientation or activity.

So that should maybe become the official version - "it's a feature, not a bug!"



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 9:27:00 PM)

You guys want a perfect example of what I am talking about...

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4458225&mpage=1&key=�

1) He asks questions he should know from some very basic looking at the manual or the forum
2) He has never responded to a single person helping him
3) He asks the same question multiple times
4) He is clogging up a forum. He is literally dominating that forum.

5-6 people have stepped up to help him. Does anyone think he is just wasting people's time? People want to help him, that's fine. But how long before frustration sets in on both sides. This started a couple months ago and I have just been watching to see what happens. You can build a 2000 page manual with 8-1/2 x 10 color glossies, detailed tutorials, and step-by-step videos, but I doubt it will help this guy.

About 75% of the threads in that forum have been started by this guy and he has not responded to one of them. I am beginning to think this is one of those guys who comes in just to stir things up. He is either a sock puppet, or has no self awareness.

This doesn't mean that improving documentation isn't warranted, but it is not going to solve that guy's problem. And that is the one I focus on.




guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:02:01 PM)

Sure, but I'm pretty sure the OP was asking for ideas that would better reach most newbies. There will always be outliers. I suggest an attitude of "meh".



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:23:39 PM)

And my point exactly is the outliers. All people ever think is we attack new players with questions. Its exactly guys like this one. There have been dozens of guys exactly like this one. There is no need to clog up a forum like that. If this was the main forum, I would have stepped in a lot earlier. But most activity that forum has seen in a year.

Do you think that is appropriate behavior for someone looking for help? I am very suspect of his true intentions based on to ever responding to anyone helping.



BDukes -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:33:40 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1

And my point exactly is the outliers. All people ever think is we attack new players with questions. Its exactly guys like this one. There have been dozens of guys exactly like this one. There is no need to clog up a forum like that. If this was the main forum, I would have stepped in a lot earlier. But most activity that forum has seen in a year.

Do you think that is appropriate behavior for someone looking for help? I am very suspect of his true intentions based on to ever responding to anyone helping.


Ughh! Another guy you have problem at. Yes there is conspiracy to ask question on forum. You do know you can not read or respond and life go on? [:D]

Forum needs to be nice place for everybody. Not just peoples that trigger Wood paranoid thought. Again support forum is for question.What is problem?

Thank!



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:36:59 PM)

Still hovering around a 20% error rate. I was hoping to see some continuous improvement.

btw, being the white knight for that particular guy is not going to get you much support around here.



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:40:24 PM)

Maybe the message is getting through over on that forum. He replied to his first thread in three months.



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:44:25 PM)

Perhaps the success of improving the learning resources is to minimise the number of outliers. If a certain amount of hand-holding is built into the tutorials, then many of these obvious (to you and me) steps will be covered for those who don't see them as obvious.

That also show that perhaps there should be a split approach - a learning track for absolute beginners, which includes all that hand-holding, and a briefer track for military geeks, who can happily skip much of it.

There are two main objectives here; learning the mechanics (menus, actions, info, etc), which we all have to do, and learning how air/naval warfare is prosecuted, which the geeks will know already. Or at least parts thereof.

So does that give us 2 separate parts?

1) Hand-holding tutorials teaching basics of warfare AND mechanics of game.
2) Game mechanics tutorials for those who already understand warfare.

Both should teach players how to use the database and manual, and encourage their use.



BDukes -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:45:57 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Still hovering around a 20% error rate. I was hoping to see some continuous improvement.

btw, being the white knight for that particular guy is not going to get you much support around here.


Being paranoid all this time is not going to get you much support around here.[8D]

Here is song for you. Be Happy! Enjoy game not user squash.[sm=love0059.gif]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 10:52:31 PM)

Only if they are willing to use what they have. You keep talking about outliers. The gentleman we are talking about is exactly that. And those are the ones I am concerned with. Do you think that guy would have used any of the old or new documentation? It is not going to decrease the outliers. It will help others struggling with how to play, but the people I am talking about will continue on blissfully as before.



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/26/2018 11:14:00 PM)

Well, maybe. Or it could be that the questions asked by outliers tell us exactly what should be covered in the hand-holding guide.

Now, I think it's unrealistic to have a hand-holding guide for the whole of the game, so I've refined the idea a little:

1) Hand-holding guide up to a point A.
2) Mechanics guide up to point A.
3) Mechanics guide from point A onwards.

Where should that point A be? Something to figure out. The idea is that if you've reached point A, you're now able to use the manual, database and internet as references, so can learn the rest of the game the same way the geeks do.



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:03:28 AM)

And my point is not to use those outliers as the measuring stick. Its the 80/20 rule. Really look at all of that guy's posts. Not until today has he responded in three months to queries about what he is actually trying to do. Where do you think you are going to start with someone like that.



kevinkins -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:17:58 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: apache85

I recently asked a question to a closed group of ‘power users’ and got some interesting answers. I’d really like to open this question up, and I would encourage everyone (brand new, lurker, poster, veteran) to respond.

What kind of learning resources would you like to see in CMANO? Would you prefer written (the manual), hands-on (tutorial scenarios), visual (videos ala Baloogan); or some other format?


It is sad that such a simple question turned into a nightmare thread. The developers want input from all sorts of players. I give them a lot credit for that. They are not asking about the past ... they are trying to move forward understanding they must attract younger war gamers or their business will die. These players are "babies" regarding war gaming and especially at the complexity of Command. Some older players here are choking on their Squad Leader / Harpoon chits. Please get over it... and help the new players. I agree with a recent post. Without new player silly questions, this forum would be dead. Put a fork in it. Does everyone want that? Who cares if they didn't do their homework. Who are they affronting by posting a question? Who? Are they taking resources away from who, what, and where? Don't answer them if you feel abused in some way. If this forum is such a detriment to the Command development timeline then take it down because silly novice questions will always be #1 around here.

Kevin




guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:20:50 AM)

Learning materials are always created by those who already know the stuff, and a frequent problem is that they take for granted certain knowledge that newbies don't have. They may drop in jargon or concepts that beginners just don't understand, just by not conceiving that the learner doesn't know it already.

That's where "outliers" can be useful - see what they ask and aim to cover that. Coverage rather than a simple yardstick.

Doubtless there will be some who don't use the resources and keep asking what's already there, but by then you know it's not because there's something lacking. Treat them as a coverage-creation resource, while knowing that you'll never completely eliminate their existence. For those who remain, then it's safe to go "meh".



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:23:46 AM)

Again, please read the entire thread. Or at least take a little bit to digest it.

"silly novice questions"



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:25:24 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: guanotwozero

Learning materials are always created by those who already know the stuff, and a frequent problem is that they take for granted certain knowledge that newbies don't have. They may drop in jargon or concepts that beginners just don't understand, just by not conceiving that the learner doesn't know it already.

That's where "outliers" can be useful - see what they ask and aim to cover that. Coverage rather than a simple yardstick.

Doubtless there will be some who don't use the resources and keep asking what's already there, but by then you know it's not because there's something lacking. Treat them as a coverage-creation resource, while knowing that you'll never completely eliminate their existence. For those who remain, then it's safe to go "meh".


So how about this? How about leading a team of community people to take what exists, consolidate it, format it and clean it up. I think that is a pretty worthy contribution and looking at this thread, you'd have a lot of volunteers to help.



kevinkins -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:37:10 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1


quote:

Again, please read the entire thread. Or at least take a little bit to digest it.

"silly novice questions"


Was that in response to my post a few minutes ago? Not sure who it was directed to ...



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:41:44 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

... The developers want input from all sorts of players. I give them a lot credit for that. They are not asking about the past ... they are trying to move forward understanding they must attract younger war gamers or their business will die. These players are "babies" regarding war gaming and especially at the complexity of Command...


Very astute observation. It's in all our interest to reach out to as many potential players as possible, including taking them from the ground up.


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1
So how about this? How about leading a team of community people to take what exists, consolidate it, format it and clean it up. I think that is a pretty worthy contribution and looking at this thread, you'd have a lot of volunteers to help.


Hehe! I wouldn't presume to have the leadership abilities to organise all that, nor necessarily a commitment to the time. But I'd be happy to contribute where I could. I'm only recently returned to CMANO from the early days, and I'm still on a long learning curve myself so my own knowledge is limited.

In any case the OP is asking for ideas - these should be hammered out into an agreed, workable plan before any creation effort is started.

But yeah - ultimately we, the community, should be able to do this.



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:47:33 AM)

Ah, I see.



c3k -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:50:24 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Damn...I have been trying to maneuver my ships into that "notch" for five years.


:)





thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:54:53 AM)

Well, I have the word docs for all the updates and FAQ that I scraped off the Warfaresims site that I compiled into a pdf. I'll send those to anyone that wants to start assembling those into an organized doc. The youtube videos that Baloogan has on youtube could be assembled as a list with links and a description of its topic. I think new tutorials are in development.

So that's a start. Someone want to start with collating the info in the docs?



kevinkins -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 12:55:44 AM)



quote:

But yeah - ultimately we, the community, should be able to do this.


Take a look at my post above from yesterday. I am proposing a professional approach combining the available resources: text, tutorials, and videos into something better than the individual parts. Yeah, its easy to spend other people's money on a great copy editor. But Apache is asking for new ideas to make the product more accessible. Doing the same old thing relying on the community might not get them where they want to go.

Kevin



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:06:18 AM)

So I guess I can scratch you off the volunteer list.

Look, there has been a lot of gnashing of teeth over the state of the manual. Any new "professional" project is going to take time and money. In the meantime, because some people think this is a crisis in which the very existence of the forum is in jeopardy, let's get what is available organized.

I already started it. Its going to take months, maybe years, to get a new manual, new tutorials, and new videos. So lets use the existing docs as a stop gap to draw in those supposed "outliers" and make everyone's life easier. The current state is actually not that bad. If you take the manual and add in info from the FAQ and the patch notes, you would have a pretty darned complete mechanics manual. If someone is ambitious, you can add in examples as needed. But I think just starting with the a consolidation and organization of the three main pieces of documentation, manual, FAQ, and patch notes, would be a huge headstart. I would think a simple listing of the Baloogan videos with descriptions and links would a pretty simple task for someone.

Frankly, I don't see how this can hurt. Let the devs go all professional on a new manual if they want. In the meantime, to save the forum, let's get our act together. If the devs think this is a wasted effort, they can let us know.



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:11:25 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: kevinkin
... That said, Command would be a challenge for any editor or technical writer to tackle – even a pro. But it’s something to consider. The “Idiots” is just an example of a form of technical writing for the general public who want to come up to speed quickly on challenging topic. I believe that's the objective Apache has in mind.


I see your point - pros will almost always do a better job than amateur volunteers. But that costs money, and probably a fair amount of interaction from the devs. Then the question is if that resource commitment is worth it for the benefit it brings. It could be that a community guide is adequate (as well as free).

I'd suggest that a community approach could be tried first, at least up to certain level, and if the results aren't sufficient then the devs could choose to use professionals. That has to be their call.

As CMANO is large and complex, I think it's only realistic for an "idiots" guide to teach the basics, though that's still quite a lot. I reckon there comes a bite point for players when they "get it", and afterwards are able to learn by themselves. Any guide should aim to take the player to that point.



kevinkins -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:19:06 AM)



quote:

So I guess I can scratch you off the volunteer list.


Are you putting together a real volunteer list or just being silly?

Anyway ... leave it be and let Apache read the posts/ideas and decide how the pros will go about configuring all the learning tools into something better than what the developers feel are available today. It's their product. That's the reason for the OP. I sense a bit of urgency on their part.



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:21:49 AM)

As I said in my post. I'll help organize it. Let's get it going. I am traveling right now, but when I get back to my home laptop, I can send the word docs to anyone. And an organized list of the existing videos, and maybe even tutorials can be done any time.



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:24:06 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: kevinkin
Anyway ... leave it be and let Apache read the posts/ideas and decide ...


Agreed.



thewood1 -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:26:51 AM)

But this is something we can do anyway. Its all there.



guanotwozero -> RE: RTFM? (3/27/2018 1:32:07 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1
But this is something we can do anyway. Its all there.

Maybe, but this is Apache's thread and so we shouldn't steal his thunder.

If it gets to a point where we'e asked to contribute effort to an agreed plan, then we can proceed.



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