discuss: Thread: an idea: LDP rating

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 10:36:44PM +0000, Sergiusz Pawlowicz wrote:
> What do you think about creating and automatically adding during
> convertion, a chapter to each LDP howto/guide, with links that allow
> our readers to rate a document? For example a page with five stars,
> and user can rate grapahically. There can be two counters, for
> registred users and for unrigestered. There can be also place for text
> comments for registred users.

A rating system is a good idea for the future when we have procedures
set up to utilized the ratings.  Giving a doc a poor rating for not
being up-to-date is pretty pointless now if we don't have anyone
willing to bring the doc up-to-date.  For documents being kept
up-to-date, I think that a person rating a doc could also write a few
sentences of comments.  This might help authors improve their docs and
help explain the rating.

			David Lawyer

I think ratings may be better than nothing, but I wonder whether it's 
possible to do something more reliable than subjective ratings. I 
suggest quizzes in an article on my company's site (I get to that 
subject about three-quarters of the way down this page):

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2006/07/06/rethinking-community-documentation.html?page=3#improvements


A quiz could be just one or two questions. They have to be carefully 
chosen, though, to test important concepts. And they have to be 
carefully worded and tested so they're not confusing or ambiguous. I 
realize what I'm suggesting is a long-range plan, and an experimental 
one. I just thought I'd mention it. I am working on a prototype of a 
quiz development program and would be happy to keep anyone interested 
informed. (It's being done in my spare time, which is practically nil.)
--
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Andy Oram  O'Reilly Media                     email: ####@####.####
Editor     10 Fawcett Street                       voice: 617-499-7479
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Stories at Web site:
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On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 09:08:53PM -0400, Andy Oram wrote:
> I think ratings may be better than nothing, but I wonder whether it's 
> possible to do something more reliable than subjective ratings. I 
> suggest quizzes in an article on my company's site (I get to that 
> subject about three-quarters of the way down this page):

I think that most people who look at a HOWTO or other online Linux doc
don't read the entire doc.  They often just read the parts that they
think will help them with the problem they currently have.  Thus, only
the small minority of people who actually read thru the entire doc
would be able to take a quiz on the doc.

Having questions in a doc is like a textbook.  Questions might be a
good idea where a doc is of the tutorial type and is intended to be
read in it's entirety.  One type of question is where the reader is
asked to explain something (an essay type question).  Since there is
no one to give a grade on the essay, the reader can just mentally do
it without writing it down.

			David Lawyer

On 3/17/07, David Lawyer ####@####.#### wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 09:08:53PM -0400, Andy Oram wrote:
> > I think ratings may be better than nothing, but I wonder whether it's
> > possible to do something more reliable than subjective ratings. I
> > suggest quizzes in an article on my company's site (I get to that
> > subject about three-quarters of the way down this page):
>
> I think that most people who look at a HOWTO or other online Linux doc
> don't read the entire doc.  They often just read the parts that they
> think will help them with the problem they currently have.  Thus, only
> the small minority of people who actually read thru the entire doc
> would be able to take a quiz on the doc.

So, how to get any feedback from a majority?

S.

On 03/20/2007 08:13:22 AM, Sergiusz Pawlowicz wrote:
> On 3/17/07, David Lawyer ####@####.#### wrote:

>> I think that most people who look at a HOWTO or other online Linux  
>> doc
>> don't read the entire doc.  They often just read the parts that they
>> think will help them with the problem they currently have.  Thus,  
>> only
>> the small minority of people who actually read thru the entire doc
>> would be able to take a quiz on the doc.
> 
> So, how to get any feedback from a majority?

When the wiki goes up there could be a comment page for
each document.

Karl ####@####.####
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                  -- Robert A. Heinlein

David Lawyer wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 09:08:53PM -0400, Andy Oram wrote:
> 
>>I think ratings may be better than nothing, but I wonder whether it's 
>>possible to do something more reliable than subjective ratings. I 
>>suggest quizzes in an article on my company's site (I get to that 
>>subject about three-quarters of the way down this page):
>>
> 
> I think that most people who look at a HOWTO or other online Linux doc
> don't read the entire doc.  They often just read the parts that they
> think will help them with the problem they currently have.  Thus, only
> the small minority of people who actually read thru the entire doc
> would be able to take a quiz on the doc.


We have solid numbers already that backs you up: people enter a HOWTO 
straight into specific chapters from elsewhere (typically Google), and 
leave after only a few pages. The web page persistence is low.
    http://www.nyx.net/~sgjoen/logtest-css.html (600 KB, big size)

We could however have each separate chapter up for rating.

> Having questions in a doc is like a textbook.  Questions might be a
> good idea where a doc is of the tutorial type and is intended to be
> read in it's entirety.  One type of question is where the reader is
> asked to explain something (an essay type question).  Since there is
> no one to give a grade on the essay, the reader can just mentally do
> it without writing it down.

I didn't quite understand that part.


Regards,
    Stein Gjoen

On Wed, Mar 21, 2007 at 11:31:54PM +0100, Stein Gjoen wrote:
> David Lawyer wrote:
> 
> >Having questions in a doc is like a textbook.  Questions might be a
> >good idea where a doc is of the tutorial type and is intended to be
> >read in it's entirety.  One type of question is where the reader is
> >asked to explain something (an essay type question).  Since there is
> >no one to give a grade on the essay, the reader can just mentally do
> >it without writing it down.
> 
> I didn't quite understand that part.

I meant that you have questions in the doc that most people just think
about how they would answer, but they don't actually type or write an
answer.  If they don't know the answer, perhaps they need to do some
rereading.  It's sort of a self-test.

			David Lawyer

What I was looking for was not an essay, but something multiple-choice 
so the author could tabulate responses and find out whether different 
versions of a document were better or worse at achieving the educational 
goals.

But a good point has been raised: most people don't read an entire 
document. Another way to state this is: most people go for a specific 
fact, not for general understanding of concepts. But I hope that project 
documentation can grow to teach more concepts! That's a long-range goal.

Andy