Improvements to Q&A

So I've been pokin' around in Q&A, and two things jump out at me:

There should be a Windows category for handling all the Windows-specific stuff. "How do I send mail under NT?" "How can I do X under Windows 98?" "Can I fork?" etc etc. Windows is different enough that it warrants it.
It might be nice if there were more task-oriented categories. For instance, the person who says "I want to go fetch a page and extract the links" might not think to look under "HTTP". Maybe we need the concept of an FPT: Frequently Performed Task.

Thoughts?

xoxo,
Andy
--
<megaphone> Throw down the gun and tiara and come out of the float! </megaphone>

Comment on Improvements to Q&A

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Re: Improvements to Q&A by jepri (Parson) on Oct 06, 2001 at 17:57 UTC
I really like your idea of FPT. This is mostly covered by Q&A, but Q&A doesn't get much advertising (now there's an idea. Put a link to Q&A under a banner saying 'Need help?'). If you are actively looking for something you may find other sites have 'cookbooks' and the perl FAQ has a good section too. As to the specific tasks - do we really get that many questions about differences between windows versions? Often most issues are covered in the documentation that comes with your distribution. I know ActivePerl are good about documenting the way their copy of perl runs under different versions of 'doze. ____________________ Jeremy I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.	[reply]
Re: Re: Improvements to Q&A by petdance (Parson) on Oct 06, 2001 at 19:37 UTC
The Windows questions are already in the Q&A section. My suggestion is that they be grouped together in their own category so that they're more easily found. Also, I agree that ActivePerl is good about documenting their stuff, but that doesn't stop people from asking questions. If Perlmonks only answered questions that were not documented elsewhere, it'd be pretty darn small. xoxo, Andy -- <megaphone> Throw down the gun and tiara and come out of the float! </megaphone>	[reply]