[Bf-docboard] A blender FAQ

[Ewout Fernhout]

I think that people who are too lazy to read the documentation or use
elysiuns search function (mediawiki will get an integrated google-search
engine in the near future btw) won't find the faq either. They just ask
their question!

I think video tutorials are a much better way to get people quickly into
blender, because that *is* a lazy solution. Project Orange is coming with
some video tutorials, so that's a very good start. I just don't think a huge
list of questions (like I said, 20 common questions is good though! or maybe
5-6 in a few main categories) is gonna be a good help.

Ewout

On 12/5/05, Alastair Mason <alabandit at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Greetings
>
> I took the questions from
> http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/library/linuxguides/blender/,
> but it has no maintainer and the link site seems to be down so I
> rewrote all the questions, but was still clarifing them.
>
> The challenge, as I see it is that there are two types of FAQ's. The
> basic one, that blender has but needs a bit of up dating. This is
> great for people looking into blender for the first time. New users or
> people who want to join and need quick basic answers. The wiki's
> search engine is tragicly not up to scrach type a simple quiery like
> Render and it gives you every occurance (153) of them in every
> language and on every sub form (BlenderDev). And no were in the first
> 20 resaults (reggardless of langage) does it tell you how to do a
> basic render.
>
> The second tpye of FAQ would be designed with an ever expanding user
> group in mind. Pro's and enthusiast's genrally know their way around
> blender or a 3D enviroment program so could find basics like
> rendering. A new user especially one from the bussiness sector does
> not have the time to search through pages of documentation or 153
> answers to find a basic task they need to do. If we want the blender
> base to grow we need to look at ways every one from a new comer to a
> more advance user can quickly find the answer too a quesion, especial
> if they working to a scedual. Goto elysiun genral any time and see how
> many basic questions are being asked repetively, often with statments
> like "sorry if this has been asked a thosand times". Or look for
> people that request things such as"need to know the answer today".
> Many do ask questions outside the realm of saine documentation many
> ask basics.
>
> Tragicly most people are lasy and would rather not learn a program
> with out full documentation. And would hesitate to bring it into the
> work enviroment if some of the users aren't computer fundies and need
> basic refrences or only use it from time to time and forget even
> basics (my proplem when first start, i think i wore a thin patch into
> the gus tutorial reading it so many times).
>
> This session could be looked at rather than an FAQ but as a index of
> sorts. Links rather back to documentation, than composes of all the
> answers. Only short answers would be add to sections that were
> situationaly less clear or spread over a large area of documentation
> or not covered in the documentation.
>
> It is not an attemp at rewriting the documentaion.
>
> Hopefully I am a bit more clear now
> al
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