What's worse?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 22 2007, 11:35 AM) [snapback]500475[/snapback]</div>

I'm reminded of the joke about a guy who ran a news stand in the lobby of an office building. He kept getting asked what time it was, so he installed a clock. Now he's getting asked, "Is that clock right?"

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 23 2007, 04:35 AM) [snapback]500475[/snapback]</div>

My vote would be to add:
9) What is P&G, with a sub question, how do you P&G?
10) When do I use the B selection?

I am still learning, so do appreciate some of the repeat questions, because some of them raise questions that I either had not known to ask, or have not got to the point in my learning about the car and how best to drive it where I need to ask the question. A FAQ thread would certainly help, but you may need to keep some of the snarky replies out, or have the means of deleting them.

For those of you old hands answering the questions with pointers to the previous threads, could I also suggest that you also include what you entered in the search. As a number of you have indicated, the search in PC does sometimes not work as expected, so giving a pointer to exactly what you enter into the search helps teach people how to best use the search.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AussieOwner @ Aug 22 2007, 05:51 PM) [snapback]500656[/snapback]</div>

11) What is your response to the fact that the Prius causes more pollution than the Hummer?
12) What sort of tires should I buy?
13) What's this about a stiffening plate?

 

Hopefully the number of questions on the faq isn't going to be limited to only 20. I bet this could be develop this into at least 50 and still not be overdoing it.

I don't mind if a newbie asks a question that's been covered before. One problem with finding answers in a thread, is that a thread may actually contain the answer to the newbie's question but may also contain dozens of posts that are not helpful at all - some which contradict others or that are off topic, incomplete, don't explain fully, etc.

That's a lot of reading. So I think this faq idea is great. It's way more efficient for newbies to be able to just browse a faq webpage.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 22 2007, 11:35 AM) [snapback]500475[/snapback]</div>

Eric, Why are you asking these questions. You could just do a seach and find these answers silly!

 

I too think it is worse to just tell someone to search , a lot of the times the keywords just bring up garbage.
I now use google and it generally shows a priuschat reply.

I'm guilty of asking without searching too before finding out about google, plus some of us are not computer gurus and it's tough at times.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fibb222 @ Aug 23 2007, 01:08 AM) [snapback]500830[/snapback]</div>

Ah, but therein lies the rub. If the list of questions gets too long, users will get impatient and decide it's easier to just ask the question rather than read through a long document.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 22 2007, 10:44 AM) [snapback]500253[/snapback]</div>

Great question - I go back and forth to which is "worse". On one hand if the original poster did their search the first place then there would be no repost of a topic that has been answered, therefore no need to tell the person to search.

There maybe a variety of reasons why the OP asked the same question. He/she maybe a newbie; new variation of a topic discussed before; difficulty of using the search tool; tried previous suggestions with no satisfactory results ...

If you don't like the post and don't want to answer then don't. Personally I don't always find a reply that suggest to search always offensive. It can be done politely and it can be educational.

In my opinion the best reply is and I've seen this a number of times:

"In doing a search (include the search parameters) I found this thread ... "

 

A good FAQ is something that's desperately needed, but there are
already several attempts floating around [wikipedia, some of the
old-timer sites, etc] that don't cover most of what we see here.
.
But any way you go at it, you'll never get around the fact that PC
is totally overwhelming for the newbie. Not just the information
content, but the whole concept of a PHPBB-style forum site might
be new to someone who isn't used to it -- i.e. someone who doesn't
participate in forums yet and is told "go check out Priuschat.com!"
is up against a blizzard of new concepts already. Do you think even
a prominent "Top 20 Prius answers" link on every displayed page would
instantly make them experts? Heh. People generally want to be
spoon-fed.
.
So the FAQ effort should definitely continue, but it isn't the
whole answer. A document explaining search-engine syntax [for the
built-in function, not the google link] would help, too -- I don't
know any bboard system that has one, though, and that's a serious
failing in all of them.
.
_H*

 

14) Should Obama sleep with Clinton in the next episode of "The West Wing"... oh wait, that's a question that probably belongs in FHoP.

14) Will DIY maintenance void my warranty, and how do I do some of the more common maintenance tasks, along with product recommendations where appropriate ( e.g. oil change, tire rotation, wash/wax )

15) What are some easy/cheap beginner mods for someone wanting to personalize the look/performance of the Prius without making a major commitment, or breaking anything ... with a followup of some advanced/destructive mods.

In all seriousness, it might not be a bad idea to copy out the entire manual, prune it for redundancy, rewrite for clarity and index/link everything! Then make it a self-contained download. The manual can be a challenge to read sometimes, and is sometimes unclear. I have a feeling the manual is on TIS, but it's the same manual we have, so even all linked up it might not be a lot more useful. Not that I'm volunteering to do that job...

Which leads me to thinking... there are a lot of useful downloads floating around in various threads... maybe consolidating some of those into a single thread, or even into a single PDF w/ contents/index.