Suggestion: Allow community to (moderated) update how-to's

[rzlines]

Hi!

First and foremost - awesome stuff on the howto site, have learnt a lot over the span of a few weeks. It helped to ease a lot of the fear that I had about using a linux server.

Now for the suggestion

I have noticed that as a lot of tutorials have been written a while back many parameters like links, etc have to be updated. As users come across updates i hope there was a moderated feature to update the tutorial itself rather than leave it as a comment. Reason being that you have to first try out a non-working link (if you are a new user you first PANIC! and then maybe if good sense previals you scroll down and look at comments)

If you could edit the how-to's like a wiki or something and then wait for a moderator or an advanced user to verify the same, it could save a lot of trouble and the community helps to enhance and update the site content.

I know that this would be asking for a lot but it would be a really good feature if it could be implemented.

[dipeshmehta]

Originally Posted by rzlines

Reason being that you have to first try out a non-working link (if you are a new user you first PANIC! and then maybe if good sense previals you scroll down and look at comments)

I would first read and study thoroughly the howto alongwith all comments and/or any related posts in the forums, then plan my 'to do'

Originally Posted by rzlines

If you could edit the how-to's like a wiki or something and then wait for a moderator or an advanced user to verify the same, it could save a lot of trouble and the community helps to enhance and update the site content.

In most cases, there are other ways to perform the same task. A wiki style howto could confuse forthcoming visitors

Dipesh

[rzlines]

Originally Posted by dipeshmehta

I would first read and study thoroughly the howto alongwith all comments and/or any related posts in the forums, then plan my 'to do'

Most people refering to these tutorials here are new users and because these tutorials are so simple they would just follow along. This site also targets users who are just begining their journey into the linux world and updated tutorials would help.

Originally Posted by dipeshmehta

In most cases, there are other ways to perform the same task. A wiki style howto could confuse forthcoming visitors

Dipesh

By wiki style I meant the philosophy I didn't mean that we need to adopt a wiki engine here. All I want to suggest here is a way to update the tutorials without much burden to the authors who are already putting in a lot of work here.

[dipeshmehta]

Originally Posted by rzlines

Most people refering to these tutorials here are new users and because these tutorials are so simple they would just follow along. This site also targets users who are just begining their journey into the linux world and updated tutorials would help

I was beginner just before a couple of years, but I never blindly followed any howto!!

I agree with your thoughts about helping new comers, but in my views, any person should check and study the impacts before applying steps as guided.