[Chamaco]

Hi all,
I don't whether the following may or not be a good idea.

However, here is my thought:
1) there is now a huge amount of posts on the BB Forum of typical questions, that some times are replicated, and the search facility is not always of great help, since many times the topic one looks for are hidden under not significant thread names.

2) moreover there are specific threads (e.g. Misho/Ben's "Equality", Luis' versionnof Viking club, the latest thread of Ben on squezes, some threads on ZAR and Tysen's hand evaluation, etc.) which would deserve a place of their own.

3) specific BBO help issues (e.g. "how to....?")


Usually, any usenet forum has a FAQ list, which gros to incorporate typical questions "for dummies" as well as some specific topics worthy of inclusion because of their great values.

I think BB Forum has reached the status where this could be done.
If we all agree, we only need a web site where this document would be uploaded and reached by the users.

I am available to help creating the doc (mainly by "cut and paste" from BBF), although I think the help and supervision by better players than me would be of benefit.

What do you think ?

[Free]

Why not make a page full of links (nicely cathegorized ), which refer to the threads immediatly?

[xx1943]

Hi all,

Great idea, but maybe much work to do. IMO greater effort than creating FAQ will be to keep it up to date.
When I came first to this forum my first question was "Are there FAQ?"
Btw. My experience was that every question I posted here was answered in short time mostly with the link to a previous topic. (Mostly from Ben)

chamaco said:

and the search facility is not always of great help, since many times the topic one looks for are hidden under not significant thread names.

Search is great, if you chose "search entire post".
Search has one flaw: you cannot search for items, which have only 3 characters like "lin" or "MP" or "IMP".

[Chamaco]

Free, on Nov 17 2004, 11:27 AM, said:

Why not make a page full of links (nicely cathegorized ), which refer to the threads immediatly?

That sounds a good idea :-)

A single document would have the advantage of being printable altogether rather than having to jump between links, but the hyperlink format is probably a good tradeoff between practicality and effectiveness.

[scoob]

in my experience, forum faq's are generally just kept in a locked & sticky post in one of the forums - no point in setting up a whole new page off of the forums when it's all readily available here.

Question?Brief Answer, with link to existing thread or another site where reader may research further if necessary.

I'm sure we could have an open thread first to let the active members contribute to the initial content of the FAQ and then someone (ben, i suspect) to compile them neatly into a locked & sticky thread as mentioned above.

[Chamaco]

Quote

in my experience, forum faq's are generally just kept in a locked & sticky post in one of the forums - no point in setting up a whole new page off of the forums when it's all readily available here.

Not completely true.
About 90% Forum FAQs have also a full document in non-hyperthext/html fprmat, but rather in plain text, loaded in some page on the net.

This is easier to print if you want to read them offscreen.
I personally hate to read on screen and/or have to print separately single topics, and many othe people I know think the same.
A plain text document uploaded somewhere is much more efficient fro this viewpoint

I think it should be easy to ask Dan Neill to use his system page to upload the BBF Faq there.
Any other page would work, of course.

Quote

I'm sure we could have an open thread first to let the active members contribute to the initial content of the FAQ and then someone (ben, i suspect) to compile them neatly into a locked & sticky thread as mentioned above.

Sure enough, the post was meant to activate active members for helping form the FAQ, hopefully limiting the assembling work to a minimum (Ben is already conributing a lot to ask him further committment- although he'd be by far the better suited person to do that).

[inquiry]

This would not be terribly hard to do, but I suspect it will take

1) a group effort

2) two documents

3) an adminstrator to help.

We could start two threads... One called BBF FAQ, or something like that. Where everyone could find (cut and paste if need be), common questions and then a link to the answer... the thing I have in mind, is the question in question format using the http tag and a hyperlink. So for instance, to link to occassional question about does BBO software work with linux might be done like this...

Is it possible to run BBO software under Linux using wine, crossover, Win4lin, etc?

My suggestion would be that we start two pinned document, one for FAQ, one for user favorite articles/general links. Every few days, an administrator will cut and paste good material out of the added post the the thread into the first post (and then delete the added post). This way, ideally, the "thread" will reamin only one or two post long. The material will be place in somekind of order to be decided later.

The advantage to using links, is that the actually documents will be much shorter if we can just point to whereever the correct answer is. Does this sound like what you are asking for?

Ben

[Chamaco]

inquiry, on Nov 17 2004, 03:23 PM, said:

Does this sound like what you are asking for?

It certainly goes in the direction of organizing better all the good material existing in the BBF :-)

I suggest we start with a list of section, such as:

1. Where to start play/study bridge
(web resources, online and live bridge clubs, beginner books, software, etc)

2. Beginner/Intermediate section

2.1 Bidding q(includes ACOL, SAYC and basic 2/1)
2.1.1 Uncontested
2.1.2 Contested

2.2 Card play
2.2.1 Declarer play
- card combinations
-...
2.2.2 Defense
- opening leads
- carding methods/ std practice

3. Adv/Expert section

3.1 Bidding
3.1.1 Uncontested (natutral system)
3.1.2 Contested(natutral system)
3.1.3 Uncontested (Non natural)
3.1.4 Contested (Non natural)

3.2 Card play
3.2.1 Declarer play
3.2.2 Defense

4. Rules questions (TD etc)

5. Software topics

6. BBO help topics

[Fluffy]

My experience on FAQs on a forum are that people will ignore a FAW and post asking for the info they want anyway.

[Chamaco]

Fluffy, on Nov 17 2004, 04:33 PM, said:

My experience on FAQs on a  forum are that people will ignore a FAW and post asking for the info they want anyway.

Usually those who do that do not know the existence of a FAQ list.

On the other hand, it is inevitable that some will go on doing it, but in technical forums (such as a bridge newsgroup should be), there is a fair amount of users who do use the faq and avoid cluttering the newsggroup.

[inquiry]

Ok, we will give this suggestion a go....

People interested in working on a FAQ along the lines of what Chamaco recommended please add your links (and number where those links might go) to replies in this thread. When we get a fair number of links I will start a new pinned thread called BBO FAQ, and cut and paste the appropriate ones in that thread.

Please keep the words to a mininimum.. the details should be on the link page. An example,

3.1.4 Contested auctions (non-natural)
Mishovnbg's Equality defensive bidding scheme, or download word document from Dan Neill's Webpage

[Chamaco]

Just to show things are progressing a bit...

Below is the list of the links I have reorganized going through pages 1-8 (that is backwards in chronological order) if the "General Bridge Discussion" subsection.

Considering the little fraction of the overall material posted on the BBF, this list sounds like when the job is done, it should contain a huge bulk of great material, for the benefit of all ! :-)

Sorry it lost most format, I have it in a .doc format , and the Word file will be the basis for adding more links.
Eventually I'll make it neater

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Where to start play/study bridge
(web resources, online and live bridge clubs, beginner books, software, etc)

• Study material
o Beginners/learning books
o General Book reviews/info
 "Tactical bidding" by Harold Feldheim http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5126
• Self improvement/Training
o Photographic memory http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5167

2. Beginner/Intermediate section

2.1 Bidding q(includes ACOL, SAYC and basic 2/1)
2.1.1 Uncontested
• General
o Simple systems (Advice needed) http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4959
o How do I ask for a stopper for an NT bid? cue-bidding http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4423
• Slam bidding
o 4nt for aces, but what is the suit ? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4815
o Blackwood - Showing A Void http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4256
• 1NT opening
o Opening with a balanced five-card major http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4478
• Reverses
o Reverse bids at the level of 2 (SURVEY): http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4463
• Major suit raises
o Bergen vs Drury http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4255
o Snazzy versions of Jacoby 2nt? (Bergen vs. Martel) : http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4945

2.1.2 Contested

• Weak 2s , 3s and higher level openings
o Minimum to double weak 2's? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4649
o Is this hand worth a Namyats ? (in a precision context) http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4148
• Balancing
o Response to a take out double in balancing position: http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4768
• Doubles/Redoubles
o http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5031
o Response to Takeout double When RHO bid http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4783
o Takeout double over a major - revisited An attempt for a recipe http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4750
o Use of Sputnik double Legit or not? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4625
o No-Fit Redoubles Does anyone use this approach? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4471
o 1H 1NT (X) http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4286
• 2 suited overcalls
o 2-suited overcalls Views? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4556
• Natural 1NT overcall
o http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5050

2.1.3 Hand evaluation
• Losing trick count A must in suit bidding http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4264
• Law of Total Tricks: http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5136
• Competitive Bidding ... How Far to Compete -High Level Competition & Judgement http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4293
• Hands:
o pass with this defensive raise? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4180


2.2 Card play
2.2.1 Declarer play
- card combinations
-...
2.2.2 Defense
- opening leads
• Polish leads http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5196
• Low from Doubleton http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5192

- carding methods/ std practice
• Lavinthal Discards http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5162


3. Adv/Expert section

3.1 Bidding
3.1.1 Uncontested (natural systems)
• Psyches
o http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4800
• Structured Reverses http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4881
• Weak NT opening
o http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5017

3.1.2 Contested(natural systems)

3.1.3 Uncontested (Non natural)
• Weak and 2-way openings
o Multi 2D
 http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5165
 Multi 2D overcalled: http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5028
 Leaping Michaels over Multi 2D ? : http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5016
3.1.4 Contested (Non natural)
3.1.5 Hand evaluation
• Zar Points and applications
o Zar points for opening bids : http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5108
o Majors Versus Minors In Zar Points: http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4975


3.2 Card play
3.2.1 Declarer play
3.2.2 Defense

4. Rules questions (TD etc)

• is this legal? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4294
• 2 Q's on Alerts http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4214
• Is the ruling correct? http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4213


5. Software topics

• Shareware Hand Dealers http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4847
• Cheap software for calculating X-imp pairs ? (Freeware/shareware or simply cheap) http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4830
• Matchpoint Scoring New Generation scoring program.. http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4930
• Duplicate / Cross Imp Bridge Scorer http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4658


6. BBO help topics
How to log vugraph with chats: http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=5156
BBO ADVANCED SYSTEM http://forums.bridgebase.com/ind...?showtopic=4493