Way Off-Topic Have you read your vBulltin FAQ?

[xjuliox]

I'm bored right now and started reading the vBulletin FAQ of my board and wonder if others have read it.

[Cromulent]

I rewrote most of it.

[Mazinger]

I have read most of it - very helpful for newbies.

[RedTyger]

I have read most of it - very helpful for newbies.

I disagree, I think it's completely useless.

• It's grossly outdated. In fact there's little mention of anything more recent than around vBulletin 3.0. Reputation? Reporting a post? Edit history? Hello?
• It insists on using a particularly poorly constructed and inappropriate Q&A format so it's unintuitive to get to information (Are there any special codes/tags I can use to format my posts? versus Formatting your posts). What is there is not terribly well organised either (private messages are not reading and posting messages?).
• It makes virtually no use of $bbuserinfo or $vboptions or permissions conditionals, so the information that is there is sometimes vague and certainly not as accurate as it should be. I can't use Private Messages? Tell me I can't, don't tell me how to use them.

My apologies for the mild outburst, but if there's one thing that really gets on my nerves about vBulletin it's the how badly the information and help for members is done. It's so important to do and so easy to get right. So how is it apparently so unimportant and apparently so easy to get wrong?

[Ohiosweetheart]

I rewrote most of it.

Same here.
The Original FAQ is pretty much useless, so I re-wrote it to help my members with forum stuff, features, navigation, etc.

I disagree, I think it's completely useless.............
My apologies for the mild outburst, but if there's one thing that really gets on my nerves about vBulletin it's the how badly the information and help for members is done. It's so important to do and so easy to get right. So how is it apparently so unimportant and apparently so easy to get wrong?

Need some coffee??

[Ozscot]

Same here.
The Original FAQ is pretty much useless, so I re-wrote it to help my members with forum stuff, features, navigation, etc.

Agreed - I re-wrote mine although it turned out to be less of a 'Frequently Asked Questions' and more of a 'Rules to ensure you don't annoy me' lol.

Ozscot

[Ohiosweetheart]

Agreed - I re-wrote mine although it turned out to be less of a 'Frequently Asked Questions' and more of a 'Rules to ensure you don't annoy me' lol.

Ozscot

LOL that's a good one.

[Creepshow]

I've re-written much of mine as well.

And I've gotta say... I do agree with much of what RedTyger said.

[Phenomena0]

Agreed - I re-wrote mine although it turned out to be less of a 'Frequently Asked Questions' and more of a 'Rules to ensure you don't annoy me' lol.

Ozscot

Thats actually a good idea, I'm pretty sure nobody actually reads the faq. :P

[RedTyger]

Need some coffee??

Forbidden error I'm afraid, but I compensated with a real one. Thanks!

[Ohiosweetheart]

Forbidden error I'm afraid, but I compensated with a real one. Thanks!

You're welcome! lol

[Gladius]

I disagree, I think it's completely useless.

• It's grossly outdated. In fact there's little mention of anything more recent than around vBulletin 3.0. Reputation? Reporting a post? Edit history? Hello?
• It insists on using a particularly poorly constructed and inappropriate Q&A format so it's unintuitive to get to information (Are there any special codes/tags I can use to format my posts? versus Formatting your posts). What is there is not terribly well organised either (private messages are not reading and posting messages?).
• It makes virtually no use of $bbuserinfo or $vboptions or permissions conditionals, so the information that is there is sometimes vague and certainly not as accurate as it should be. I can't use Private Messages? Tell me I can't, don't tell me how to use them.

My apologies for the mild outburst, but if there's one thing that really gets on my nerves about vBulletin it's the how badly the information and help for members is done. It's so important to do and so easy to get right. So how is it apparently so unimportant and apparently so easy to get wrong?

Completely agree, and I've said as much in the recent 3.7.0 discussion. If they still don't update the FAQ with all the new stuff in 3.7.0, I'll really be pissed off. They've got so many people intimately knowledgeable about all of vB's features, but it's too much to ask for the FAQ to be updated once every couple of years?

And it's not just the FAQ, a bunch of regular board features have no tips or basic explanations you'd expect of them, such as any information whatsoever regarding searching, for example. There are all kinds of different ways of searching and specifying the keywords for example (wildcards, quotemarks, etc.), but the only way to learn about them is by trial and error - no help whatsoever anywhere. Totally user-unfriendly.

[iardon]

I disagree, I think it's completely useless.....

Yep, totally agree.

And I don't think it should be up to us to update it, that is something VB should do.

[Gladius]

The fact that probably everyone in this thread (me included) has had to rewrite it speaks volumes. We really shouldn't need to write vB help/FAQs ourselves.

[Grover]

I disagree, I think it's completely useless.

• It's grossly outdated. In fact there's little mention of anything more recent than around vBulletin 3.0. Reputation? Reporting a post? Edit history? Hello?
• It insists on using a particularly poorly constructed and inappropriate Q&A format so it's unintuitive to get to information (Are there any special codes/tags I can use to format my posts? versus Formatting your posts). What is there is not terribly well organised either (private messages are not reading and posting messages?).
• It makes virtually no use of $bbuserinfo or $vboptions or permissions conditionals, so the information that is there is sometimes vague and certainly not as accurate as it should be. I can't use Private Messages? Tell me I can't, don't tell me how to use them.

My apologies for the mild outburst, but if there's one thing that really gets on my nerves about vBulletin it's the how badly the information and help for members is done. It's so important to do and so easy to get right. So how is it apparently so unimportant and apparently so easy to get wrong?

Completely agree, and I've said as much in the recent 3.7.0 discussion. If they still don't update the FAQ with all the new stuff in 3.7.0, I'll really be pissed off. They've got so many people intimately knowledgeable about all of vB's features, but it's too much to ask for the FAQ to be updated once every couple of years?

And it's not just the FAQ, a bunch of regular board features have no tips or basic explanations you'd expect of them, such as any information whatsoever regarding searching, for example. There are all kinds of different ways of searching and specifying the keywords for example (wildcards, quotemarks, etc.), but the only way to learn about them is by trial and error - no help whatsoever anywhere. Totally user-unfriendly.

I wholeheartly agree with everything you guys are saying here. Why don't you post a new thread on this on the vBulletin Suggestions and Feedback forum, so we can show the developers there really is a demand for a much, much better USER MANUAL/HELP inside this ever growing product?

I have been requesting this many times, starting here: More INLINE Help for users. Well, instead of creating a new thread, please add your points to this one. Because I also talk about the FAQ there.