Dumbing Down Tutorials

[Ijack]

Seriously? This and similar tutorials (How to change a lens on...) make a mockery of the idea of tutorials. What next? How to Switch on a Computer.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-2356001/put-dslr-tripod.html

 

[ewok93]

If you notice, it's just some people making massive amounts of tutorials with very little content, all related to one topic. I think they should be condensed into one tutorial with sections and an index or something, something that doesn't clutter. I'm not sure what the point of making them is, though. I see a lot that explain how to play a pretty straightforward game on your phone, how to screw a camera onto a tripod, really really simple things.

 

[Ijack]

I guess they all count towards "points", or something like that. Unfortunately, points, badges, and the like tend to be counterproductive on forums. It ends up with people "points whoring" or making lots of trivial posts just to bump up their scores. Presumably tutorials also add to your point score.

I'd prefer to see all tutorials appear in a section of the site of their own, not as forum posts. They do tend to swamp the real posts at times.

 

[Ijack]

And another one - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-2356075/connect-sound-bar.html

It's beyond a joke.

 

[ewok93]

Buy speaker. Plug in speaker. That's not even how a lot of sound bars work. There was one tutorial on how to make your own thermal paste. That's just stupid, and hopefully nobody followed it or got any ideas. I'm not sure why, but there have been a ton in the past week. I remember when they did the tutorial contest, which was pretty cool, there were a bunch of really good tutorials put out, in order to actually qualify it had to be a good, unique tutorial that was well written. I wish they went through some kind of verification like that.

 

[jpishgar]

Hey there,

Some of these tutorials have been contracted out by community staff and they are being produced based on the most frequently asked questions and requests for how-to's for their given categories. You'll note the two items referenced are in areas less frequently covered by our resident expert users. Some of these tutorials may be simple 101 how-to's on the most basic elements of tech use. These are intended to catch and prevent the dumbest of questions being posed as legitimate requests for assistance asked as Question type threads in the forum. We want those threads and exchanges to be of higher quality with greater variables in the fix arrived at in order to improve the experience of our community overall.

We may well be running a tutorial contest again before too long, and your critical eye will certainly be encouraged at that point.

-JP

 

[ewok93]

I think some of those really are useful, it can be difficult to find help on something that's really simple and basic because nobody thinks to do tutorials on them. I think some of the issues are with tutorials that have incorrect or partial information.

 

[Ijack]

One of the problems with tutorials as they are currently implemented is that there seems to be no simple method to browse or find them. I see little evidence that they are being used as links in solutions, but I could well be wrong.

The fact that many (most) of them are being produced by people you are paying to do the job certainly throws a new light on matters. Along with the fact that you are also paying people to select Best Answers (and are you also paying them to just answer posts?) it seems to mark a desire to change the site from a community one to a centrally produced one. That may be fine and dandy, but it's not the Tom's that I knew and loved and is, as far as I am concerned, an undesirable move. I guess this is, again, all down to "metrics" - the site has to be seen to produce lots of best answers and lots of tutorials but never mind the quality of the content or its usefulness.

Just my opinion. I love the idea of a site that draws upon the best ideas of its community rather than pushing some particular editorial agendum.

 

[ewok93]

Paying people to select best answers has nothing to do with this, and is actually beneficial to the community. It allows people to quickly see what threads are solved and quickly find the solution, while if this wasn't done, the threads would just sit there, not being much use to anyone.

 

[Ijack]

I'm sure that we all have our own opinions on this. I'm all in favour of allowing the community to select Best Answers (although it would be better to do it via some consensus system such as a working up/downvote system rather than just allowing individuals to select BAs. And you don't have to have much experience to be able to do that.). But, to me, hiring people to select Best Answers (with the justification that it improves the sites metrics) is not a good thing in my opinion. Especially as it has been admitted that these aren't always the best answer but, hey, that's life.

As you say, it's not the same as the question of the usefulness of tutorials, but it is part of the larger question of the way Tom's seems to be headed. I appreciate that this is what the owners want and what they perceive the public want. I believe that they may be mistaken.

But, as I say, I favour a community forum as opposed to a centrally edited one which probably explains my viewpoint.

 

[jpishgar]

Community has staff, as does Editorial, as does Development. We have people on staff to help us run the community and keep it safe, clean, and up to quality. We have staffers, contractors, and volunteers who accomplish this. There is no directive towards centralizing our community or pursuing an editorial agenda, apart from ensuring lively ongoing discussion and useful threads and community content.

We're working on an improved way to showcase tutorials themselves, apart from the filters method which exists now. The community does and has been able to select best answers, but staff and contractors also perform this task - which is rote, and dramatically improved the overall quality of the forum for users.

-JP