Re: [gentoo-kbase] A Gentoo Knowledge Base

[Sven Vermeulen]

On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 07:11:49PM -0500, Mike Myers wrote:
> I really like your idea so far.  I'm glad you plan on making this part
> of the official gentoo project as well, as I'm almost positive something
> like this would have popped up eventually that was unofficial.  Anyways,
> something you may want to consider in searching is the ability to search
> for specific error messages.  Speaking from experience, often times when
> I am searching for a problem, it's how to fix an error message and I'll
> use the error message itself as the search criteria.  The natural
> language thing seems like it would be decent, but it almost seems like
> it would require a bit of artificial intelligence, which might be more
> work than what it is worth.  It would be great though if it did turn up
> useful results.

I believe that some interesting natural language engines exist already which
might make a good candidate. One of the projects that I have investigated
thus far is the MindMeld project, which has a nice engine, giving good
results for both "how do I" questions as plain copy/paste of error messages.
It actually builds the result based on both its database and prior queries
(with feedback from the user ala "was this answer helpful").

> Another function you should be sure to put in is the ability to browse
> by category or something.  Some people tend to end up with problems that
> they never get fixed and just forget about them.  (I know I have)  Or if
> they're just curious about how a particular program might be set up.  I
> hope you get the idea of what I'm saying.

Categories are quite difficult to use in a knowledge base. A more active
approach here is the use of keywords. If a topic has something to do with
the installation, the keyword "installation" is active.

Of course, viewing all topics with a certain keyword can be seen as that
specific keyword categorie. All in the point of viewing.

> Overall though, I think your ideas are great.  Like the PHP.net style
> comments and whatnot.  Gentoo has been known for it's documentation for
> a while, but that reputation seems to have diminished a bit since there
> hasn't been any huge changes in how things are done.  I really think a
> KB like this would remedy that.

The Gentoo Documentation Project should focus one other things, like general
guides, internationalisation of the available documentation, search ability,
published articles, project documentation and the lot. 

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

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