"Help" content: wiki vs. Autodesk-created

[mechitar]

The Help function in Revit 2013 is based on Wikihelp.  Wikihelp appears to contain only user-generated content.  Is that correct?  Is there any way to access Help content that was created by Autodesk?  It would be a lot more reliable and easier to search than the user-generated stuff.

[Alfredo_Medina]

Wikihelp has both types of content : by Autodesk personnel, or by users. The main base is by Autodesk, which is the collection of help documents that existed before launching Wikihelp, or the additional documents that are added when new versions of the sofware are released.

It is not true that the content created by users is "a lot less reliable", as you say. Both sources are reliable.

The information created by Autodesk is important for understanding the description of the features, properties, and workflows, because this need to be explained first by the official source who makes the software. If there is a new feature, who has to explain it first? The company, not the users.

On the other hand, the information provided by users is important because it comes from the experiences at using those features on a daily basis, at offices, and the adaptation of those features for doing real projects and construction documents. It's a different point of view.

If you are concerned about the possibility of some users posting some nonsense, don't worry about it. The content is moderated and reviewed before being approved for publication.

[loboarch · Accepted solution]

Alfredo is correct, both user generated content and Autodesk generated content is found in the wiki.  The sections under the heading "Community" in the wiki table of contents is the user generated content and everythign else is Autodesk generated content.  ALL user generated content is moderated before it is published.  Often times the community generated content is found and then posted with permission directly by Autodesk because it is an article we think is valuable to the user community as a whole and want to make it more visible to our users who might not spend time reading blogs or user forums regularly.  Some of the community content is also created directly by Autodesk.  The article may not fit well within the format of the "Official" Users Guide so the community section of the wiki allows us to publish these kinds of articles.

The search tool in the wiki does have some preference for "Official" Users gudie topics but if some community topics have a large number of page views they do drift to the top of a search result.  You can look at the URL in the search preview to see if it includes "Community" in the URL to know if it is an "Official" topic or a Community based one.  There is not a way to filter the results to only show "Official" topics.

[mechitar]

"It is not true that the content created by users is "a lot less reliable", as you say. Both sources are reliable."

I'm sure that most of the user-created content is good and useful.  But I don't know any given Wikihelp user from Adam, so I can never be sure, before (or even during/after) reading an entry by one of them, how useful their entry will be.  That uncertainty, as opposed to the high certainty that I can count on the content created by Autodesk to be good, is what I mean about it being less reliable.

It's a good point about the wiki content being a different kind of content - that being created by and for people using this software in the real world.  That's handy.

And I'm glad to hear, from loboarch, that the user-created content is moderated.  However, my perception of this stuff was really marred by the fact that the very first (user-created) help item I read turned out to be long but useless (comments by others on the item confirmed that it was useless).

[loboarch]

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@mechitar wrote:

However, my perception of this stuff was really marred by the fact that the very first (user-created) help item I read turned out to be long but useless (comments by others on the item confirmed that it was useless).

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Do you mind letting me know which topic that is?  I can take a look at it and make necessary adjustments.

[mechitar]

Thanks for the info, loboarch.  I'm glad that there is some way to tell the "official" content from the "user" content in help searches.  It's not an easy way, though, so I hope in the future Autodesk/Wikihelp will consider these improvements: 1) Separate (rather than intermixing) official entries from user-created ones, and/or make it a lot easier to tell one from the other; 2) Make Wikihelp a lot faster; it's really slow for me.

[mechitar]

"Do you mind letting me know which topic that is?  I can take a look at it and make necessary adjustments."

It's an entry called "Setting Project North and True North":
http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/Community/Tutorials/Setting_Project_North_and_True_North

[Alfredo_Medina]

In that case, please provide the link to that article, and if it's really useless, we can comment it here, or Jeff can edit it in the Wiki if necessary, or an indepedent user like myself can review it and comment about it.

[Alfredo_Medina]

I just went to the link and read it.

My comments:

What is really "useless" is the comment that says that the article is useless. Don't get confused by that.

The article is useful because it provides the definitions and does contain the step by step instructions.

[loboarch]

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mechitar wrote:

"Do you mind letting me know which topic that is?  I can take a look at it and make necessary adjustments."

It's an entry called "Setting Project North and True North":
http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/Community/Tutorials/Setting_Project_North_and_True_North

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This particualr subject (rotating true north) is a diffucult subject in revit and it has been attempted to be described many times by different users and Autodesk.  This particular article is technically sound.  The steps will work.  I realize the comments on this page label it as "useless".  There is no wa yto know why the people who commented on this article feel this way, but technically the process does work.  Sorry if you found it to not work, or be confusing.  There is usually more than one way to accomplish something in Revit, so perhaps one of the other articles on rotating true north will be more effective.

The Revit Cat

(That is for you Alfredo)   

[Alfredo_Medina]

I have the feeling that probably the article was initially published without the step by step instructions that were originally included in the PDF, which might have generated the comments. Then, as a response to the comments, the steps were included. If you visit the original source, that post by Iru in Revitforum, you will see that the steps were always there from the beginning.

To Jeff : oh, yes, the Revit Cat shows up again.

(There is an article in my blog talking about Jeff's Revit Cat: http://planta1.com/forum/entry.php?32-The-Revit-Cat-and-the-Parametric-Stars)