Harddrive Guide - For Non-Techies...

[Thorin]

As for the dumbing it down, ever been in a situation where people are using jargon on a subject without you having reference to what that subject is?  It can be frustrating fast, and nerve racking as well.  Wikipedia has the information and links to get you through it, yes, but its overwelming to the average person, especially with the computer topics.  You, me, and most of us on these boards have the patience and understanding to navigate wikipedia with ease.  Average Joe gets frustrated or fed-up fast.  It will get better as the generations shift (youth become old, old becomes deceased - to be very simplistic), but today wikipedia isn't the grand solution for the whole... tomorrow who knows .

Sounds sorta like those horrible old 24-book Encyclopedia Sets that you had to search <gasp!> by hand!  If people are too lazy to read something, it doesn't matter if they're reading it on a computer or in a book.  It matters that they're too lazy to self-educate.  Funny how the times have changed, even in the last twenty years.

[Melbosa]

Sounds sorta like those horrible old 24-book Encyclopedia Sets that you had to search <gasp!> by hand!  If people are too lazy to read something, it doesn't matter if they're reading it on a computer or in a book.  It matters that they're too lazy to self-educate.  Funny how the times have changed, even in the last twenty years.

Again so true.  Man I still have my 36 book Encyclopedia Set... good old dust collector that is.

[Mr. Analog]

All we (support analysts) can do is give the best informaiton we can for the right audience, if it can't be understood by either party then communication has to happen. If you don't know jargon, interrupt and ask. It is that simple.

The "dumbin' it down approach" as a default is wrong because a) you are assuming the person you are talking to is a numpty and below your level of understanding (you're being arrogant [sic]) and b) you are problably giving them information that they cannot process anyway.

You don't tell a business person that they can't save their documents to a shared network drive becuase there is a NAT configuration problem. You tell them that there is a networking issue preventing from saving their documents and that you have to contact their network administrator (or if you are the netadmin) and tell them that you should have a resoloution by date blah (pending further issues) and you'll have detailed information available should they want it.

Support is 20% fixing problems and 80% keeping people happy (at all levels).

[Melbosa]

Exactly right. Presentation and understanding of all parties involved is key to a good support model and practice.  Wikipedia I think fails on the presentation portion a bit as it stands today.  But it will only get better.

[Mr. Analog]

I see Wikipedia as a vertical reference guide that forces the curious to learn on their own at least that's how I use it (and apparently the same way I use iMDB).

[Darren Dirt]

Um, it is missing some rather important information for anyone thinking of purchasing a drive with UM current hardware.

- Does not talk about new perpendicular drives coming out

That Flash movie "Get Perpendicular") was indeed quite cool (thread link: http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php/topic,2033.0.html ) and there is also a growing article at Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recording (and yes, it has an "external link" to "Get Perpendicular")

[Darren Dirt]

All we (support analysts) can do is give the best informaiton we can for the right audience, if it can't be understood by either party then communication has to happen.

Hey wait, I thought that a "sender" giving audience-appropriate information to the "receiver" is the very definition of communication

Actually I think you're wrong there, because if you find an article on BLAH which talks about it's subcomponents usually they too have sub-entries (and so forth).

You could look up Flintstones, find the entry of Fred and find an entry on Ralf Kramden and then find an entry on the Honeymooners (which you might be familliar with) from many Wiki entries you get the whole picture in an associative way, which I think is more like how people learn.

...I totally agree, both re. "how people learn" and why resources like Wikipedia, IMDB, HomesarWiki, and dictionary.com (which has both dictionary/thesauraus entries as well as cached Wikipedia encyclopedia entries!) are so wonderful... and wonderfully addictive!

[Lazybones]

I can't believe this thread is still going...

[Darren Dirt]

Oops my bad. I made a booboo when it comes to the "dictionary" that I use all the time.

Although http://dictionary.com is good (http://dictionary.reference.com) when I mentioned the inclusion of Wikipedia entries, I mean http://www.thefreedictionary.com -- that's the one I usually go to first (rather than going directly to Wikipedia to read the entry).