Asterisk* FAQs
December 08, 2003 | 
4 Comments
Thanks to everyone who asked me a question and helped out with my experiment. It went well and I’ve decided to keep it going. There are still a few minor issues to sort out, but I think it can be a fun addition to the site.
Check out the new Asterisk FAQs section if you’ve not do so yet and feel free to ask a question of your own.
There were a few folks who were curious as to how it was done. It’s really pretty simple using Movable Type and I got the idea from Brad Choate’s site.
I did it in pretty much the same way he did, but I’ll give a quick overview here.
I created a new blog called “FAQs” and in that blog I created an entry. I kept the status of that entry to “draft” and noted the “id” for the entry created.
Then I created a template for the “Ask a question” form. This form is simply the generic Movable Type comment form modified to post comments to the “id” of that blank entry and redirected to a thank you page.
Now every time someone fills out that form I get a new comment on my blank entry. I don’t bother to have it send me an e-mail notification — I just check it every so often.
Now as to how I answer the questions, I just create a new entry for each new question. With many I edit the question down to something less complicated and use that for the title. I then cut and paste the whole question into the “Excerpt” field in movable type and via a plug-in called EntrySummary I extract the extended question on those entries that use it.
This allows me to address those longer questions and keep the titles of those pages useful and readable.
I then just answer the question, as I would do any other post, in the body of the entry. I also add Keywords that work with the MTRelatedEntriesByKeyword plugin so that I can group related questions by another means than a category.
I also make use of MTRoundRobin to create the alternating background shade and style for the links to the questions on the main FAQs page, the category archives and related questions sections.
All in all it’s pretty simple for me to maintain and hopefully easy for everyone else to make use of. If you’ve got any suggestions or comments feel free to let me know. I’ll hopefully make improvements to this over time and as I see need for them.
Filed under: My Sites
Comments
1. Nick Finck said:
Wow, these are great keith! …or do you want me to call you… oh never mind. Anyway, there is a lot of interesting stuff in your answers and I think that having your knack of writing with a dash of humor makes it all the more worthwhile to read. Great work!
P.S. Whoever doesn’t call you a writer should be shot… or at least painfully injured… maybe in relation to a limb… or perhaps the fingernails… a slap on the wrist would work.
Posted on December 8, 2003 12:35 PM | #
2. Keith said:
Thanks Nick. It’s fun to write the answers to these because I don’t have to worry so much about my writing style (not that I do too much of that anyway) and just concentrate on having fun and writing with a very conversational flow.
Posted on December 8, 2003 12:45 PM | #
3. Egor Kloos said:
I’ll have to join in Nick’s praise, you’ve done a very good job. I was even surprised that you answered my question “How do you build a weblog?”, which I made in jest. But you did answer it, and showed that it was not a silly question.
This made me remember that there are no silly questions and they all deserve an answer. That is what a FAQ section is for and that is what you have done.
My assumption that my question would be too silly to answer was pretentious and arrogant, a good thing to remember if I ever want to implement a FAQ section on my own site.
Posted on December 8, 2003 03:57 PM | #
4. Keith said:
That question was a tough one, Egor, but one I felt there might be some folks out there who wanted the answer to.
It’s always good to remember that on the Web there are all kinds of people and anyone (and everyone) has the potential to find their way to your site.
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people. ;)
Posted on December 8, 2003 07:06 PM | #
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