From MozillaZine Knowledge Base

New article?

I can't find where proposals for new articles should go, so here it is.

We need an article on CPU use. Maybe there is one that covers it, but I can't find it. People who have high CPU use will search for it under CPU use. It's a pretty common problem. I don't see any way to find information on that from the top down. Sorry, I probably won't write it. I just want to express the need. --AnotherGuest. 1 Nov 06

I've attempted to start such an article at Firefox CPU usage. -- schapel 18:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Previous stuff

What a mess this is.

1. The organization and assortment of topics is pretty much random, without any discernable organization. It's pretty daunting to find anything here, and this is pretty much the entry point for someone who's troubleshooting.

2. The alphabetical arrangement is illogical. For example, bookmarks problems are filed under, L, M, and B. Extensions are filed under U (3 places) and P.

3. There's only one subcategory. What the? And why should we have a separate section on subcategories? Shouldn't the whole thing be divided into categories?

4. Sprinkled among miscellaneous issues, I find an article "Issues with Firefox". I thought that's what the whole page was supposed to be. The title, after all, is "Issues (Firefox)".

5. That page, "Issues with Firefox", is actually organized. Something like that should take the place of this page.

6. At one point it was somewhat organized. I don't know what happened, but this seems like several steps backwards.

AnotherGuest.

Organization here. --Np 23:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the category:Firefox is organized by subject. It supposedly lists all articles, but it contains only 18 entries, while this page that supposedly has only articles on frequently encountered issues has 39 entries. And missing among those frequently encountered issues are memory use, CPU use, firewall, "can't connect", and other common complaints. The organization is sufficiently screwed up that I have a hard enough time finding stuff that I know is there.

I notice also that the listing of articles has hardly anything that comes under the subcategory:Page Display. And Page Display has a bunch of stuff that seemingly has nothing to do with page display, and that is not even in the alphabetical listing of articles. If it were up to me, I'd completely dump this default Wikipedia notion of subcategories and alphabetical listing.

Category:Firefox has way more that 18 entries - most entries are listed under one of the subcategories. That's organization. I don't like Category: Issues (Firefox) either (others do, that's why it's here) but I don't see the point of Issues with Firefox because it's just a selective copy of Category: Firefox (others do, that's why it's there).--Np 00:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The alphabetical arrangement is illogical.

It isn't. It's just not very user-friendly.

And why should we have a separate section on subcategories? Shouldn't the whole thing be divided into categories?

I don't understand your questions. (All articles in the KB are now categorized.) If you are suggesting that any given category should either contain just articles or just subcategories, then this idea is tidier but impractical, since that would involve creating lots of new subcategories purely for the purpose of putting just one or two articles into them. For example, the 18 assorted articles lying directly in Category:Firefox are there precisely because no-one could figure out a good way to categorize them better.

Issues with Firefox is actually organized. Something like that should take the place of this page. At one point it was somewhat organized.

The KB is pretty well organized. Your complaints are in regard to user access. If you like the page Issues with Firefox (as I do) then why not just place a link to it in the top of the Category:Issues (Firefox) page?

Missing among those frequently encountered issues are memory use, CPU use, firewall, "can't connect", and other common complaints

Why not add them to the Issues with Firefox page then?

Page Display has a bunch of stuff that […] is not even in the alphabetical listing of articles

Yes it is. Everything in a category or subcategory is automatically alphabetized by the wiki software. (That's precisely what you said you didn't like!) --Mozcerize 12:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

========

OK, let's start from the top. According to the front page, the subject of this page is "frequently encountered issues". That should be the title, just so we don't forget and morph the significance of the page.

This page should have a consistent heirarchy to make it useable. It should either be an alphabetical list of articles or it should be divided into main headings and possibly subheadings, but it should not be mixed like this. In my opnion, this is the place for structured headings, and not an alphabetical list. If you must have an alphabetical list here, it should be in addition to the structured list, it should be labeled as an alphabetical list of articles, and it must include all articles.

Ditto for the Category:Firefox page. Oh, and forget the Wikipedia "Category:this" and "Subcategory:that" stuff. It's really distracting and annoying.

It is not clear which page you are talking about. If you mean the Category:Issues (Firefox) page, then one does not have a choice what it is called; it's just a category listing. If you mean the Issues with Firefox page, then this was recently discussed in Knowledge Base changes. It would be best to raise the suggestion there again. --Mozcerize

The idea of putting a lot of (more user-friendly) info in the editable (top) part of the category pages was discussed in some depth previously. (See Talk:Rules/Categories. The idea has been dismissed at the moment in favour of the Issues with Firefox article, where one can have structured headings, nicely phrased titles, etc. (The corresponding "friendly" page for Category:Firefox is Firefox FAQs.) --Mozcerize 23:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

A good place for an alphabetical list of ALL articles would be on the front page. The Firefox categories could be

• Frequently encountered issues <delete> and how to fix them </delete>.
• All Firefox articles, arranged by subject.
• All Firefox articles, arranged alphabetically.

(Note that the current system of alphabetizing is fractured -- Bookmarks could be alphabetized under "the" or "sorting" or "lost", etc.

AnotherGuest.

If you want to talk about Category:Firefox, do so at Category talk:Firefox.--Np 23:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I see the problem now. The page is generated automatically. I didn't look at the page source at first. It does make for an unsatisfactory user experience, in my opinion.

Re: Category:Firefox, I mentioned it only a little, but the same comments pretty much apply to that too. I didn't want to fragment the discussion without good reason.

Websites

Do we really need websites as a subcategory? Anything issue-related should be directly in this category.--Np 22:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree we don't need "Websites" as a subcategory under Issues (Firefox) or Issues (Mozilla Suite). Just leave it under the main Firefox and Mozilla Suite categories. Speaking of which, I really don't understand this new category. It seems to be a catch-all that includes not only all the articles that were formerly under the old "Page Display" category but also anything with "website" in the name. Alice Wyman 17:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC) .... P.S. Never mind about my last comment. The Category:Issues (Firefox) page says For issues relating to page loading, page display, page content and website-specific problems, visit the Websites subcategory. I guess that explains the category. Alice Wyman 17:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

How to keep people from reinstalling or reverting?

Probably a majority of users who experience problems think that reinstalling Fx should fix the problems. Many of them probably walk away when it doesn't change anything. Somehow people need to get the idea that setup and data are store in the profile, not with the program files. This information ought to be in big red blinking letters at the top of something. But the top of what? Ideas? Shouldn't we put this notice where EVERYONE will see it -- someplace where they can't miss it?

The other thing is that a sizeable number of them want to revert to a previous version at the first sign of trouble. Bad idea, and we should cite this page: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html . But in which article? --AnotherGuest. 26 Sept. 06

Installing Firefox or Uninstalling Firefox is where both belong but that won't guarantee that people will see it there, since most folks who do an uninstall/reinstall just do so from force of habit, and when it doesn't work then they go looking for answers elsewhere, come to the forums and then often get referred to the Standard diagnostic - Firefox article, in which an uninstall/reinstall is listed last, with the added instructions to remove the profile data. Alice Wyman 18:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)