Requesting - Tutorials/How-To sections

[TowerHost.com]

Hey Chicken and everyone!

I was browsing around HHO and had a great idea, why not make new a forum or forums dedicated to How-Tos and tutorials. I miss forums having just informative articles that you can browse like on a regular web site and I feel that is their week point.

Users have to look all over the place to get related articles but most are just questions. Why not make a section of this forum to Tutorials and maybe Tutorial Requests.

Tutorials Section:
Users can write up full on tutorials of specific admin tasks, using software, and generally how they did a certain thing. (Similar to the How-TO at Rackshacks forums).

Tutorials Requests:
People looking for a specific in depth tutorial for a certain subject or thing. I often look for tutorials on tweaking firewalls and things like that but have an extremely difficult time finding any.


I would definately write up some articles for this forum, you guys are great. I think it would bring more quality content to this site and help many users and admins.

Looking forward to your comments about this.

Thanks :cool:

[Chicken]

Would this be part of the forum or a subsection of the site?

[TowerHost.com]

Your choice really - but I would like to see it in the forums because users can reply to the how-to articles with questions, etc so I think making it in the forums would be best :)

[Chicken]

Hmmm well, do you have any ideas for tutorials or a few written? Idea has merit, though I'd like to see what the interest is. I think it wold be a really good section, though possibly hard to find tutorials on things needed. If it was active, I'd consider making it both a subsection (with links to the topics so that people cold reply, ask questions, etc., as you said).

[TowerHost.com]

I don't have any written right now - but I'd definately be up to writting some.
I also suggested this to WHT but I think that site has become to commercial to want a section like that.

I think the topics could range from security issues, such as securing your /tmp partition, permissions - to tweaking software like your firewall settings, cpanel, how to monitor your services, watching and tracking server loads, etc.

To this day I can't find any real Cpanel tutorials - like going in detail of manually using the /scripts files, and more details about how Cpanel works. It's a very popular server control panel that many people don't understand enough to take full advantage of. They plug it in and it works - but I'm interested in the behind the scenes aspect of it and there are always things to be tweaked.

The main reason for these would be to help veteran server admins and newbies alike share ideas and help make our servers more secure, reliable and perform at their best.

I think HHO is a great community and I can see members willing to contribute and really help each other. If it takes you hours to figure something out then I'm sure it has taken someone else hours to figure it out as well - then why not share your journey with others and even use them for a referance to yourself! :)

[allan]

I think that's an excellent idea TH.

[TowerHost.com]

Thanks allan I'm looking forward to it :D

[Chicken]

Allan posted a few comments in the admin forum, and I felt those comments needed to come out...

Originally posted by allan:

Regarding TowerHost's suggestion, I have a couple of ideas and a question:

1. Is this a service that PingZine will be offering, no point in duplicating efforts, if the content can somehow be shared.

2. If you do decide to implement this Chicken, it could probably be done in the same way the PHP documentation is done on the PHP website. Someone writes the article, and then people comment and create additions.

3. This would be great as a seperate header, with each how-to acting as its own topic.

Perhaps what we can do is see who is interested in writing how-to's, then develop a format that the how-tos should follow. When we get a certain number of how-tos submitted you can launch that forum with those how-tos. Perhaps an incentive for people to write how-tos would be that they would get their name/company name mentioned at the top of the how-to.

The best part for you Chicken, is that you would get to grade them, just like your student's compositions :).
Everything seemed interesting and spot on, except for the grading part! ;) :D I have to mark down Allan's suggestion due to that comment. He gets a B+

I'd especially like to note this point:
Originally posted by allan:

Perhaps what we can do is see who is interested in writing how-to's, then develop a format that the how-tos should follow.

[interactive]

I think it's a very good idea. I'd be up for writting a few articles, althought I'm no where near a English Major.

[TowerHost.com]

About the sharing content idea -
I've managed to intergrate a vBulletin member database as a authentication center to a custom CMS system I made so only moderators and admins can post on the actual web site which is all dynamic of course :D Just thought I'd let you know if you'd be interested.

So are you suggesting to keep this for your PingZine or intergrate it more for HHO and then port the articles over to PingZine?

I agree about the seperate header - help organize the forum more and it's strong enough to have its own section.

I also agree you would need to develop a format for the articles to help keep them consistent and easy to follow. Screenshots would be a definate bonus - which many tutorial writters seems to overlook.

Haha more homework for Chicken, I guess I can get some feedback on my writting skills, woohoo!

If you want send me a PM with any other thoughts about this.

Cheers!

[Chicken]

Originally posted by TowerHost.com:

About the sharing content idea -
I've managed to intergrate a vBulletin member database as a authentication center to a custom CMS system I made so only moderators and admins can post on the actual web site which is all dynamic of course :D Just thought I'd let you know if you'd be interested.
Well, the sharing had to do with Ping Zine! for the most part, (see below).
So are you suggesting to keep this for your PingZine or intergrate it more for HHO and then port the articles over to PingZine?
So there's no confusion, note that Ping Zine! is Keith's baby (username iBiz (http://hosthideout.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=9) here at HHO). I believe he might be interested in using some of the tutorials in print as well, which would be fine by me. I'm sure we could work something out where any tutorial content could be ported to the magazine and users could comment and ask questions here. Would seem to work out for everyone:

Tutorial writer gets published on web site and in magazine, and credits.
HHO gains a new section which is helpful to visitors.
Ping Zine! gains another channel of content.
I agree about the seperate header - help organize the forum more and it's strong enough to have its own section.
To be honest, I didn't know what Allan meant exactly here, but I'm sure you'll exaplin it to me :D
I also agree you would need to develop a format for the articles to help keep them consistent and easy to follow. Screenshots would be a definate bonus - which many tutorial writters seems to overlook.
I was thinking a catagorized listing on another sub-page section of the site, not sure why screen shots of the tutorial would be helpful, but...
If you want send me a PM with any other thoughts about this.

Cheers!
Overall, I think it is a wonderful idea, and can only help people. I know that tutorials are extremely helpful and if this could be developed, would be an aid to many who might not be able to get the information any place else. It fits nicely along the lines of why I wanted to start HHO, and I don't see why it shouldn't be done.

Biggest questions are how many tutorials (and on what subjects) to start out with until a section is launched and how to present it in a convenient format so that the information is easy to find and comment on.

Most of that can be worked out later, so if anyone has any ideas for initial tutorials, let's get the ball rolling! :D

[Chicken]

Slight update...

I now know what 'separate headers' means, thanks to Allan (http://hosthideout.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=6), who will be the moderator heading up this whole project, hopefully with the help of TowerHost (but that's up to him). I'll only do whatever Allan wants me to do, and anything forum and Ping Zine! related.

[James]

just a question,
what would be good to start out with DNS, e-mail,web mail setting up? type how-to's/TUTs?
if so i can write up a cupple of them PM me if you want my help.
laters
James

[TowerHost.com]

Originally posted by Chicken:

Well, the sharing had to do with Ping Zine! for the most part,
Tutorial writer gets published on web site and in magazine, and credits.
HHO gains a new section which is helpful to visitors.
Ping Zine! gains another channel of content.


Wow sounds great - I'm happy your deciding to use my idea :)
Props to Tower Host :D
I see Issue One is scheduled for March, looking forward to it. I'm not sure how much time you need in advance for magazine articles for them to be published, isn't it like 2 months in advance?


I was thinking a catagorized listing on another sub-page section of the site, not sure why screen shots of the tutorial would be helpful, but...

Yes definately categorize the tutorials into generic sections like security, 3rd party programs (like MailMon), control panels, general admin duties (like partitioning, configuring syslog). Those are a couple I can think of for now - I don't think we'll need lots of sub sections at first, more ideas will come as we develop the articles.


Biggest questions are how many tutorials (and on what subjects) to start out with until a section is launched and how to present it in a convenient format so that the information is easy to find and comment on.


This is interesting - because a few of these may also be going in print I suggest you create a special linking format in your magazine to link to the online article.

I think there are 2 possibilities for this:

1)
Online article to PingZine then to HHO article

Eg article about clusting your cpanel web servers - at the end/beginning of the print article have something like "Available at - pingzine.com/article/231" or "Available at pingzine.com/article.php?id=231"

Then maybe in your online article have a dicuss link - which links to the topic here in the forums where you can send traffic to HHO and they can comment and ask questions on the article


2)
Direct link to HHO article

Eg article about clusting your cpanel web servers - at the end/beginning of the print article have something like "Available for discussion and comments at - HostHideout.com/article/231"


I think you may want to send them to PingZine first because you're trying to promote the magazine and the brand. Linking directly to PingZine then in the PZ article to your sister site HHO and the forum article would be the best way IMO....


Also if you find there to be a lack of articles and you really want to develop the section for the magazine or the forum you could put an ad in PZ requesting tutorials or run some type of contest -
Eg: Article writter of the month gets cash/software/50% of company shares :D

[interactive]

I personally think that the articles should be a seperate sub section of HHO, but then again that's just me.

[Operator]

Great! I will be looking forward :D

[Locke]

I'm currently working on a project for a community called TutorialForums.com - The project is: TutorialCentral.com

It uses the vB system, and we can form in a tutorial system for design and coding tutorials. Pixeljunction.com demonstrated this first, so did Somethingleet.com back with Tutorial Exchange existed.

The system you guys are talking about like that, could be easily done, and I have background in doing it. It would be a very cool idea, and I think you guys should do it :)

[Jeff]

TowerHost contact me about your script. I control the scripts/book/hardware content in Ping! Zine. Email me at jeff@pingzine.com and tell me more about it.

[Chicken]

Has this moved... at all? Allan? Errrrrr...

[TowerHost.com]

Just saw the reply from Jeff and sent an email back.
I posted a HowTO in Rackshacks Cpanel forums for Cpanel newbies, it already have 1200 views and was made a sticky :D

My nick on Rackshack is Ramprage if you're wondering.
Anyway get back to me about the script, I'm not sure what you're after!

Cheers

[Jeff]

i replied to your email :-). Also if you could write new tutorials that would be great because we really want fresh content rather than content that is already out there and has been seen by others :)

except scripts of course ;)

[Living Media]

I have a tutorial request:

proper use of server wide IP blocking / email blocking / use of tools like SPEWS.

I'm currently a reseller, and one of the reasons I started this way was because I know that I have miles to go (so to speak) before I know how to do a good and proper job of administering a server. I don't even know how to go about evaluating others' skills to build a team of people to do this. Learning how to use these tools properly - with surgical precision rather than random blocking - would be nice. There are probably others who are in the same position as I am.

If this isn't the place to request tutorials or propose tutorial ideas....oops.

[Chicken]

Well, I don't actually see an organized effort on this quite yet (though there was one in theory). But never hurts to ask and maybe someone will get the ball rolling and we can start with a grand total of one.

[allan]

Sorry guys, I thought I posted my thoughts already, I must have slacked :(.

As I see it there are really three parts to the tutorial process:

1. A format should be developed, so the same information is provided in each tutorial
2. Someone has to write them.
3. Someone/people have to review them.

I'm going to break this into two additional posts the format, and the review process.

[allan]

The Format:

We should develop a set of categories that are commonplace to all hosting companies and have the category included as part of the format, I can think of the following categories, please add more if you feel I am missing anything:

1. Starting Up
2. Customer Service
3. Accounting and Legal Issues
4. Domains/DNS
5. Software
6. Control Panels
7. Linux specific issues
8. Windows specfic issues
9. Networking
10. Security
11. Advertising
12. Monitoring

This is a very fluid list, but I would like to try to keep the categories general so we can put as many how tos into each category as possible.

After deciding on a categor the next step is to create a title, the title should explicitly explain what the author is trying to convey. Something like: How To Install and Configure BIND, or How To Set up ACLS on a Cisco Router. The more specific the title the better.

We should probably create sections that should be a standard part of any how to. Something like:

1. Introduction (why was the how-to written)
2. The Problem (what is the problem).
3. The Resolution (how to solve the problem).
4. About the author (a paragraph where the writer can plug himself/herself and company).

Again these are up for debate, but the better we are able to provide a format the easier it will be for people to write the how to.

Next, there should be a minimum length. I think for a how to to be useful it should be at least 500 words. The minumum should serve as a guideline, not an absolute -- but we want to keep people from submitting worthless crap :).


The point of doing this is not to make life difficult for potential authors but to standardize the format to make things easier for readers to follow. Similar to the way the Linux Documentation Project works.

[allan]

As far as reviewers, we should have at least 6 people available to review submitted how tos.

Any how to that is submitted should be reviewed by three people. They should check it for technical accuracy as well as correct grammar and spelling mistakes.

Once the document has been updated to the satisfaction of the three reviewers it can then be posted to the site.

I know some people won't like this idea, but I think if we are going to create a valuable resource the content has to be checked for accuracy and it has to be presented professionally.



So, let me know what you all think -- and please feel free to flame away :).

[allan]

Originally posted by Living Media:

If this isn't the place to request tutorials or propose tutorial ideas....oops.

I think this is an excellent idea...one of the things we should do as part of this effort is create a separate forum where people can ask for tutorials. Authors looking to submit a tutorial can look to see what is needed and write one based on that.

[Operator]

Sounds great! I think I can contribute to the "Customer Service" section. :D

[Chicken]

Originally posted by allan:

...one of the things we should do as part of this effort is create a separate forum where people can ask for tutorials. Authors looking to submit a tutorial can look to see what is needed and write one based on that.
I'd create this now (in the Hosting section I presume?), however I don't think we're quite there yet. I think the 'Request a Tutorial Forum' would be a subforum of the 'Tutorial Forum' which I think would work OK (though I'm not a huge fan of sub-forums, in this case...)

But re: Your list and points... I think they are spot on.

[Living Media]

Chicken, I think that suggestions should just be part of the main tutorial forum - at least for now. Maybe people can make their suggestions in one thread?

Also, allan, would it be too odd to include a "level" or "intended audience" in the preface to each tutorial? Or the intended audience? For example, a tutorial on installing cPanel or Fantastico would include something like "Level: Server Access required (providers, dedicated server owners)" because resellers don't generally have access to that level. This would let people skim the various prefaces and know, faster, if the tutorial in question would be applicable to them in their current situation.

Just thoughts. (Can you tell the coffee's hit? Chicken, when the custom titles get implemented, make mine "Highly Caffeinated" :D)

[allan]

Originally posted by Chicken:

I'd create this now (in the Hosting section I presume?), however I don't think we're quite there yet. I think the 'Request a Tutorial Forum' would be a subforum of the 'Tutorial Forum' which I think would work OK (though I'm not a huge fan of sub-forums, in this case...)


Either way is fine, a tutorial forum probably doesn't make sense until we have a steady stream of tutorials coming in. For now, a stickie in the hosting forum should suffice -- is that what you were getting at?

[allan]

Originally posted by Living Media:
Also, allan, would it be too odd to include a "level" or "intended audience" in the preface to each tutorial?

Excellent suggestion -- perhaps a dual pronged approach to the intended audience: Skill Level and Access Type (Beginner, Intermediate, Expert and Reseller, Dedicated, or Colo/Own Data Center).

More thoughts from anyone?

[Chicken]

Originally posted by allan:

Either way is fine, a tutorial forum probably doesn't make sense until we have a steady stream of tutorials coming in. For now, a stickie in the hosting forum should suffice -- is that what you were getting at?
No it wouldn't, not to mention it would be a rather unpopulated forum. I suppose having it there would increase the amount of tutorials posted though, heh. (Read: None yet.)

A sticky in 'the hosting forum'... that would be _____ ???

[allan]

Originally posted by Chicken:
A sticky in 'the hosting forum'... that would be _____ ???

Umm, yea...what I meant was: "Announcements, Suggestions, & Feedback about HostHideout.com"

Unless you think another forum would be more appropriate?

[allan]

This is a great idea, but it seems to keep losing momentum. So let's start small, do we have any volunteers who are willing to write/donate tutorials to this project, so we can at least get it rolling?

[suppleSupport]

Originally posted by allan:

do we have any volunteers who are willing to write/donate tutorials to this project

MEEEEEEEmeMEmeMEmeMeMEE

(scuze the coffee)

[interactive]

I have a few tutorials that I wrote for devarticles a long time ago, just never got around to submitting them, so I'm interested.

[MMiz]

I really think this concept is "revolutionary" in thought. Yeah yeah yeah, there are tons of places that offer these (RackShack, cPanel, WHT, others), but if HHO played its cards right, wouldnt it be nice if people posted these at HHO for the entire community to see? I see it happening... eventually. Gotta start somewhere.

Seems like a great idea to me though.

[James]

yes me as well.
I guess my how-to's would not fit in there unless there would be in time a subsection for end users. im farly good at explaing things to the non techies.

chicken let me know and i can whip up a cupple just for hho and see if you want to use them at a later time for end users (heck some times I forget how to do e-mail/dns/ect ect, and have to look at how i did it before to remember:)

[Chicken]

How-to's from end user to seasoned professional would be helpful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the object is to create documents which could be used by hosts. That may even mean them linking to or reposting your article on their site (i.e. how to set up email). Allan said he was going to head this up, so you'll have to ask him, but...

[allan]

James tutorials from end users are welcome as well -- we want to cover as many hosting topics as possible.

Well, it looks like we have at least three people willing to write tutorials, which is great. Is there anyone who is willing to assist with reviewing the tutorials (the make sure they are technically accurate)?

For now, if you have a tutorial written that you would like included you can send it to me (or send me a link): allan@allan.org.

I'm going to give them all roughly the same format, so it looks like a cohesive effort ;), then we'll start putting them online.

Does that work for everyone?

[jvn]

Originally posted by Chicken:

How-to's from end user to seasoned professional would be helpful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the object is to create documents which could be used by hosts. That may even mean them linking to or reposting your article on their site (i.e. how to set up email). ...

This would be very helpful from the Reseller viewpoint. Having a set of documents for the basics gives a good head start and would reduce support issues. (A printable page for clients who are just setting up their first website - invaluable.)


Originally posted by allan:

.... Is there anyone who is willing to assist with reviewing the tutorials (the make sure they are technically accurate)?

... give them all roughly the same format, so it looks like a cohesive effort ;), then we'll start putting them online.

Does that work for everyone?

I'm willing to help with review and helping to maintain the format. This would include review of the "readability" of the tutorial. I could be the test monkey to follow the directions and point out if it works or not. I am learning much from this forum (sheltered prior experience) and by helping I would learn faster plus be able to give something back.

[vito]

Well, after getting Allan's blessing that it's OK to make a post here, I am happy to donate a few Flash tutorials to the forum. Just let me know what you need...

(Just don't say you want every tutorial available :D - that's over 500 tutorials :eek: )

Vito