OK, I’ve taken the plunge and started a thread in Community Guides (so that the template can be edited). Presumably it would be moved to Hardware eventually?
One problem that comes up immediately: there doesn’t seem to be a hardware tag. I’ve put it under zigbee, which is wrong.
Edit: Have now created a hardware tag. Apparently you have to create the post with one of the existing tags, then edit to create a new tag and delete the original one. Odd. I’ve also created a user-experience tag.
Two threads about how to do this can become confusing (since @orange-assistant had reacted with a device different from the first one, of course adding your experience can give new ideas)
In the end, I think, it can be interesting if a topic title reveals for which device you can find the user experiences.
So each thread goes about that 1 specific device.
My idea was to discuss on what information would be necessary in the template and how to put all this into place.
I wanted to ask for ideas/opinions because I might see it wrong/to limited.
Ah. Have I misunderstood? I was thinking one thread for each generic type of device (IR blaster in this case) and a post for each user experience. Some people might have different experiences of the same device, some might have different devices. Then a user looking for IR blaster recommendations could go to a single place and scroll down.
Still, this is what trial posts are for!
It’s in community guides - so you can edit the template!
I also have edited my post with the example by adding the function of the device.
Like that, if someone does a search, or browses the forum, he/she will find the user experiences for that specific device in the title.
Of course, you get more threads since in you and orange-assistant have 2 different devices.
I don’t see a problem with that, my idea was to start from specific devices instead of topics about device types.
If we are starting to do this, why not go for more detailed/specific devices?
As you are already not using the wiki format of the community guides (only the first post is editable by everyone) I have moved it to the Hardware category.
As stated previously this is not a good solution. People will post there asking questions and not use your accepted format.
Reviews for devices are not correlated by device making searching vestry hit and miss.
Try searching the massive Australian Certified Hardware topic.
If the moderation requirements become excessive it will be closed and you will be directed to use a more appropriate solution like a wiki.
Think of it from a user point of view. A recent convert to HA wants an IR blaster but has no idea what’s available. If there’s a thread for each device, she/he has to do quite a lot of searching.
The first post doesn’t have to be editable by everyone, it should contain a template for that device.
After that, the thread ideally would contain user experiences based on that template.
That’s why I wrote that these topics should be moderated in some way.
I agree that there are some drawbacks as well by using the forum but most users of HA search, read or write in the forum and therefor I think the forum is best place to do something like this.
To be able to add your experience with a device, one just copies the template in a new post and writes his/her personal view about this device.
Of course like any thread, unless sticky, these topics are not at the top of it’s category very soon.
In my example with the motion sensor, anyone who searches (in the forum or a search engine) for sonoff snzb-03 motion sensor will find that amongst the search results.
I’m looking at the advantage of such a system as opposed multiple topics about the same device and the off topic answers there.
Is it best solution? Maybe not but such a system can be valuable.
Let’s take my example with topic title: User experiences: Sonoff SNZB-03 (motion sensor)
That is very clear what the thread is about if you search for instance for Sonoff SNZB-03 or motion sensor.
After some time, it will become clear that there are user experiences for specific devices in the forum.
You know that if you start a topic about a Zigbee device, there will be someone else chiming about a WiFi version, it can turn to esphome or whatever integration and it becomes static/noise.
Okay, I cannot open this since that search engine is blocked here but from the link I think it’s clear what you mean but that’s outside of the forum which misses a lot of it’s goal.
I use Miraheze for my personal HA documentation - perhaps @Nick4 should take a look. It’s free and you can make wikis public. Big undertaking, though. I’ve never managed to get my own docs under control.
Tom, these will be just threads like everything else in this forum.
Is there a problem so far? (except the manageability of course)
Doing something like suggested will be a whole different ballgame and my point was to use this community, how these devices are rated and in combination with HA.
Of course I know that it will be similar with other home automation platforms.
I know there a lot of these; I use DokuWiki for a lot of stuff besides HA.
In this topic Which hardware to buy - IR blaster my point is proven that it becomes a ‘conversation’ about other things then just experiences.
From the 13 messages atm, only less then half of it are about user experiences.
I have seen so many times, here and in other forums, that at a certain point things get asked & repeated multiple times.
In my opinion, by not keeping these topics only about user experiences they become less interesting.
At this point, Tom was right that the forum is not the right place but I prefer to think what and how this can be done.
