Thread prefixes indicating freenas version

[guermantes]

Hi,
The forum section "Help & Support -> Installation and updates" is replete with semi-nondescript thread titles such as "xx fails to load since upgrade" etc. It is a good thing that members put "xx fails" and not just "error", but I have noticed that there is a continuing flow of people upgrading/updating from 9.x, 10.x, 11.0.x and 11.1.x to 11.1.x or 11.2.x or even from 11.2.x to 11.2.x.

Might it not be a good idea to introduce thread prefixes or to explicitly ask members to use the tagging system to identify the target versions they are upgrading to (and writing about)? In order to make it bit more clear which target version a thread is about.

 

[Ericloewe]

It might make sense for that specific section. How do you propose that minor updates be distinguished from major ones?

The main drawback is that people would probably not use the tags, unfortunately.

 

[guermantes]

It might make sense for that specific section. How do you propose that minor updates be distinguished from major ones?

I don't think there is a need to distinguish major from minor. Go minor across the board and let people identify exactly what version they are trying to upgrade to. Sure, a dropdown would become somewhat long after a while, but maybe that can become an impetus for slow adopters to keep up.

The main drawback is that people would probably not use the tags, unfortunately.

Maybe half of posters will - better than nothing.

 

[Tigersharke]

I wonder if an addon might make parts of this and other tag implementation easier. I would suggest looking into Tag Essentials which includes a way to group/revise similar tags to a canonical one. I like the idea of tags, because it is another way to categorize and sort what will become an enormous amount of data on this site. We could certainly begin to tag older threads, though an expectation to include a tag is not software-enforced, I believe the addon would if set. There is also the capability to auto-tag from thread title, and to watch for new threads with any certain tag.

EDIT:
Oh, thread *prefixes*.... hmm. This could be done as well, but I'm not sure if there is any automation available. I see Auto-Prefix by last post which would be helpful for a different situation, they describe a support ticket forum where it might toggle between 'awaiting staff' and 'awaiting customer' prefixes until resolved which staff would manually change as final. There is also Prefix Essentials which does similar things for prefixes as to tags, and Multi prefix which is further enhancement.

I like all of the above addons according to their described utility and would recommend they are installed. Whether prefix or tag or both, a forum which encompasses a much larger audience than FreeNAS would benefit from the search and organizational capabilities of the addons, as well as enforcing the use of tags or prefixes in any limited or overall way.