Important: Posting Guidelines and Restrictions

[Adam]

The Pentax Photography Knowledge Base

The Pentax Photography Knowledge Base (KB), formerly known as the Pentax FAQ, is intended to be a Pentax resource created by users of the PentaxForums.com community.

The Goal

The goal of the knowledgebase is to collect in one place all the valuable answers that people post as replies but that are buried deep in long treads and eventually go to history with aging threads.

Generally, how should things work?

If someone catches a candidate post for the KB, the author should be contacted and asked to copy the contents into a new thread within the KB. The author should then edit the content (to make it general, for example by removing the reference to a particular poster) and then submit the new thread to the KB. All threads submitted to the KB will have to be approved by a Moderator or Administrator before becoming visible to the public. Rejected threads may be re-worked by the original author and then subsequently queued for approval.

Is redundancy a problem?

Redundancy is not a problem, but only to a certain extent. Multiple threads can exist on similar topics, but having too many may just confuse users of the KB.

A thread rating system is available (accessible from the “Rate Thread” dropdown menu shown at the top of the thread display pages) so readers can provide feedback and grade the quality of individual articles.

How to suggest a new article for the KB?

Anyone can ask a question in the appropriate discussion forum (DSLR, lenses, accessories, etc.). If someone posts a good answer, just contact the poster and recommend the reply for the KB.

Furthermore, if someone feels that a particular "article" (thread) can be a good contribution to the KB, then one can submit the entire thread even if there is no direct question asked. In such a case, please contact a moderator so that the thread can be copied from its original forum into the KB.

What are the posting guidelines?

Apart from choosing a title that clearly describes the contents (it should generally be a question) and wording the whole article/tutorial in such way that it can stand on its own (mainly by removing references to original post or poster), no special requirements. Appropriate font formatting is expected; illustrations are optional; references to other sites are permitted but should be avoided.

Due to the risk of downtime of external image hosts, all photos found in the KB must come directly from the forum attachment system or from the user photo gallery (please use the Misc. category for technical illustrations).

An example

Here is the example KB candidate:
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/p...html#post54149

Originally Posted by Ivan Glisin

I already got a PM by a forum member who told me it was a very useful tutorial. (That's why I am using it as an example.) Now, suppose that that member sent me a message recommending my reply for the KB. Or that after posting it I decided to repost to the KB. It would be easy for me to review the article, drop introductory quote and first paragraph (since they would appear out of context once detached from the original thread), perhaps change title, slightly rephrase and reformat the rest, and job done!

Other Guidelines

Replies to KB articles are permitted, but they should be limited to fixes or improvements to articles. If you would like to add information to an article, please contact the original author for approval. Articles excelling in quality will be made sticky by the forum staff.

Articles from the old Pentax FAQ will remain in the KB, but we ask that all original posters revise their articles to include the correct formatting.

Thanks go to Ivan Glisin for proposing the revision of the Pentax FAQ!