LQ HCL: edit own hardware info: why not?
 

Hi.
This question or feature request or suggestion or whatever you want to call this post is all about asking some editing privileges in the LQ HCL.

My main problem with LQ HCL is that I cannot edit hardware entries once I added them. It's like not being able to edit my own posts in the forums. It is really annoying.

Would it be possible to add users edit privileges for hardware entries which are listed under the "My Products" page? Would be really nice.

Here is the reason why this can be a good idea:

Although I try to add as much info as much I can about a particular product, it is not possible to add every info available all at once. This means that after finding some extra info about an already submitted product, it is really hard to make it visible to others in the HCL.

The other semi-extra reason is the: "Oh maaan!! I forgot to add this XYZ info when I was submitting this HW just a minute agoooo!! How dumb can I be? Frak it!"

P.S.: (BSG watchers should understand what "frak" is :D )

I have noticed that as well, and frankly, it was one of the reasons I didn't devote as much energy to the HCL as I would have normally. A few times I wanted to update or change information on hardware, especially with how rapidly the software environment changes (support for a device could get much worse or much better in just a few months time), and it just wasn't an option.

I also recall a time where I entered in my information, only to have it truncated when it actually showed up on HCL; my description was literally cut in half mid-word. It never notified me I was over any sort of line or character limit when entering the information, and wouldn't allow me to go back and edit it to something that would properly fit. Now that I think of it, that was the last time I ever used the HCL because I was so disgusted with the whole situation.

Thanks MS3FGX for your feedback.
Your post shows even more problems than mine, so it is really clear now, that the HCL section of LQ needs some serious polishing, since it discourages some (many?) users to use it in its current form.

So I'll start a list of needed HCL changes here. Others are welcome to add their suggestions in this thread, so I'll be able to expand this list.

1. Granting users editing privileges for stuff under "My Products" section.
2. Adding "remaining character" counter (it seems there really is a character limit per post as MS3FGX explained)
3. Adding "advanced search" for HCL too. (it is really hard (impossible?) to search by user or specific HW class there...)
4. Fixing the "Abit Abit BM6" type of products. They should be just "Abit BM6". This "double branding" problem occurs when you press the "Submit new product" button while you're already in the Abit subsection of the motherboards section (<---this is just one example) and you fill in the "product manufacturer" field of the submission form. If you don't fill this in or you fill it in while you're outside of the subsection, everything is fine. This really needs a fix. In its current state it seems really unprofessional.
5. Not requiring lspci output for storage devices or other standalone products. lspci does not list HDDs or ODDs or any storage device, so it seems quite useless to add the lspci output for such products...

That's all I can add for now. Other suggestions are still welcome.

Thanks for the HCL feedback, please keep it coming. Based on this I have made two changes:

* Members with more than 1 forum post can now edit their own entries.
* Members with more than 150 forum posts will have their HCL entries auto approved.

Additionally, we're looking for 1 or 2 members who would be interested in being HCL maintainers. General duties include approving and editing HCL entries, general cleanup of "Abit Abit BM6" type of products and helping set the direct of the HCL moving forward. If you think you might be interested, please contact me off-line. Thanks.

--jeremy

OK, Jeremy thanks for those.
There are two additional suggestions I want to add to the list I created.

6. Alphabetic order of products. They sit in those lists quite randomly now. Here's a short example from the Creative Labs audio device list:
- ...
- Creative Lab Audigy 2 ZS Notebook
- Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Audio
- Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS
- Creative SB Live! 24 Bit
- ...
It is obvious that after letter A not X what comes, and after X not A again. Adding an alphabetic order policy to the lists can greatly improve searching during browsing of the lists. Of course, the best result of this policy will come after standardizing the naming schemes. And here comes suggestion #7.

7. I'd recommend a more user friendly naming scheme.
Here's what we have now:

"Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Audio"

Of course it is readable and all, but the following would be better I think:

"Creative Labs - X-Fi Xtreme Audio" or

"Creative Labs - X-Fi Xtreme Audio" or

"[Creative Labs] - X-Fi Xtreme Audio" or

"[Creative Labs] - X-Fi Xtreme Audio"

So why is this better?
It's because it might be easier to apply that alphabetic order policy on the real names of the products (text before " - " can be omitted) and can be more easily applied any policy on either the brand or product name, since the " - " can function as a border between them.
The other thing is that putting the brand name in italic or in [brackets] or otherwise making it clearly distinguishable can improve the list visually.

Of course others might not agree with these and have other opinions, which I'll be happy to read if they share them.

Now, after applying both suggestions (#6 & #7), the above mentioned HCL list would look like this:
- ...
- [Creative Labs] - Audigy 2 ZS
- [Creative Labs] - Audigy 2 ZS Notebook
- [Creative Labs] - SoundBlaster Live! 24 Bit
- [Creative Labs] - X-Fi Xtreme Audio
- ...

instead of
- ...
- Creative Lab Audigy 2 ZS Notebook
- Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Audio
- Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS
- Creative SB Live! 24 Bit
- ...

Looks better I think...

You can change the sorting by using the "Sort by" dropdown in the upper right. The default is "Most Active".

--jeremy

Err... Yes. My fault. Didn't notice that... Thanks.