Continuing the discussion from Move the FAQ into Discourse:
Is this still doable? The link to meta.discourse.org doesn’t seem to work for me. I like the idea of suggested FAQ once they start typing a question.
Discourse Docs Plugin (Available on ALL tiers): Discourse Docs - plugin - Discourse Meta
Docs allows for easier surfacing of knowledge-base style topics across a defined set of categories and/or tags. Filter the list down by tags, search via the search bar, and click on topics to see the first post – all without leaving the context of the docs.
To use Docs the plugin must first be enabled via site settings. Once enabled, add categories and tags to the
docs categoriesanddocs tagssettings. For more information, see Docs.
Site Management & Customization
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I’ve changed the settings so that posts in this category won’t auto-expiry anymore, since they’re similar to the suggestions category.
I can see how the docs plugin might be useful, as it lowers the bar for contributors, and might make surfacing docs easier for users who are searching. On the other hand, I feel a little uncomfortable having the documentation only accessible via the forum, and I’m not sure how easy it would be to browse/how neat it would be as the number of articles grows.
AnkiHub are using it on their forums I think, so you can see how it looks over there. 🎓 Docs - AnkiHub Community
An alternative/supplement that @andrewsanchez has been exploring is to hook an LLM up, after feeding it the current contents of the manual. It could then either recommend specific sections of the manual, and/or paraphrase the relevant parts. The main downsides are that it will increase hosting costs, and won’t always be correct - but I suspect it would add value more often than not.
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Honestly, I don’t think the Discourse Docs plugin is the most user friendly or beautiful solution. But for us, the pros far outweigh the cons
- The ease of updating docs
- Doesn’t require a PR so anyone with write permissions in the category can help improve them
- The integration with Discourse is great
- Docs are discoverable when users search and ask questions
- It’s quick and easy to link users to the appropriate topics
Additionally, it is fully customizable via modifying the Discourse plugin (written in Ruby) and maybe possible to improve just with CSS and JS, which is something we’ve been intending to do.
The docs plugin provides a view like this: Docs - AnkiHub Community
It provides some nice capabilities. Unfortunately, they probably wouldn’t be used by most people. But I think the way it looks just through the basic interface without the plugin is actually more visually appealing: 🎓 Docs - AnkiHub Community
I think it’s 
worth it. It also enables semantic search of topics so the search results are far superior. You also just pay the AI provider directly and the costs are quite low. Here’s Discourse AI’s page: Discourse AI Features | Discourse - Civilized Discussion
You can try out Discourse AI on the AnkiHub forum. It will do RAG with our docs and the Anki manual. It’s free, you just need to create an AnkiHub account in order to access AnkiHub’s Discourse.
The default model to use is Claude 3.5 Sonnet. You can also try other models when starting a convo. We haven’t thoroughly evaluate this yet, so YMMV, but we’re working on it!
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