It would be helpful if the @moderators team agreed upon and published a set of guidelines for the “How To” category.
As the person that suggested this category, I will outline how I had envisioned it so that it may inform that decision:
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To create new topics in the “How To” category that collect and collate in a summarized manner information on common or useful subjects that have been discussed in other threads. Examples:
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The benefit of transcluding a topic, rather than moving the original thread in to the How To category, is that it makes the How To category more useful as reference material. Users need not read the entire thread but rather the useful post(s) can be directly transcluded, and using wiki posts means the information can be kept up to date.
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Also, this means that if in the future there are other alternate techniques shared for example for adding a footer to a wiki in a new topic, it can be transcluded in to the same How To post rather than ending up with multiple posts in How To on the same topic.
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To keep the collated summary topics in How To concise and easier to locate pertinent information in, it would also make sense to continue any further discussion on the topic in the original thread instead of in the summary in How To. Replies can always be moved if need be.
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Similarly it would mean that users should be encouraged not to write posts meant directly for the How To category, but rather as general Discussion posts at first so that the knowledge therein can be discussed and improved upon.
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It would also mean that posts with relevant and pertinent information should not be moved to How To, rather a new topic should be created in How To summarizing the important parts, or just transcluding the relevant posts. Transclusion makes this very fast and the burden for it need not be on the moderators.
I believe this would be a low effort and productive way - though requiring discipline - to build up useful reference material for common users needs that can perhaps later be transformed into formal documentation.
This is just how I envisioned it and I felt obliged to expound on that, it need not be how we go about things if the community feels differently. Regardless of whether this is the approach we take or not, I think having some guidelines is important as the category is currently becoming rather messy and as a result less useful, see for example the donut/pie chart posts and the not very informative titles in the category.
– e.g. “posts in the How To category will be community edited for clarity and correctness, and merged and moved as needed”.
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