Community Quiz: What's your documentation archetype? 👀📝
Fadeelah Al-horaibi
7 replies
There are so many types of people that use a Knowledge Base, and over the years, I've been able to identify distinct personas, so to speak. Two common archetypes are the Streamliner and the Guardian.
→ The Streamliner isn't overly attached to documentation. They have no qualms about deleting content forever and they're not precious about where information lives. Quick to start new documents, but they might forget about them as swiftly.
→ Contrary, we have the Guardian. They're meticulous about organizing and preserving information. They like to maintain a record of content, keeping some sort of track of the information. Never feeling 100% comfortable removing stuff, mindful that someone might, at some point, need it.
Which one are you? Share a little anecdote about your choice 👇🏽
Replies
Christophe Pasquier@christophepas
I'm a Streamliner, my joy is in archiving things 😅
I feel an incredible rush of dopamine when I archive a big juicy set of docs in an “archive” folder.
Removing all these docs felt super good, the same as when I refactor code.
A big reason I like to do it is because *too much* documentation is a thing, it’s the same as business book where 90% of readers finish only the first half.
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My primary choice is Guardian, but I resort to Streamliner when things are already messed up. :D
My experience is that the archetypes are more like:
1. "Search People": Content is king. Doesn't matter where docs live. Keep everything forever.
2. "Browse People": Organization is king. Taxonomies and hierarchies. If you don't use something, you need to archive it.
The difference from your archetypes is that, if people are "meticulous about organizing", I predict they are _more_ comfortable removing stuff.
(I'm definitely a Search Person)
@james_fisher2 these archetypes seem more fitting when you think about consuming content and are absolutely distinct personas when it comes to a Knowledge Base!
The Guardian and The Streamliner, however, I felt were more fitting archetypes when I imagined the general relationship one has with documentation.
I'm both a Browse and Search person, depends what I'm consuming!
ahhhh - confession time: If I spent time on a doc, I'm commited to that investment.
I even hide them under a "Not relevant right now" waiting for the day I'll repurpose that content somehow. 😅
Docs with links I find interesting and want to revisit one day, or sentences that cross my mind, or drafts for future projects/SOPs are my jam 😎
Long live all docs. ♻️ #thedochoarder
PS.: sometimes I move things out of a channel where it's no longer relevant but I don't want them gone, simply out of everyone's sight, including mine until it's time to repurpose it.🤫