Re: Knowledge Bases -- What are they, really?

[Emoto <emoto1 -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 8:36 AM Chris Despopoulos
<despopoulos_chriss -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Hi all...  I've not worried about knowledge bases for some time now.  I found myself in a conversation where a person said effectively, "We don't want documentation, we want a knowledge base."  That got me thinking...  Given today's world of topic-oriented writing, reuse, single sourcing, etc...  What's the difference?  Without getting into months of research, I'm afraid I won't be able to answer that!  Anybody care to chime in?

Warning: The opinion expressed below may contain cynicism.

It has been my experience that those wanting a knowledge base are
doing so because "oooh! look! shiny!" It turns out that they don't
know what it is that they are asking for, but are pretty darn sure
they have to have one. That is, until presented with what it might
cost to convert existing documentation into something that someone
might call a knowledge base. There is no free lunch.

Bob
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