[Asterisk-Users] New Help Site - cut down on Mailing List questions

[Mike Sander]

Dear All,

I understand the excitement surrounding a service like Asterisk, and how
easy it is to jump in and ask a heap of questions. I also know how
frustrating it can be dealing with a 200+ post per day mailing list as one
of the question "answerers".

When I discovered Asterisk, I had a lot of study to do, because there are
no "real-world" examples out there, just the trivial ones on the tiki and
in the manual.

I hope to propose a solution.

I have (in a small time) downloaded and set up a repositor where we should
all post our conf files, in an effort to get a big resource of a lot of
different setups that we know just "work". The program is simple, and
looks like crap and is a testiment to my programming skills (or lack
thereof). If anyone feels like re-coding or hosting this, let me know.

You can find this at:
asterconf.hopto.org (i think this has popups for the free DNS)
or home.exetel.com.au/azyc/asterconf

In the same philosophy as the GPL and wiki, it is open to all to search,
view and download the conf code, however to post and add new categories,
you must register. The site will not send you any mail or spam or
anything.

Of course, you should scrub your conf files for IP addresses and
user/secrets, but otherwise, please post as much as you like. Please also
include a description of the purpose of the post, and what type of service
it runs on, for better searching.


As a registered user, you are also free to add comments to other people's
code snippets (but not change the code), and add more categories and
sub-categories. I have started by creating categories for the most common
conf files, under both working and broken sections.

As a new (or old) asterisk user, if you are stuck, feel free to post your
conf in the broken section and hopefully someone will come to help you.
This will stop people posting codes to this list and flodding it.


If we all use this resource, the we will reduce the amount of posts for
people looking for "instant" setups, who don't want to use AMP or
otherwise.

That way, we can return this list to the discussion of Asterisk issues,
rather than just a startup resource and helpdesk.


I'm always interested in anyone's comments.

Cheers

Mike Sander
sanderm at iprimus.com.au
+61 2 401 010 289 (Australian mobile)