Talk:Online help

Move

I moved the image in from the main Help page (which didn't actually have any mention of computers, other than in the caption to the image). sheridan 23:25, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)

Why "Online"?

Would someone describe if WHY those systems are called "ONLINE" help? In fact, _online_ help should be hosted in Internet, but if the documentation is located on user's PC, isn't it more correct to name it _OFFLINE_ help?

Aaleksanyants (talk) 12:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I've wondered this myself. The usage is in other places as well ("Online Editor" is sometimes seen as a credit at the end of TV programs) and I never could figure out where the "online" part came from.--99.250.177.248 (talk) 02:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

This distinction/question/pet peeve becomes more and more relevant as there is more and more help for proprietary applications delivered over the internet. I can get many of my answers about Microsoft Word by searching from Google. There are also many industry-specific software apps that also have help and solutions available on the wider internet. In the vast majority of cases, this doesn't mean that the companies making the software have stopped providing help that is delivered as context-sensitive parts of their applications, but it does mean that we need to distinguish between "application help" (which is what I would choose to call it, unless someone has a better idea) and "online help." The way this page uses the term is patently incorrect in my opinion. And to evolve and stay correct, we need to change that label. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shoeibbob (talk • contribs) 21:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I think historically, the term "online" referred to the documentation being on your computer, in electronic format, rather than in a printed manual. Yes, computer software used to come with printed manuals! :-) I agree that this really should be corrected/consolidated, along with the Web help page. ScottAllenOnline (talk) 21:12, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I've just looked at a few definitions. There are a few that this definition might fall under:

• Controlled by or connected to a computer [1]
• connected to a system [2], if you can can call the application a "system", and the help "connected" to the application
• Available on a computer system, even if not networked [3]
• connected to or available through a computer or a computer network (=a group of connected computers), especially the Internet [4]

Moreover, there are a number of variables to distinguish:

• whether it is in paper form, stored locally on the computer or accessed over the Internet (or another communication service)
• whether it was written by the software author or a third party
• if it's in an electronic form, whether the software provides a means of accessing it (though I realise this distinction was more important under single-tasking systems such as MS-DOS than under modern systems).

But I agree, the term is confusing in this day and age. I'm not sure to what extent people still use the term "online help" to refer to the "stored locally on the computer" case, but I think it remained a common use of the term for much of the 1990s. One possible term that avoids the confusingness of "online" is "onscreen help", though I realise it would still be "onscreen" if you're viewing web pages through a browser. I think "application help" is ambiguous in relation to how it's accessed. What about "in-application help" or "application-provided help"? Or maybe there isn't a single term that unambiguously means this. Hmm.... — Smjg (talk) 16:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I think it's okay to let ambiguous terms be ambiguous, but Wikipedia articles need to decide what concept they're about. Whatever else you might use the words for, "online help" or "on-line help" is the what computerized self-help for software available along-side the software itself is normally called, and this goes at least as far back as the early 80s. It seems like the lines were blurry already then , presumably because of the informal "found" nature of this term for many people and the multiple meanings of "online" as has been pointed out. While it's possible for the computerized self-help kind of "online help" to be described another way, is there another general term for it that is actually in use? rakslice (talk) 22:48, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the term "Online help" is reasonable to use here, as that is what this is and has been called, but this page should really have a clarification section as anyone at this day and age would ask the same question. Slsh (talk) 08:19, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Stub to Start

Article was moved from Stub to Start status because it has a significant amount of information and multiple references / tables. In addition, the main article has not had a Stub tag for some time. Araesmojo (talk) 22:41, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

References