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Q&A Merge abilities help page with abilities dashboard

I think it's important to discuss this, but I'm mildly against the proposal as it stands. In principle I like removing redundancy, but it does serve some purpose here. It seems awkward to have that...

posted 1y ago by Karl Knechtel‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Karl Knechtel‭ · 2023-10-29T21:16:21Z (about 1 year ago)
I think it's important to discuss this, but I'm mildly against the proposal as it stands. In principle I like removing redundancy, but it does serve some purpose here. It seems awkward to have that much framing text when simply trying to check one's own abilities, and weird to see information specific to oneself when looking up documentation. I don't think that adding a user switch to the interface resolves that weirdness, either.

I'd like to offer a countering proposal:

* Have the abilities dashboard directly link to the corresponding help entry, in the opening summary.

* Replace the explanations of individual abilities on the Help page, with an appropriately framed link back to the user's own ability page. Something like:

  ```
  A detailed list of abilities is shown
  [on your Abilities dashboard](//site.codidact.com/abilities),
  which is linked from [your user page](//site.codidact.com/users/me)
  in the sidebar. You can similarly access information about other
  users' abilities from their user pages.
  ```

Although it would arguably be better to have abilities appear as a *tab* of the user page instead, the same way that e.g. Activity and Vote Summary do. (But that's a separate feature request.)

This sort of cross-linking allows the right information to be in the appropriate place, while still avoiding the risks associated with redundancy (i.e., the risk of creating a regression when the abilities list is changed).