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Hi there
Weighing in with my own views on "social help".
I think commenting holds possible value, in that others can expound on what they were confused about or that the help author didn't think to include. But I would view this as simply an avenue for improving the help. I might hope that periodically the comments would be incorporated into the topics and purged or that another way to purge them would exist if need be. So for me, commenting is a +1.
On the other hand, I see zero value in topic rating other than providing a means for the users to have a warm fuzzy that they got to click a star. oooohhhh.... ahhhhhh.... (fireworks show comes to mind here)
I find it odd that folks actually WANT a rating system. It's as if the help author will later examine the topics and decide that if some don't have a high enough rating, they need to perhaps consider removing them. But what if topics aren't rated high because they are very obscure topics that provide the exact nugget of information needed to solve a rare problem? In my estimation, THOSE topics should have a much higher rating than your run of the mill and always accessed topics.
As far as allowing others to contribute (wiki format) I see that as an avenue for mass confusion. I used to work in a large call center. I would always be amused by what I refer to as "the fix of the day". We had a gentleman that was pretty good with computers and solving issues. He studied and stayed on top of the technology. This was when Windows introduced the FAT32 file system. During troubleshooting of an elusive issue, as a last straw, it was suggested that the call center rep have the customer check to see if the file system was FAT16 or FAT32. For about a month afterward, EVERY call resulted in the worker bees performing this unnecessary task over and over and over because "the guru" suggested it. In other situations, things would be red herrings. Someone tries one approach that doesn't really solve an issue. But during the process something else got changed that did actually fix it. So they mistakenly attribute "the fix" to the incorrect action. So in a wiki situation I see a very real possibility to disseminate flat out incorrect information that not only wastes time, but could also be potentially harmful. (First, let's fire up this FDISK program and reformat your partitions!)
I suppose I've said too much already. But you did say you were seeking opinions of others. I'm in the curmudgeon camp. 
Cheers... Rick 
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Sorry for coming to this thread late. I have nothing to add to the excellent responses so far but there is a factual matter to correct.
RoboHelp Server is not a mandatory requirement. It is only required where all those commenting cannot access the same LAN and therefore require internet access to use the commenting feature. If all your users can access the same LAN, then you do not need RoboHelp Server. Our scenario is that each customer requires commenting but only wishes the comments to be shared by its own staff. We therefore set up the commenting on each customers LAN and that provided exactly what we want. If our customers did want to share comments with all other users, then and only then would RoboHelp Server be required.
There is more on my site about setting up commenting.
My concern about Wikis is that they have to be managed and that is not always done. Then the quality of the information can degrade if someone makes an incorrect or arguable change. At least with commenting, the orginal content is unchanged.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
Hi Robert
I might imagine that this would possibly prove cumbersome. Here's why. With a footer, the code needs to always be the same and really never change. My thought here is that such a solution might require specific coding that identifies the topic its associated with in order to successfully propagate the comments or whatever. This would likely require each topic to have a slightly different footer. And if we change footer content at the topic level, RoboHelp senses it and prompts whether you want all topics using this footer to change or if it should dis-associate the topic from the Master Page.
I fall into a couple of very opinionated areas with these features. For ratings, I vehemently and rabidly am against them. I mean, seriously. All they do is provide the end user a warm fuzzy that the topic helped them. Eventually, ALL topics should become five star, no? All share equal value in a help system. In my world they would be "right out".
Commenting, however, could prove useful. But even then, I would want some central control over whether comments are actually seen by others. I've worked in a call center environment and that experience tells me that one should be very careful with dispensing information that could prove harmful to systems if you aren't sure what you are doing or why.
Cheers... Rick
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Robert
There's a 29 day February coming up, there's your spare day.
The main problem with web hosted commenting is will all your users be happy for their comments to be seen by all other users. For software such as word processors that probably is OK. For some software though the organisations that use it would be happy for their staff to share via a LAN but not for them to share with competitors via the web.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
Good luck with your new Mickey Mouse software!
(Ducking for cover now)
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