Closed Bug 399507 Opened 18 years ago Closed 18 years ago

KB article: Cookies

Categories

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Articles, task)

Product:
support.mozilla.org
Component:
Knowledge Base Articles
Type:
task
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: jason.barnabe, Assigned: jscher)

References

(
URL
)

Details

Source data: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Cookies -What are cookies -What cookies are not -Cookie options -Managing cookies
I'll work on this. I'll need help for the SeaMonkey parts.
The support.mozilla.com knowledge base is Firefox only; so if there's anything you see that does not pertain to Firefox, don't bother including it in the support.mozilla.com article.
Assignee: nobody → jscher
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Okay, thanks, that simplifies things. It's up at http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies for edits and comments.
A few comments from a quick look: -Looks pretty complete! Good work with that. -The first section is a fairly large block of text. Could you edit it down or split it into subheadings? -Make sure you include step by step instructions when you direct the user to do something. For example, opening the privacy pane of the options dialog, setting the cookie pref in about:config -It seems to me that "Cookie permissions" and "Removing cookies" should be subheadings under "Managing Cookies" -It might be good to split "If websites report cookies are blocked" to a new article. mozillaZine has additional information on this at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Websites_report_cookies_are_disabled
Thanks, Jason. I was able to do some of those changes to a new copy of the article (*Cookies) but after the first save it became uneditable. So I created a new article to complete the job (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies+Rebaked). I will have to leave it to others to move the content where it needs to go. Regarding the last point, I simply pointed to the existing article.
I apologize for the inconvenience. We have some permissions issues we need to sort out. See: bug 401067 bug 401068 In the meantime, just add a number to the end of the article title, if you need to create a new one.
The information looks accurate and complete to me. The only problems I see are formatting and potentially confusing wording. I've listed what I've found below. Jefferson, these are just general tips that you can ignore if you have a good reason. Also, if you're not interested in fixing this stuff up, say so and I'll do it myself. -"Cookies are small pieces of textual information" I think you can just say "Cookies are bits of text" or similar. -"Firefox lets you decide whether and when to accept cookies, and how to manage them." I was kinda confused when I read this the first time. I parsed the second part as "Firefox lets you how to manage them". Maybe change to "Firefox lets you decide which cookies to accept and lets you manage them." -"Many people are nervous about cookies..." Not a big fan of this paragraph. The voice is different than most other articles, with it asking the user a question and such. Can you rewrite this to be more in line with the rest? -"Cookies do not come only from the original site" Not clear to the user what "original" means here. Maybe change to "Cookies can come from sites other than the one you requested" -"The cookies from these different servers are given different names." Redundant sentence. -"In general, people are more accepting of first party cookies, and more suspicious of third party cookies." I'm not sure if this is useful information. Maybe change to say why the user should be more suspicious of third party cookies. -"Web sites can set cookies that vanish when you close your browser" I think you can go with "that are deleted" rather than "that vanish". It's not magic :) -"Or they" Don't start a sentence with "Or". -"If you are running Windows XP, these often show up in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Cookies. For the record, that is the Internet Explorer cookies folder." I hate "for the record". How about "If you're running Windows XP, these often show up in Internet Explorer's cookies folder, C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Cookies." Make sure you use the quicktag for file names here. -Cookie permissions section - make sure to use numbered lists when giving instructions, make sure to use the proper tags for UI elements (you've got some but you're missing others) -"by clearing the tick mark from the checkbox in front of "Accept cookies from sites." Look at other articles to see how they describe checking a checkbox. -"There is a discussion among developers about this problem on the site that catalogs "bugs" in Mozilla products, Bugzilla (see bug 324397)." I don't think this is necessary -"The about:config interface provides access to numerous other interesting preferences. If you are curious, you can read the MozillaZine articles about about:config and listing the values for many of the about:config entries." This either. -"Firefox allows you to clear certain personal information, such as your browser history, " You say the user can clear cookies later; I don't think you need to give browser history as an example. -I'd prefer a sumo article on "Websites report cookies are disabled", but linking to mz is OK for now.
I've done as much as I can. It's now here: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies2 > make sure to use the proper tags for UI elements (you've got some > but you're missing others) I marked "Privacy" icon using the tag for a button. Not sure whether that was the one that was missing.
Not sure about that one either. I'll leave it up to Chris to take a look. It looks great to me, good work.
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 18 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
This is a huge article. I've just done some review; but there are a couple of larger issues I'd like community feedback on: - There are two sections that list common uses of cookies (intro and first section). Perhaps we should streamline it a bit. Maybe use list points. - A lot of unnecessary info in the cookie is not spyware section. I think an explanation of a tracking might be more useful; because the article currently makes tracking cookies sound like false positives. - Troubleshooting might be better as separate articles, which we can list in the tutorial. - Backing up isn't needed. We've got the "Backing up your information" article.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: FIXED → ---
I think the first two sections are fine. The target audience for this article is slightly more advanced - these are people who know cookies exist and are possibly thinking about blocking them. The first two sections provide information to the user to make a decision on what to do about them. People who don't care about cookies would normally not end up at this article, except possibly if they're troubleshooting a problem. You could potentially streamline these sections, but I think they're OK for now. In the context of anti-spyware, I believe tracking cookies are essentially false positives. They are something that could arguably be considered spyware, but many anti-spyware utilities don't make the distinction between a cookie and a keylogger or similar. A lot of people do get panicked that "Firefox let spyware on my computer". Troubleshooting is indeed better as separate articles, but I think we should handle it separately. It's better in this article for now than nowhere. People could potentially reach this article looking to back up their cookies. I don't think we need to include any specific information, but having a section with a link to the profile backup article is a good thing.
This article is advanced and while there might be a need for that, there is also a need to explain cookies to our target audience. All the info in the article is really good, but I think it should be spread out in at least 2 articles. -The info about where cookies and permissions are stored is at the bottom, it should be near the top. -The "things you should know about cookies" is very interested and informative. I'm concerned about whether it belongs on SUMO in that depth. I would shorten it and put it at the bottom. -The section "If you want to change from "Allow for Session" to "Allow"" can probably go in "Managing Cookies" -The "websites report cookies are blocked" is linking back to the mz kb, so clearly there is enough info to make it its own article (are we linking externally anyway?)
Jefferson, where's the latest version of the article? Now that we've got those two bugs fixed, I can just copy over the latest version to <http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies>, and remove the others.
Latest version I worked on: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies2 There are comments at the end of: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies+Rebaked about adding a section on extensions.
Comment from Cookies+Rebaked on Sat 27 of Oct, 2007 14:31 PDT, by jscher2000 "Perhaps people who use particular extensions can add them. I haven't tried those, and there are four pages of search results at AMO for cookies... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=cookies" Comment from Cookies+Rebaked on Fri 26 of Oct, 2007 18:25 PDT, by couldabeen Information about the Permit Cookie and Cookie Culler extensions that give a bit more control, and allow for easier white paging and blocking.
The other pages have been removed. All further work should be done on the article named "Cookies". I didn't see any further edits, since my last review; so I assume this article still isn't ready for another review.
URL: http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Cookies
Jefferson, are you still working on this? Is it ready for review?
(In reply to comment #17) > Jefferson, are you still working on this? Is it ready for review? Hi Chris, no changes from me since I "signed off" 10/27. Please proceed as you see fit.
Okay, thanks for you help.
Note to self: add link to this article on http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Disabling+third+party+cookies, when this article goes live.
I made a bunch of changes to make it shorter, so requesting review again.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 18 years ago → 18 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Moved to KB at: Thu 03 of Jan., 2008 02:11 EST
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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