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There are various questions of the form "How to root [device name]?":

And some variants with special restrictions/requirements:

Bryan Denny also created an index of rooting how-tos on the internet.

What do you think is the best way to consolidate these? One question per device or a single question for everything?

UPDATE:

Here are a few specific open questions:

  • What do you think is the best format?

    • One huge question and one answer for every device (simple to maintain, but too many methods to list on one page)
    • One large "index" question that links to a question for each device, with one huge answer for all methods for the single device (I think this strikes the best balance between maintainability and being too crowded)
    • One large "index" question that links to a question for each device, with one answer for each method (my personal preference, though it may be difficult to maintain, as there will be hundreds of answer nodes)
    • One large "index" question that links to a question for each method and each method is preambled with the devices that is supported with the method (might be a little hard to navigate, but easiest to maintain as answers don't need to be duplicated if an exact same method works on multiple devices, e.g. One click root)
    • other ideas?
  • Where to put the questions?

    • I personally prefer the "index" question to be on Bryan Denny's page, but it is also possible to create a new Q.
  • What to if there is already a good resource outside A.SE? Should we quote/summarizes the most important part here or simply linking is good enough?

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4 Answers 4

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It looks like Bryan Denny's How do I root my phone? would be a perfect place to consolidate this, and a great resource to point all the rooting question-askers at.

If he's happy for his answer to be Community Wiki'd, then it could be treated as a shared resource to put all the info in, the same way that the "When is my phone getting [OS]" questions are pointed to the two "When will my phone get the Android 2.2 update (FroYo)?" (and Gingerbread) questions started by Al Everett.

That way all of the normal "How Do I Root" questions can be closed and pointed to Bryan's question, and the more unusual edge-cases can be treated on a case-by-case basis to see if they'll stand as their own separate question (but probably still with a link back to the main rooting question),

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  • I think that's the best solution. He already has links for specific models.
    – ale
    Jan 11, 2011 at 3:04
4

Ah, this might be a good opportunity for the canonical question!

See
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/the-wikipedia-of-long-tail-programming-questions/

Help us build a great library of canonical answers.

If you keep seeing the same form of questions, whether it’s mod_rewrite rules on Server Fault, freezing computers on Super User, or how to use regular expressions to parse HTML, write a great, canonical answer, once and for all. Make it community wiki so that as many other people as possible can make it great. Work really hard on writing something that is clear, concise, and understandable by as wide an audience as possible.

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I don't think a canonical question will work, unfortunately, since rooting techniques vary wildly across devices (unless I am misunderstanding what a canonical question is). I think a Community Wiki question work quite well though, with an entry for each device. Something like:

Device X

  • 2.1-eclair

    • Method 1

      1. Do this
      2. Do that

    .

    • Method 2

      1. Do this

    .

  • 2.2-froyo

    1. Do this
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  • 1
    The Canonical Question, is just a good question and answer that are taken by the community, improved, added to, and made more useful to more people (probably by having the specifics taken out and general info put in). Essentially it is just a community wiki, but one looked after and done well, and one that future questioners can be pointed to to give them their answer.
    – GAThrawn
    Jan 10, 2011 at 22:45
  • Thanks :) I was thinking it was more of a "This is the one right answer" type of thing. Jan 10, 2011 at 22:54
  • I also like the idea that we have a community wiki question about rooting per device. One big question would get to confusing.
    – Flow
    Oct 3, 2011 at 21:18
3

I don't think we should consolidate. As Matthew Read pointed out "rooting techniques vary wildly across devices" and to add to that, they often change. What works today may not work tomorrow after an OTA. Also, there are new devices being released every month. Creating a community wiki one stop shop for questions like "When will my device get Froyo?" is fine because the answer for each device is 2 lines long. The answer to just one "How to I root my XXX?" can be very lengthy on it's own.

Two years from now when I'm looking for info on how to root my Kenmore Washer/Dryer Combo that's running Android 8.1 I don't want to have to sort through the instructions on how to root a G1 or the hundreds of other devices that aren't relevant to me.

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  • 2
    When saying "consolidating", I was actually thinking more along the lines of having a single "index" question that links to other device-specific questions, with each device-specific questions having a single answer for each rooting method. Votes will then indicate how many people successfully (or unsuccessfully) used the method and thus the success rate of the method.
    – Lie Ryan
    Jan 18, 2011 at 13:51

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