Simple-to-setup Expert System?

Mark Hood writes: "I've been asked to provide a simple trouble-shooting guide for new engineers to follow when presented with an unfamiliar fault or bug report. Mainly this can be done with static web pages and a series of 'yes/no' questions... (Is it plugged in? Is it switched on? etc) but a nice facility would be to allow engineers to update it with what they did to fix faults / gather information. The question is: does anything simple like this already exist? Web searches turn up loads of 'Expert System Shells' or 'Programming Systems', but I was hoping for something that wouldn't require months of dedicated time (this is not my job, I'm just helping out :). Anyone done this at their workplace? Any hints? Or should I knuckle down and write a few CGI scripts for adding data to a web page?"

Comments

Old game "animal"

[Ramses0]

Does anyone remember the old game "animal"? While not exactly what you're looking for, you might be able to repurpose it.

Here is a log of some output:
I think I'll try a guess now...
Is your animal a Elephant? no

I give up! You win! What was your animal? Dog

I need a yes-or-no question so I can later
tell the difference between a Elephant and a Dog.
Does it have a trunk?
what would be the answer be for a Dog? no
what would be the answer be for a Elephant? yes

I now know 3 animals!

Want to play again? yes

Think of an animal.
Press [Enter] or [Return] to continue...

Does it have a long neck? no
Does it have a trunk? no

I think I'll try a guess now...
Is your animal a Dog? no

I give up! You win! What was your animal? Monkey

I need a yes-or-no question so I can later
tell the difference between a Dog and a Monkey.
Is it a biped?
what would be the answer be for a Monkey? yes
what would be the answer be for a Dog? no

I now know 4 animals!

Want to play again?

$ apt-cache show animals