I Love this Place....

[RDS1955]

I Love this place... So Much Information, help, guidance and direction on assisting the Novice in creating better projects... I've definately been saved mucho heart ache and bashing my head up against the walls simply by searching through this site to overcome issues and challenges I've come up against in backing up my collection and editing stuff.. This place has also saved me some big bucks in hardware and supplies costs by helping me make educated decisions and choices for what I want/need...My Hats off to all the Moderators and Wise Sages of this site...

Only thing that truly Irks me is I see so many new posts which say"I;m having this problem, or how do you do this, or can I do this with that", and the majority of them are questions which can be answered simply by doing a search 1st.. This place has a ton of info in it's guides, from the basic to the advanced....I know of a Picture Forum which was set up, and the noobs were only allowed to progress onto the full forum after they had gone through their intial membership in a "Testing grounds stage".. The basics are covered in it, and contribution via input, sharing and advice are the manner in which full forum access is granted...Just an idea.. Nothing against the Noobs mind you cause I was one (And still am to some degree in my own mind cause I'm always learning).. But it'll help eliminate burnout by some of the moderators who get tired of answering the same questions over and over again...

PARANOID?!?! WHO'S PARANOID?!?!?

[ROF]

Only thing that truly Irks me is I see so many new posts which say"I;m having this problem, or how do you do this, or can I do this with that", and the majority of them are questions which can be answered simply by doing a search 1st..

That's an inherent problem with all forums. Sometimes a search is done, but the parameters for the search were slightly incorrect so that the returned results contained none of the info you could actually use to answer your question. Sometimes people (especially newer folks) don't realize a forum has been around for years and that their question has been asked a million times before.

Usually, if it's been answered that many times, some people will point this out and tell the user to do a search before posting a new topic to ask an age old question.

It happens everywhere and I don't see it being stopped. It's just something we all have to get used to. Some people search and find nothing. Others do not search at all. The best we can do is tell them about the search and that, after briefly answering their question, this questioner should do a search of the forum first.

[Cole]

Sometimes a search is done, but the parameters for the search were slightly incorrect so that the returned results contained none of the info you could actually use to answer your question.

That is a good point - recently I have done a few searches and usually have had to re arrange my key words a few times to obtain a return and when I do I am faced with several hundreds (nay thousands) of postings to trawl through. Many of these don't answer or even have anything to do with my question. I imagine that can be a bit daunting for the newbie. It wasn't so long ago that it was for me...

However, definitly the bog standard "How do I make a DVD" should be directed straight to the guides.

[ROF]

Another point is that the internet is global. There are some people who visit here that know english as a second language, so sometimes those people may not understand exactly what they want to do in english. There are also people who have a hard time spelllllling wordz which can confuse any search engine.

[kisrum]

If you don't have time to answer stupid questions, don't answer them. Almost all site traffic is good traffic. You can always point them to the guide yourself.

If a convenience store owner won't give directions or won't let you use his bathroom, why should he expect to sell you coffee and a danish? If a forum doesn't want to answer stupid questions, it should just post declarative statements and guides and shut down the forum.

The people who ask the stupidest questions are, at least half the time, the most ready to listen. For the few issues on which I'm able to help, its good for my ego to do so.

I haven't seen the moderators complaining about anything except bad post titles.

[presto]

If you don't have time to answer stupid questions, don't answer them. Almost all site traffic is good traffic. You can always point them to the guide yourself.

If a convenience store owner won't give directions or won't let you use his bathroom, why should he expect to sell you coffee and a danish? If a forum doesn't want to answer stupid questions, it should just post declarative statements and guides and shut down the forum.

Hurrah! Forum searches are more useful to people who are very knowledgable about a topic than to newbies. I honestly believe that posting a question often is the best thing for a newbie to do first. They should get a welcome and few links not insults. It doesn't matter how many times the question has been asked. The real waste of bandwidth is all the "Do A Search and Read The FAQ" replies.

People who lay in wait to attack "dumb" questions do so because it makes them feel important and for no other reason.

[Soopafresh]

I don't think people are "laying in wait" to attack newbies at all. I do know when someone posts a message like -

"Hey! I have this file that I can't play on my system. What's wrong ?"

or

"How do I make backups of my store bought DVDs ?"

it can get frustrating. I want to help people, but they need to help us as well by providing the proper information. Maybe a standard set of diag tools would be useful - like making folks run their file through Gspot so we can see the settings, or making folks run one of the codec listing apps on their PCs and posting the results when they have a question.

[thecoalman]

Sometimes a search is done, but the parameters for the search were slightly incorrect so that the returned results contained none of the info you could actually use to answer your question.

That is a good point - recently I have done a few searches and usually have had to re arrange my key words a few times to obtain a return and when I do I am faced with several hundreds (nay thousands) of postings to trawl through.

The search feature on phpbb isn't all that great, you can always use google to search the site. That usually returns much better results.

[offline]

Thanks for your input RDS1955. Yes it can be frustrating when questions get repeated and a small
amount of new users come across as lazy. However a significant number either find it difficult to search or are frustrated at some point and need a quick solution.

Not everyone has the same level of research skills and given modern curriculums, a growing number are used to being spoon fed their information. To improve the search function and host a easier guide system would double the current server and bandwidth requirements.

Burnout is an issue but most see the signs and step away for awhile rather than harangue a newbie. Assisting 100 people and getting one precious "thank you" is worth the effort for most people here.