Dear Scott
What is wrong with Beginners posting to the General forum ? You say it is a Intermediate forum, but that is only because of the content (or perceived content) that is there. If more Beginners "just go ahead and post there", then it will have more beginners type content. There is NOTHING that says beginners questions are excluded from that forum.
There is nothing wrong with people posting newbee questions in the General Forum. I just think that it would be best in the long run to put those questions in a newbee forum where it will be expected that those questions will be asked time and time again.
By doing this, anyone who goes into the newbee forum and posts a slam as was mentioned in the original post of this thread, can be temporarily or permanently bared from the forum.
Another plus to this, is that when those who have had a little bit of experience go into the newbee forum and find a question they know the answer to, they can provide the answer to the question.
Remember the first time you answered a question for someone? Remember the confidence it gave you when you realized that all that fussing around with the system actually stuck and you remembered it?
It would be far easier for those fresh to the SME server to build confidence in realizing they actually know how to resolve a problem if there was a newbee forum.
To put forward an opinion is not being selfish & I certainly did not say that having a Newbie forum would be confusing to me.
It is of my opinion that if there is an easier way and better way to do something you do it. It would be far easier and better for newbees if there was a newbee forum.
It is also of my opinion, that when people keep something more complicated than it needs to be, they do so out of selfish ambition. Such as the individual who witholds training on a job because he is afraid that he may loose his position if he doesn't.
Though this may not be the case with you, it just seems to me from reading the posts in this thread that some people are way to eager to keep things as they are becuase their skill level, and their comfort level adjusted to the status quo.
So from my perspective, this whole debate is needless. If there is a way to make things a little easier for those wha are absolute newbees, we should do it.
If you read my posts you will find most of them are helpful to people I don't even know, far from a selfish attitude.
I do believe I halp people who are in fact "of a newbie origin", as deduced by their questions. Thanks for calling me a guru, perhaps an experieneced user may be a better phrase, but I was a beginner only a few years ago myself & I know the pitfalls that beginners stumble on.
I just was saying that there are already 4 forums and 3 mailing lists plus the contribs site generally to read, to keep abreast of what's going on with sme server.
Sorry, I took this as meaning it was somewhat confusing.
Well nobody particularly taught me, although quite a few people assisted me, it was also by trial and error, you learn different approaches to searching when initial searches fail to find the answer needed.
I never said it was easy to find things, sometimes some considerable effort is needed, quite often beginners do not search thoroughly enough, and that is the message that was being conveyed, usually by example, ie someone says they can't find something, after a 5 minute search I find the result and post it for them, hopefully next time they search a little harder.
Nobody taught you is a good example of why we need a newbee forum. I as you can pick up a book or go to websites and learn how to do something. Our ability to do this is a gift, not a given. Most people need to be taught and so the delema.
Because they are so accustomed to being taught, they have very limited research skill, as well as the patience that is needed to go along with it. With this in mind, I think the reason beginners do not search longer is because the results from a search may be of no use. If a beginner is not knowledgable enough to be able to come up with a different word for the same problem, he is out of search options.
Probably the biggest thing to do is to spend time reading lots of search results. There are many times where I have spent a couple of hours going through lots of old posts, to find some pertinent information, that subsequently I have used to create a HOWTO and given back to the community to be able to easily find and use.
Time is money, people are impatient, and why wast time reading something that won't fix your problem right away?
Well some people do that, I can't stop them, it's part of human nature to be impatient & discourteous. You will have to search hard for a post where I blasted someone, I can only remember one, and that was at the end of a 115 message thread where the poster was just not "doing it" even though they had been told many times.
I've read some posts like that where the person keeps saying they don't get it. Honestly, if they are truely that inept, how do they turn on the computer. I think those particular people are moles who are trying to make the SME and linux look harder to use than it is.
As far as your gripes are concerned about the current site, what have you done to improve it. After all it is now in the hands of the community and that is you and me. The site documentaion etc will only improve if you or me or someone else makes it better. Contact Jeff Coleman to offer your services. You only have to do a litle bit, if everyone did a little bit then that adds up to a lot.
I'm not all that good at programming. I however, am considering putting up a newbee forum on my own server and hosting it. This may in the long run be better than if contribs puts one up. However, this will have to wait unitil my present situation is imporved.
I have seen some other sites where the forums are arranged by subject matter, with headings for certain topics eg mail, backup, etc and this concept does seem to be more user friendly and an easier way to access information. Perhaps a restructuring of the forums entirely would be another way to go, see Darrell May site for an example.
I agree as it breaks things down to not only be easier to find, but should be easier to search. The question is, will there be enough catagories to provide the convenience of such a setup?
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