With the increasing number of posts asking questions a simple serach would have answered, why not have a fixed topic on the top of each forum to outline the "basic" rules of this forum? eg. Serach First, Don't ask when apps will be released etc.
I've seen this in many other forums, however i'm not sure if it can be done on this particular site. While I know this will not solve the problem, it may help the problem from becoming out of control.
Any thoughts?
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It's called the forum guidelines. It's stickied to the top of the General Forum. And, when you click the post button in any forum, the top of the page says:
"The forums allow all registered users to post about topics related to portable apps. Please be sure to read the Forum Guidelines (updated Aug 8, 2006) before posting and remember that, as with all areas of this site, self-promotional posts are not permitted. By posting a topic, you are agreeing to be bound by all forum guidelines."
But, there's a certain type of person that will simply ignore all of that and post anyway. It doesn't matter how many times you have it posted or how often you say it. It happens on any forum site.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
For all you "Why don't you go and search the site first" people
You're not actually helping, because all you do is bugger up the search results, so when people actually do a search for a subject, a lot of replies returned are "go and search the site..." doh
Far better to just answer the question in the long run, after all it isn't really going to kill us now, even if it is a little annoying.
Some sites are more anal than others on this, this isn't actually the worst that I have seen.
we say search for a reason. All of the guys that help out here are unpaid and do this in their free time. Now as I'm sure you can agree our time is much better spent on helping people who's queries haven't come up before. It's not like its had to use the search box. Thats why we do it, if you have a problem with that and you want to discuss it with some of us over e-mail I for one would certainly be happy, after all we wouldn't want to clutter up the forum.
I would have thought that you would have realised this yourself being a long standing member, but obviously not.
Yours
Steve Lamerton
The Liberta Project
I'm not saying the search function isn't there to be used, and I have no problem with people using it.
I'm trying to get over the fact that when lets say Newguy1 asks a question relating to lets say Liberta security.
And then he's told to go search the forums.
A little later I go on, and I do a search for Liberta, and then I have to trawl through items like "go search the forum" because the guys original query had "liberta security" in the text and it's now included in the search results.
THATS what I mean, when I say it's not helping...
It's also not really making the caring friendly side of the forum shine through either does it. This is a community like any other online one isn't it? So why does this particular forum have such a low tolerance of people (usually first timers)asking "obvious questions"
As John pointed out, you're always going to have someone ask a question that others feel could be answered by searching.
Is it really THAT much of a problem to answer the query?
I frequent loads of forums and it doesn't seem like such a big deal, and everyone is in the same position, that they are unpaid and doing it in their own time etc etc.
Constantly having to answer the same questions on the same day and sometimes in the same hour can get tedious though.
8)
Life is a journey not a destination!
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Drupal search results should be sorted by relevancy not by time.
----
Ryan McCue
Cube Games
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I think that you're right, I misunderstood, as for Ryans idea that would be nice but hard to implement!
Yours
Steve Lamerton
The Liberta Project