clean forums more

my only suggestion would be to clean the forums more.
In the news section there are hundreds of pointless threads, its hard to actually find any relevant topics/news

Looking for information on latest releases there are just tons of old threads about old releases, is there any need for any of them as the 'news' is no so old?

I feel obliged to agree, I also look on to 1'000plus unanswerred Postings, just been here - doing nothing...
less would be more!

the higher it get's, the smaller the Crowd...

Ernie

Forums are a useless and pointless waste of effort; cool for social chit chat but that's it.

Try finding a solution to a problem........ bit like that needle in the haystack. Frustratingly, the info is there, and the quality of contributions is great, but they get hi-jacked with change of topic, people re-asking the same question already answered a few lines earlier etc etc.

A wiki would be far better - this allows structured "how to's" and structured tips to be written / to be cross-linked to other items, and its all searchable. Answers posted in draft can be honed as others add to them.

Surely it wouldn't take much to setup the media-wiki engine that Wikipedia is based on and the create an OC wiki ? Please, please.....

>>Forums are a useless and pointless waste of effort; cool for social chit chat but that's it.<<

I am not so sure about this, in contrary, but the Quality of a Forum depend's on how it's built as well as on how it's managed. In Addition, the OC Forum is a little different to most others I know, since many OC Forum (Pro) Users offer Information and Assistance against CASH. This specific Situation has some Side-Effects, some peoples tend to believe, that extensive free Forum Assistance could keep off some OC-Users, eager for help, from eventually seeking paid support in order to solve their problems.

As in other Places like this, many Newcomers use Forums first, if they run into Problems. Since most of them are, kind of, short on time, in the first place, they expect to find many competent People, just waiting to tell others how to fix whatever does not work as planned, and this for free. We all know how those uncounted postings look like, it usually takes 4-5 posts until one even get's the correct informations required to find out what the problem could be in the first place.

So, after a while, for many, it's no longer much Fun to reply, to read the same 'unprofessional' Questions again and again, a repetition of already x-times repeated and replied-to postings.

I try to 'act' a little differently, when replying to questions, I usually don't just offer 'Solution-Lines', I try to explain how something, kind of, interact's, with the rest of the stuff involved. I have been teached this way, and I've learned, as more a Newbie 'understands' on how things work, as easier it gets for him. And for the Online-Community as well. But it takes a little more time to prepare usefull replies, eventually even creating pic's to it.

But, as i mentioned above, most OC-Pro's here are probably eager to generate money. I imagine, it's their main reason to be here at the first place. And, exept for a Few of them, the Mayority may not care very much to be a FREE Source of Knowledge to Newcomers, they have seen so many coming and going again, why waisting time on someone, who will have no chances to succeed anyway, in the longer terms...

I found a lot of stuff here for free, and I'm greatful for this. Because of that, I try to be of assistance to others as well, whereever I believe to have something to say. It's my way, trying to give back my Knowledge about 'Things' to the Community. So far, it did not even work out so bad, after all...

Forums are therefore not just 'a useless and pointless waste of effort' in General, they just depend on 'interesting' users, then they do their job well. But, by Nature of the Subject, Forums are used by Human Beeings, and this makes the whole thing, sometimes, very difficult to handle.

Ernie