Merging newbie help and programming help

[pr0gger]

such as posting why your neighbor has monkeys chained up in his backyard in the QB in General forum....

[Hexadecimal Disaster]

Oh? Nooo, it's easy to know. Lemme explain:

This works 92% of the time: if you can answer your question with only a RTFM, then the question belongs to the newbie forum. Oh! I can hear you scream: "And how the heck I'd know if the question can be answered with that?!?!" Simple. CTFM. (That's it, CHECK the...)

Seriously speaking now...

"I want help on how to use GET and PUT" - newbie question (why? too generic... and sadly, the possible answer can be RTFM!)
"I want help on how to use GET and PUT in the most efficient way possible" - newbie or programming, far more specific than the previous one.
"Could someone recommend me a midi playing library/routine?" - programming, obviously.
"Problems while reading the port &H201" - advanced. Wait, that forum no longer exists!

Just my point of view.

[na_th_an]

I've had an idea.

Most of times, newbies' questions have been replied a ton of times. Wouldn't be a good idea to build a big, extensive and tutorialish FAQ gathering most common questions in Newbie help, and refering to it when someone asks?

I think it would be a good idea. I know that there are plenty of tutorials and documentation already written, but this would be kind of the definitive one. What I am suggesting is to open a thread where people suggest topics for the FAQ (for example, using the TIMER, to take a recent example), and then we organize ourselves to write the tutorials (mostly COPYing/PASTEing from this forum). When a topic is finished, it could be posted somewhere for people to correct/complain/add things about it. Once it is validated, it could be put on this site.

Tell me if you think it is a good idea.

[Hexadecimal Disaster]

Sure it's a good idea, but it's somewhat "difficult" to do. Remember that the FAQ oftenly needs to be updated and mantained; in fact, this isn't the first time I've heard a proposal like yours, but in the end I've seen few working, and fewer being really good.

BTW, check this:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/171757

Somewhat like that?

[na_th_an]

Something better. I mean, like QB help but with concrete issues. I know it is a difficult task, I gave up trusting in people a lot of time ago :lol:... What I am saying is that I would write some tutorials when I find the time, but I need your help to be sure that they are all correct. It was also some kind of invitation to another gurus of this site to give a hand.

And, last but not least, it was some kind of euphemism just to say that I am quite bored to reply the same things once and again :lol: but don't worry, I'll keep on replying (no offense, please )

[Agamemnus]

what we really need is something like Ask Jeeve's. Dunno how we could do it though, but I know it's possible. Often a newbie doesn't know what it is he wants to do and can't find the title for it. :lol:

[na_th_an]

That's why the Newbies help subforum should stay. Newbies would ask something and you could say "it is done using TIMER, check <link> to learn how".

[oracle]

You'd still need to keep the newbie forum so that the new guys could submit stupid :wink: questions. Keep them apart, and make the tutorial. Lotsa work at the beginning, good payoff later.

[na_th_an]

That's what I meant. Newbies section will be for newcomers to ask, we to give links, newcomers to ask some doubts about the documents, we to reply and to update documents. Nice... WIKI?

[oracle]

Pardon my ignorance, what is WIKI??? :???:

Are we gonna make this tutorial or what?