ORIGINAL: CaptDave
I'd like to expand on one of the points the Moose brought up. It does seem to me that folks on the forum can be extremely quick to jump on someone asking a question that has appeared several times before.
Having done my penance working in Tech Support, I understand the frustration with having to answer the same basic question seemingly once every hour. On the other hand, I also see the point of view of the novice. It's hard to rely on RTFM when so many threads are pointing out the inaccuracies therein!
I agree with the concept of searching for a topic first, but let's face some facts. First, the basic search function in this forum doesn't always work. There are workarounds, but is it fair to expect a newcomer to know about them? Or do we expect them to somehow know about the problems and the fixes, or to search on the topic of search problems (and have the same trouble finding anything as they do with their real searches)?
Second, search is an iffy proposition even when it works. If you don't know enough detail to narrow your search down, getting 12,948 hits is no help at all. The whole point of the forum is so we can all help each other and have more time to play the game, not spend three days trying to figure out the right match of search terms to get a question answered.
Finally, I would suggest that the Wiki is the most underused tool we have. Many of the conversations going on in the forum would be good topics to be included there, but somehow nobody ever wants to do so. I'll admit that I'm not exactly a prolific poster to the Wiki, myself, but I'd estimate I've posted more than over 99% of the folks on the forum (all that means is that I've actually posted something; how much beyond zero doesn't matter). Due to the lack of participation, though, I'm reluctant to post anything I'm not at least 99.44% sure of because once it's posted someone will take it as absolute fact while no one with better knowledge is correcting my mistakes.
In a nutshell, this is a plea for everyone to be patient with the questions on the forum. They're all reasonable (well, there might be an occasional exception). Remember you were a newbie once, too!
I'll be honest, with 95% of my job being public relations and having to deal with people all day long, I do tend to have a very short fuse. Sometimes it gets the better of me and I forget that golden rule we should all follow:
Never post when angry.
I think we are all guilty of that one occasionally. [;)]