How-To Forum

[PsychEroc]

Could we start a forum called "How To . . ." or "How do I . . ."?
It would be a place that people could go with questions about how to do things in Windows.
e.g., how do I remove the arrows from shortcut icons? How do I make Vista taskbar previews bigger?
Answers would be a combination of freeware solutions and tutorials.
I think everyone could benefit from the answers that common folks ask.
What's the procedure for starting a new forum?

[Sope]

Sounds like a good idea. I'm interested.

[George]

On first sight I do not agree. This is not what our site is about. There are many other sites out there that provide general computer support.

On the other hand these issues are of common interest so I am sure such an are would be busy. But for now I would like to hold off on this.

[PsychEroc]

Originally Posted by George

This is not what our site is about.

The site disagrees with you!

[George]

I know that we have those articles. We are talking about a forum here.

As I said, the idea has something but needs to be discussed on Planning Group level first.

[MidnightCowboy]

We also discussed this topic a while back in my thread entitled "Visitor Support Queries" (Editors forum). There were some good points but maybe jbissell's were the most relevant in which he warned of time commitment and loss of focus.

Otherwise I agree with George

[PsychEroc]

Originally Posted by Midnightcowboy

warned of time commitment and loss of focus

As a public forum, any "How to" questions would be posed to the general public not to editors or moderators.
So, just like the "I want a freeware program that" forum, no time commitment would be required.

It's just an idea, it doesn't really matter to me.
But I am constantly amazed at how resistant to new ideas you guys are around here.

[kendall]

1. It actually isn't a new idea. As stated above, we've discussed it before.

2. Resistant probably isn't the right word. The correct word is probably resistant or cautious. All of us here are volunteers. We all spend a fair amount of time writing articles, reviewing our pages, and reviewing and reading all forum pages. It is quite time-consuming. Plus, most of are not experts; rather we have interests in one or two specific areas. We love freeware. We do our best to offer support and assistance for freeware. If you look through and read the forums, you'll see that we already do a fair amount of "how-to" stuff.

3. We do have a leadership group. They've already committed to considering the idea.

[George]

Hi PsychEroc,

your ideas are welcome and we always appreciate contributions like that. We do have a management group though that we discuss these things in. Sometimes there is more to an idea than just the obvious from your point of view. We also have a pile of other things to address, so it also becomes a matter of what to do first.

Please bear with us, we already addressing this.

[George]

We have now started e forum for General Computer Support based on your suggestion. It is, however, a user-to-user support and not a service that our editors will pick up. Anyways, we're gonna see how this will go and take it from there...