Is it just me...or are people asking the same questions every single week....

[Jakobud]

I'm not sure if people are just not searching though the BYOAC site for help or what.  It seems like for the past month or so every few days I see questions about "DOS vs Windows?" or "What is the best Frontend" or "Do you use Daphne?" etc etc etc.....maybe it's just too difficult to find what you want on the site.

[Xiaou2]

I'm not sure if people are just not searching though the BYOAC site for help or what.  It seems like for the past month or so every few days I see questions about "DOS vs Windows?" or "What is the best Frontend" or "Do you use Daphne?" etc etc etc.....maybe it's just too difficult to find what you want on the site.

  Ohh no.    I surely hope this isnt going to turn into the usual emu type message boards where they bash people for asking a question.  

   IMOP - Thats what message boards are for.   A person usually having a busy life... needs to find an answer quickly, and ask it via a message board.     This is not limited to board only... you see it in many professions and everywhere you turn.   Sometimes its just more efficient to ask the 'know it all' rather than do some deep searching for that needle in the haystack.  

   Surely this site isnt all that complicated... but as Ive said... its just a matter of time for most.

   For those who get upset at multiple post of the same Q's...  Just dont answer them.  No reason to get upset for nothing.  Quite simple Imop.

   

[Grasshopper]

I'm not sure if people are just not searching though the BYOAC site for help or what.  It seems like for the past month or so every few days I see questions about "DOS vs Windows?" or "What is the best Frontend" or "Do you use Daphne?" etc etc etc.....maybe it's just too difficult to find what you want on the site.

  Ohh no.    I surely hope this isnt going to turn into the usual emu type message boards where they bash people for asking a question.  

   IMOP - Thats what message boards are for.   A person usually having a busy life... needs to find an answer quickly, and ask it via a message board.     This is not limited to board only... you see it in many professions and everywhere you turn.   Sometimes its just more efficient to ask the 'know it all' rather than do some deep searching for that needle in the haystack.  

   Surely this site isnt all that complicated... but as Ive said... its just a matter of time for most.

   For those who get upset at multiple post of the same Q's...  Just dont answer them.  No reason to get upset for nothing.  Quite simple Imop.

   

I totally agree with that. There is no harm in asking a question again because someone may have a new insight that wasn't covered by the original thread. There are after all only so many questions you can ask about arcade controls.

Also, I do find the search function on this board a little hit and miss. I've sometimes had trouble finding my old posts if I search using more than one keyword. And I'm sure a lot of newcomers miss the fact that it defaults to only searching for posts made during the last seven days.

[ITrek]

I personally don't mind seeing the same questions asked again.  As time goes on things change.  We devise better or different ways of doing things so it doesn't hurt to keep a fresh perspective.  I've only been with this board for about 6 months but I've seen several situations where someone comes up with a new trick or finds a new product.  This changes the way questions get answered so there is some benefit.

However, to jump start newbies it might help to assemble an FAQ.

[Lilwolf]

1) If they didn't, then the board would slow down and stop completely.

2) People wouldn't build things for the community (because they wouldn't know what people are interested in)

3) There wouldn't be anything new (or as much) because there wouldn't be people talking about them..

and last and most important.

nobody would ever ever know whats the best frontend in windows is...  

[SirPoonga]

nobody would ever ever know whats the best frontend in windows is...  

I do, but I'm not sharing.

[Wade]

I was on this board for a week before I realized my searches weren't hitting anything because of the 7 day default...

Wade

[eightbit]

However, to jump start newbies it might help to assemble an FAQ.

Ummm, this site is a faq, theres even a newbie guide. The message board is only a chunk of the wonderfull wealth of knowledge here.

[Luxury]

Personally, I think that the info on the site is amazing.  unfortunately - it seems a little scattered or compartmentalized.  Meaning that right now i know a ton of very specific methods of doing what i want to do - but as a whole, kind of questioning the compatibilty of all of these smaller sections.  more gerneralized tips and answers would be very helpful.  

also - a lot of the questions are "which is the best" type of questions.  maybe adding some sort of rating system?  

[planetjay]

I'm not sure if people are just not searching though the BYOAC site for help or what.  It seems like for the past month or so every few days I see questions about "DOS vs Windows?" or "What is the best Frontend" or "Do you use Daphne?" etc etc etc.....maybe it's just too difficult to find what you want on the site.

It's not too difficult to find what you want on this site. People are too lazy.

But now that some server issues have been nailed down, other things can be looked at.

[eightbit]

Personally, I think that the info on the site is amazing.  unfortunately - it seems a little scattered or compartmentalized.  Meaning that right now i know a ton of very specific methods of doing what i want to do - but as a whole, kind of questioning the compatibilty of all of these smaller sections.  more gerneralized tips and answers would be very helpful.  

also - a lot of the questions are "which is the best" type of questions.  maybe adding some sort of rating system?  

Perhaps you could suggest a better method. People complain about how its organized but no one has any suggestions to make it better. The examples sections has almost 600 project examples pages. If you can't find general information your not looking very hard.

How would you propose a rating system? You can't rate  things like joysticks. There are several reviews or links to reviews of sticks and thats all you can do is review them and report. An example is many feel the supers are the best stick because of the round action, but others argue the competitons are better because you can feel the corners. Then theres the $40 p360's, its not a fair comparison to a $10 stick. Most things are that way. If someone tells you something is the best its only there opinion. Even if you could come up with a rating system its still subjective.

[Duran]

1.  Yes, there are over 600 projects, but there's nothing to tell you which ones might be more relevant than others.  Someone converting an existing cabinet with an arcade monitor isn't a terribly big help to someone building their own cab from scratch with a TV.  Better descriptions, perhaps?

2.  The Newbie Guide is good, but it only scratches the service.  For example, in the interface section, it talks about different methods, but doesn't mention Hagstrom or Ultimarc anywhere.  Isn't that kind of a large omission?  I understand the desire to stay "neutral", but this is information newbies would be searching for.

[saint]

RE: 1)  That section of the site (examples) was not designed with the size it has reached in mind, or with "usability" for lack of a better word in mind either.   A revamp of that area is on the wish list but will not likely see any action soon (time constraints).

2) The newbie guide is just out of date.  A revamp etc... (see above regarding time).  However, anyone willing to take a stab at updating it and sending it to me I'd be happy to look at it.  However, it takes me a while to get to such things even when someone else has done the editing...  

--- saint

1.  Yes, there are over 600 projects, but there's nothing to tell you which ones might be more relevant than others.  Someone converting an existing cabinet with an arcade monitor isn't a terribly big help to someone building their own cab from scratch with a TV.  Better descriptions, perhaps?

2.  The Newbie Guide is good, but it only scratches the service.  For example, in the interface section, it talks about different methods, but doesn't mention Hagstrom or Ultimarc anywhere.  Isn't that kind of a large omission?  I understand the desire to stay "neutral", but this is information newbies would be searching for.

[Duran]

RE: 1)  That section of the site (examples) was not designed with the size it has reached in mind, or with "usability" for lack of a better word in mind either.   A revamp of that area is on the wish list but will not likely see any action soon (time constraints).

2) The newbie guide is just out of date.  A revamp etc... (see above regarding time).  However, anyone willing to take a stab at updating it and sending it to me I'd be happy to look at it.  However, it takes me a while to get to such things even when someone else has done the editing...  

--- saint

Sorry if I came off a bit harsh - it was certainly not my intention.  I was simply trying to say why people tend to ask the same questions over and over on the message board.  It's not necessarily because they are lazy.  The site itself is what got me interested in building my own cabinet in the first place, and it has been an invaluable source of information.  The details I didn't get from the resources and links were easily obtained from the message board.  

Hmm...a better question might be why did I type "service" instead of "surface"?  Perhaps I shouldn't try to have a conversation with the SO at the same time.  

[eightbit]

1.  Yes, there are over 600 projects, but there's nothing to tell you which ones might be more relevant than others.  Someone converting an existing cabinet with an arcade monitor isn't a terribly big help to someone building their own cab from scratch with a TV.  Better descriptions, perhaps?

2.  The Newbie Guide is good, but it only scratches the service.  For example, in the interface section, it talks about different methods, but doesn't mention Hagstrom or Ultimarc anywhere.  Isn't that kind of a large omission?  I understand the desire to stay "neutral", but this is information newbies would be searching for.

I think most of the repeat questions are new people that don't know about the faq. I think the message board concept might even be new to most of them so they aren't aware of the search functions. Thats why I often point them at the faq or at the search engine. Occasionally I'll link but I think its more beneficial to them to find it with a little help.

The examples section is an incredible resource. I have gone to every working link and have seen some incredible things. My biggest problem is remembring where I seen some incredible thing I wanted to do when I get around to doing it.

[Jakobud]

Goodness...I didn't mean to open such a can of worms here.  I was merily thinking outloud that perhaps it's not as easy to find what you want on the website as it might seem.  For newbies anyways.

There are TONS of cool suggestions/ideas/solutions for things that people have come up with that are in posts on the message board but they don't exist in any fashion on the rest of the website.

[Luxury]

How would you propose a rating system? You can't rate  things like joysticks. There are several reviews or links to reviews of sticks and thats all you can do is review them and report. An example is many feel the supers are the best stick because of the round action, but others argue the competitons are better because you can feel the corners. Then theres the $40 p360's, its not a fair comparison to a $10 stick. Most things are that way. If someone tells you something is the best its only there opinion. Even if you could come up with a rating system its still subjective.

your right..and i thought about this after i posted that.  a rating system is too arbirtrary.  it all comes down to opinions about what you have done.  wrong words for me to say.

I do think however that more comparisons would be very helpful.  a breakdown of what each piece of hardware/software/methodology by the pros and cons.  ive seen the ones like oscars arcade monitor/pc monitor/tv comparisons and i find them extremely useful.  now maybe some comparisons as to what features each front-end has, what they are missing, or the pros and cons of using mame/mame32/advancemame (not for me - for others, honest!)  tables and charts are good!  

[eightbit]

I do think however that more comparisons would be very helpful.  a breakdown of what each piece of hardware/software/methodology by the pros and cons.  ive seen the ones like oscars arcade monitor/pc monitor/tv comparisons and i find them extremely useful.  now maybe some comparisons as to what features each front-end has, what they are missing, or the pros and cons of using mame/mame32/advancemame (not for me - for others, honest!)  tables and charts are good!  

As Saint mentioned theres only so much time to do things. This site is free and as such the people that run it have real jobs and real familys that they must attend to.

If you want to write up some reviews I'm sure Saint will be happy to add them to his list of things to publish and will get to it eventually. Another option would be for you to host it yourself and then Saint could link to it if he wanted to he wouldn't have to edit it or update it. Another advantage to doing it that way is that it would be available as soon as you posted it. I've started doing this with my site. I know its not  easy for people to find it like it would be if it was indexed here but at least its there.

[planetjay]

I don't have a real job. But I AM looking.  

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not sure if people are just not searching though the BYOAC site for help or what.  It seems like for the past month or so every few days I see questions about "DOS vs Windows?" or "What is the best Frontend" or "Do you use Daphne?" etc etc etc.....maybe it's just too difficult to find what you want on the site.

You are giving people the benefit of the doubt.  I agree with the others in that newbs are just too lazy to check first.  I was b*tching about this very same subject just a few weeks ago.  

regarding the other ponts brought up....

If people don't post the same things over and over site traffic would indeed go down, which is a good thing (bandwidth ain't free ya know).  It wouldn't halt the board completely though.  There is atleast 1 valid, totally original post made a week, unfortunately it's buried under 60 some odd posts of crap.  

You'll notice that I rarely post on the main board anymore and that's why.  I Literally can't find the new topics because there is so much junk to wade through.  I retreated to the software board and now it's starting to get bad over there too.  

Newbs, users, ect...  
A small suggestion towards when to post.
First do the following.....

Check the faq

Check the faq

Check the faq

Search the Archives and serach the contents themselves, not the titles (titles rarely match the content around here)

Ask one of the guys via priavte message.

Go into the chatroom at night and ask your quesiton there.

Check the faq one more time.  

If you still can't find an answer then post your question.  

The site ahs become a victim of it's success.  

We need to be much more cautious about what we post to keep things tidy and for the love of god no more.....

"which fe is the best?", "should i get an arcade monitor or tv?", or "insert lightgun question here"

[1UP]

Regarding searches:

Am I smoking crack, or didn't the search used to let you search by number of days or months?  Not only does it default to 7 days now, it only lets you use SINGLE DIGIT days, or multi-digit hours.  So if you need to search back more than 9 days, you have to specify like 5000 hours or something.  Planet Jay, any way to get back the old system?

[SirPoonga]

it's more than 7 days now.  I've never had those issues with it.

[planetjay]

Regarding searches:

Am I smoking crack, or didn't the search used to let you search by number of days or months?  Not only does it default to 7 days now, it only lets you use SINGLE DIGIT days, or multi-digit hours.  So if you need to search back more than 9 days, you have to specify like 5000 hours or something.  Planet Jay, any way to get back the old system?

No idea. I didn't make the changes. I'll ask saint.

[saint]

It's now set to max age of 1825 days (5 years) which should do for a while now  It still lets you specify min and max age, I just changed the defaults from 7 days to 1825.  I also changed the default max # of returned hits from 25 to 100.  

Regarding searches:

Am I smoking crack, or didn't the search used to let you search by number of days or months?  Not only does it default to 7 days now, it only lets you use SINGLE DIGIT days, or multi-digit hours.  So if you need to search back more than 9 days, you have to specify like 5000 hours or something.  Planet Jay, any way to get back the old system?

[eightbit]

You are giving people the benefit of the doubt.  I agree with the others in that newbs are just too lazy to check first.  I was b*tching about this very same subject just a few weeks ago.  

regarding the other ponts brought up....

If people don't post the same things over and over site traffic would indeed go down, which is a good thing (bandwidth ain't free ya know).  It wouldn't halt the board completely though.  There is atleast 1 valid, totally original post made a week, unfortunately it's buried under 60 some odd posts of crap.  

You'll notice that I rarely post on the main board anymore and that's why.  I Literally can't find the new topics because there is so much junk to wade through.  I retreated to the software board and now it's starting to get bad over there too.  

Newbs, users, ect...  
A small suggestion towards when to post.
First do the following.....

Check the faq

Search the Archives and serach the contents themselves, not the titles (titles rarely match the content around here)

Ask one of the guys via priavte message.

Go into the chatroom at night and ask your quesiton there.

Check the faq one more time.  

If you still can't find an answer then post your question.  

The site ahs become a victim of it's success.  

We need to be much more cautious about what we post to keep things tidy and for the love of god no more.....

"which fe is the best?", "should i get an arcade monitor or tv?", or "insert lightgun question here"

Whats the point of a message board if you don't post messages?

[Howard_Casto]

The point of the message board is to post NEW messages only when it's a NEW topic.  You should merely add to existing threads when the topic has already been brought up.  That pretty much is the whole reason the board was switched to yabb and the existance of threads and not just long strings of disjointed posts.

Is this only obvious to me?

[SirPoonga]

The point of the message board is to post NEW messages only when it's a NEW topic.  You should merely add to existing threads when the topic has already been brought up.  That pretty much is the whole reason the board was switched to yabb and the existance of threads and not just long strings of disjointed posts.

Is this only obvious to me?

New avatar, huh HC?

Yeah, I'd have to agree.  Especially if the message board has a search feature.  This message board was upgraded to yabbse for the reason of having a more organized posting and searches.

[rampy]

The point of the message board is to post NEW messages only when it's a NEW topic.  You should merely add to existing threads when the topic has already been brought up.  That pretty much is the whole reason the board was switched to yabb and the existance of threads and not just long strings of disjointed posts.

Is this only obvious to me?

New avatar, huh HC?

Yeah, I'd have to agree.  Especially if the message board has a search feature.  This message board was upgraded to yabbse for the reason of having a more organized posting and searches.

Sometimes how something is designed or intended to work, isn't how it's put to use (or best use) by the end user.  Granted, the S/N ratio would be better if newbs or everyone for that matter would scope out the faq or spent some time with the board's search functionality or even google =P

A board (in very general terms) is a forum for communication.  People generally like communications that are "personalized"... When a given person posts a "new" topic (even if it's been discussed before ad nauseum) its personal post which the poster may have some emotional attachment to.  i.e. "ooooh someone replied to MY star wars yoke hack question..."

it helps create a "connection" or sense of community between the poster and the pool of repliers (or vice versa... it's early and no tengo coffay)

Plus sometimes the answer changes... and not everyone can surf the board *every* day from work and be up to minute on every change in the "scene".   (although that doesn't explain why one couldn't use the search to find the most recent answer)... sometimes people who have joined after the last instance of XY or Z topic see the latest topic and add somethign new that no one thought of before and everyone benefits (sorta) from these process/idea refinements IMHO.

*shrug*

rampy

[eightbit]

The point of the message board is to post NEW messages only when it's a NEW topic.  You should merely add to existing threads when the topic has already been brought up.  That pretty much is the whole reason the board was switched to yabb and the existance of threads and not just long strings of disjointed posts.

Is this your view or the view of our hosts? I don't think posting to old threads is always advantagous. Some of these threads get so long that its difficult to find the answer or to even follow the discussion. The longer a thread goes the better the odds that its going to go off on a tangent. Also as Rampy pointed out the information gets dated. The origanally posted answer that was correct may not be correct anymore. I view the FAQ as a long term compiled resource where information is organized. The message boards are a living exchange of information.  

You are guilty of exactly what you are complaining about. Its true you don't start a lot of threads anymore but  you do start new threads on existing topics. An example of this is threads about your frontend. You start new ones instead of replying to existing ones.

If you had one thread on encoders the thread would get huge and be so full of information or misinformation that it would quickly get unusable. Even if the thread was limited to a single encoder Like the recent keywiz (ooohhh) thread. That thread is as full of misinformation or misunderstanding as it is with actual information. The personal attacks and off topic posts don't help. Ideally I think someone should take the relevant information from that thread and compile it into something that could be posted in the faq. The faq would then be updated as new infomation became available.

[SirPoonga]

You are guilty of exactly what you are complaining about. Its true you don't start a lot of threads anymore but  you do start new threads on existing topics. An example of this is threads about your frontend. You start new ones instead of replying to existing ones.

If you had one thread on encoders the thread would get huge and be so full of information or misinformation that it would quickly get unusable. Even if the thread was limited to a single encoder Like the recent keywiz (ooohhh) thread. That thread is as full of misinformation or misunderstanding as it is with actual information. The personal attacks and off topic posts don't help. Ideally I think someone should take the relevant information from that thread and compile it into something that could be posted in the faq. The faq would then be updated as new infomation became available.

But what HC started about his FE are announcements, not the same questions over and over.  Yeah, it's about his frontend but it is a different topic.

What you are trying to point out is like saying all of our posts about about cabiens and controls therefore should be under one big thread.  The point being is the same questions do get asked over and over therefore causing redundancy.

[eightbit]

But what HC started about his FE are announcements, not the same questions over and over.  Yeah, it's about his frontend but it is a different topic.

Using HC's logic though he should post under one thread instead of starting new threads.

I agree there are 2 many threads. Repeat questions, vague questions and questions about information easily available in the faq are annoying. I don't know how to fix that though with out some heavy moderating.

Perhaps we should have a training class required for newbies?  

[JLR2000]

I've only been around here for a little over 2 years now, but I'm sure I have been "guilty" of not using the board "right".  I do know that I never used a Forum/Posting board until I ran across this one.  The people were very helpful and had good info to share.  My experience was so great, that I started to sign up for other forums in other areas of interest.  What I quickly found out was that this forum was unique - the other forums blasted people for asking questions without reading every possible bit of information first. Now, I agree that with the knowledge I have NOW, that should be the first step....but a newbie might not even have enough knowledge to start there.  Why can't we take a repeating question and 1. answer it 2. point to where the information is also located with a suggestion to try that first for further questions?  

I just hate to see people turned off by those few who feel the need to reprimand someone for asking a question.  If it bothers you to answer repetitive questions, don't open the thread.  People talk about how they hate it and it costs money, yet they perpetuate it by starting a long thread with everything the poster should have checked, without giving the answer (if possible, admitttedly this is not always possible).

I don't mind answering newbie questions because I am so greatful for the people who helped me out and didn't chase me away in the beginning.  I try to always point out if I'm speaking from my own experience or if it's just something I read somewhere.

Bottom line...I don't mind answering these questions so I do. If you don't like to answer them, don't even open the post.

I know nothing about running a Message Forum, but maybe another forum could be added "Newbies" or something, with FAQ stickys or common question stickeys.....just an idea.


Thanks for listening.

[Howard_Casto]

Using HC's logic though he should post under one thread instead of starting new threads.

I agree there are 2 many threads. Repeat questions, vague questions and questions about information easily available in the faq are annoying. I don't know how to fix that though with out some heavy moderating.

Perhaps we should have a training class required for newbies?  

No as sirp said those are different questions/annoucnments.  I see the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS posted over and over.  There is a big difference.  

And the last time I checked nobody is refusing to answer questions when someone psots a redundant one, what people should be doing, however is telling them to check the archives or poitn them in the right direction instead of spoon feeding them the knowledge right there in the thread.  It's not helping them one bit as it's always better to learn on your own.  

You don't have to be mean about it, you just have to be firm and tell them that asking a bunch of redundant questions is not acceptable once you know better.  

[Dartful Dodger]

You are giving people the benefit of the doubt.  I agree with the others in that newbs are just too lazy to check first.  I was b*tching about this very same subject just a few weeks ago.  

So what your actually saying is, not only did you post the same thing that was already posted by others, but reposting something you yourself had already posted a few weeks ago.

Is this only obvious to me?

[Rasher2k]

If people can't find answers to their questions it's because:

A) They cannot find what they are looking for.
This may be because they are inexperienced with good search techniques or are new to the site and cannot navigate to the answer they require. That, and the fact that the design of the site is really begging for a face lift. It's simple and classic, but (lets face it)dated and not really as intuitive as it could be. How many regulars browse around the site nowdays, really? You may have looked at it the first time you came here but now most people just jump straight to the message boards. Hell, I come here quite a bit and I dive straight into the boards because it contains what I think is the greatest wealth of up-to-date information around, and it's interesting too. Thats also why many noobs go there, because...

B) They're lazy (or frustrated).
This is usually the product of point A - they can't find what they're looking for on the site, so they come here. Most of the time if people can't find something they're looking for in the first five minutes then it's just too hard. They give up. They know there's are a great number of knowledgeable people on the boards and they'll abuse that to get their answers. There's no need to go back and check the site over if there's a 24/7 help desk!

Don't get me wrong, I like this place and I know there are time restraints and restrictions on what this crew can and cant do etc. etc., but I think the reason there are so many repeated topics on the boards is because the emulation scene and mame have gained loads of popularity recently, and combined with a poor site design means the boards are gonna really get slugged. In a perfect site it shouldn't take you more than five clicks from anywhere to find exactly what you want.

Now I'm gonna get people saying, "If you think you're so smart then you design a site". Well, maybe I will. And if I do, I'll post it straight saint and the crew for free so they can use it here.

[Dave_K.]

Ok, I'll make a suggestion.  How about we open a "newbie" forum (and make it the first in the list).  Of course, this will demand more work upon the moderators to move over posts which are redundant, easily found in the FAQ, and so on...but it could cut down on some of the redundancy in the main board.  After all, BYOAC has always been friendly to newbies and lurkers, lets try to not alienate them with harsh comments on the main board...and give them a place to express their...newness  

[Jakobud]

I think that not just a newbie forum needs to be added, but perhaps a few other forums and get rid of the 'main' forum.  I have expressed this opinion on here before, but anyways....it seems like tons of stuff just gets 'randomly' posted in the 'main' forum because

 1. It's the first forum people see and they are too lazy to consider if their post should go elsewhere or

 2. the post doesn't have a specific forum for it to go into.

If we got rid of the main forum and created a few more forums then it would be much much MUCH easier for everyone to find threads/posts that they want.  I hate going into the main forum looking for some recent thread about trackballs and half to wade through posts about lightguns, cabinet construction, 'whats your favorite game?' and 'are these computer specs fast enough?'.....  I think that adding new forums and getting rid of the main forum will organize things MUCH better and it would help point everyone, especially newbs in the right direction.  Here are some ideas for forums off the top of my head:

1. Newbie forum
2. Software Forum
3. Jukebox, MP3
4. Everything Else
5. Board Discussion
6. Monitor,Video
7. Buy Sell Trade
8. Controls/Hardware Hacking/Encoders
9. Cabinet construction/woodworking
10. Artwork

There are probably others but these are just off the top of my head.

What do you guys (particularly you moderators/admins) think about this sort of idea?  I am just really into organization and I like this idea b/c it makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for.

[Dave_K.]

I fully agree Jackobud.  Much better grouping of topics.   Unfortunally I have a feeling that the majority of people here are far to lazy (and will not like this idea)...including the moderators.  

[Howard_Casto]

You are giving people the benefit of the doubt.  I agree with the others in that newbs are just too lazy to check first.  I was b*tching about this very same subject just a few weeks ago.  

So what your actually saying is, not only did you post the same thing that was already posted by others, but reposting something you yourself had already posted a few weeks ago.

Is this only obvious to me?

No I was complaining about it on the chatroom.  Don't push the blame on me as I NEVER post redundant questions or comments.  

[saint]

Well, the zing at the moderator's aside...   I'm not totally adverse to the idea.  It essentially follows a similar breakdown to the various sections of the faq itself.  

However, I personally feel over moderation is as detrimental to an online community as under moderation, and have expressed that to everyone who helps out here.  

Mulling it over...

--- saint

I fully agree Jackobud.  Much better grouping of topics.   Unfortunally I have a feeling that the majority of people here are far to lazy (and will not like this idea)...including the moderators.