In PLAIN English, buth thinking about people who ARE NOT English and speak (and read SUBTITLES) too... !!!????

First things first:

THANK YOU ALL! you wonderfull people who really TRY to help (even if you sometimes mess things more than help)

Second things... first(?) lol:

I am Portuguese, so English IS NOT my natural language. Please forgive me if I say something that sounds silly

Now for the maters ;-)

Over the times I've been reading, following and (believe it or not!) actually, from time to time, having good results from your tutoring and advice. And for "your" I mean ALL of you, mods or no mods.

But (there's always a butt, no pun intended!)consistently I see that you tend to forget something really REALLY important:

The vast majority of us common people do not know what codecs, standards, serving, feeding, fourcc, directshow, ffdshow, mpeg, mp4 and ALL the alikes are.
AND the vast majority of people does not know they HAVE to search hundreds of posts, (sticky or not - by the way do they know what sitcky is?)before they ask a question.
You guys have to understand ( I know it must be a pain )that for the most part... arriving to this forum is a great conquer by itself.

I hate tags, I hate to "label" people but (no! not THAT butt ;-) ) please (please?) try to think that, perhaps, the user is just a kid trying to watch a movie he/she just finish downloading from Kazza or Torrent Or Mule or alike (did you ever thought how in the name of God he/she ended using a P2P program and if he/she really knows what he's doing?)and comes here in frustration because some XYZ program someone told him it's the best... came out with an error message that means NOTHING (Come on guys, we ALL know that messages are there just to get people mad lol)???

Or maybe the arriving helpless user is an old goose (like myself) who knows even less of what those THINGS are, all he wants to do is pick up a damned thing.avi (YES, subtitles included, I am Portuguese, did you forget?) and stick it in a bloody DVD-+R just to play it on the living room's [SurroundSoundDvdPlayerWithBellsAndWistles] for the wife's pleasure?

This post is long, very long for your standards.
I will get to my point (eventually!)

So... (and yes, you can flame me and/or "moderate" my post, but I wouldn't see the point on doing that, because this would eventually help YOU (the mods) and all the future users, to live happier and get the most out of this forum)... here are my sugestions:

01. Some INTRO page with THE RULES, a simple GUIDE to help the incoming user to, first of all, identify is problem and THEN put is question in an understandable, easy reading way.

02. Having done that (you need to understand clearly what the problem and the circunstances are, right?)... please point one OR two (maximum) solutions to what you think the problem is.

03. By "pointing to solutions" I mean:
03.1. Explaning CLEARLY WHAT you think the problem is;
03.2. WHAT software should the user... use <lol> (pointing to where to get it, if you think people wouldn't get there by themselves - maybe on "that" intro page you could include some links to the major programs that solve the MOST part of the problems);
03.3. Stating, step-by-step, HOW TO use and what setings would have to be used;
03.4. Once one KIND OF QUESTION is answered that answer should go to an Index (INTRO page again), clearly marked to avoid "replays" ;-)

04. And now for the Aproach thing:
04.1. WHY NOT the flowchart way for achieving this?
04.2. LEAD the user in a flowchart way until you identify the problem. Once that done, point him to one of the [Indexed] answers OR give him a fresh and new solution.

I know, guys, I know: I'm an idealist, am I not? At this point you are ALL thinking: "Yeah sure! Then why don't YOU do that in your own site?"
The answer is easy: I just do not KNOW enough to do that, in all aspects of the problem. I don't know enough about video, compression, standards. And I also don't know enough about how to implement this kind of solution in a homepage.

I would, if I knew HOW :-(

I will "stay tuned" to this thread, in case you might consider to answer ;-)

Anyway... keep up the efforts ;-)

And... THANKS, again

 

In an ideal world, everything you say, would be implemented, and effective.
In the real world, we all do this voluntarily, and that means, choosing to answer a question, or not. Giving lots of info, "hand-holding", or not. Posting direct links, or the suggestion to google it, or not...
By far the most frustrating, is not the user that posts, yet again, the same question, that's been asked over and over, and answered over and over...but it's the user that asks your help and opinion, then blatantly ignores it, or flames you for suggesting it.
If AfterDawn were willing to pay me a salary, to hang out here, and provide the types of answers you're looking for, I'd be glad to do it! As it is, we all take our spare time, and do this, because we like to help, and/or "what comes around, goes around"...in other words, the golden rule.