Suggestion: Sticky for EACH Forum

[tamicatana]

It seems to me that there are a fair number of redundant questions. Gord May is kind enough to post links to thread after thread of discussions which have been brought up time and time again.

Perhaps the redundancy might be somewhat alleviated by creating 'stickys' at the top of each forum referencing threads about common questions?

This might be a futile attempt, I know, in that if people had the fine good sense to even do a simple search this whole suggestion would be unnecessary...

tilting at windmills,
don Quixoté

ps: just occurred to me that a general-purpose sticky might be best placed at the top of the 'portal' so that upon first viewing the site, the 'faq sticky' comes up first and foremost?

[ozskipper]

I have noticed that the people who ask the same old questions "I wanna buy a boat and sail off into the distance blah blah" are usually new to the forum and possibly forums in general and dont know that they can actually search threads. Like the "Ferro" question and the "gun" question. So unless there is a big sign in neon letters they probably wont know to do it. But I certainly hear your point. I kinda gave up spending time on a lot of the same ol same ol questions.

[Ex-Calif]

Hi Tami - IN the huge tapestry that is CF many things are asked many times. The idea of having "definitive" answers bookmarked comes up periodically.

There are those that say, "Asked and answered" and those that say every new conversation carries the potential for new answers as the thread drifts.

There is also the question of, "Who is an expert?" and has been suggested in the past to nominate subject matter experts in different fora. This carries a host of issues along with it as well.

Some fora do contain stickies and my experience is they don't get as many hits as we think they do.

There are people that have been here for years and years and there are those that arrived today. It has always been the intention of CF to be the "friendly and welcoming" forum and to try and avoid the cliques that make new members reluctant to post.

In other words a newbie posting the same old question is welcomed in order to get them involved.

Just my opinion...

[ozskipper]

Definitive answers are probably only to be found in books written by experts. But even those answers would be questionable as the sport/lifestyle is so subjective. EG what size anchor to use, will vary so much on the vessel at anchor and whether she is a daysailor , coastal hopper etc. I think Tamif has a good idea. Sadly, I dont know that in reality, it will work with the noobs- as they are the ones who usually post the same ol questions.

[David_Old_Jersey]

IF OP HAD DONE AN EFFING SEARCH HE WOULD KNOW THIS SUBJECT HAS COME UP MANY TIMES BEFORE

Just sayin'

[David_Old_Jersey]

.....errr, or she

[Tom Stormcrowe]

Same thing every forum........

Newbies ask the same questions, and the old hands get tired of it.

From the perspective of page views, the same old questions help generate more page views for the forum's adservers, which in turn pays the bills for our playground.

You'll never stop the newbies from asking repeat questions successfully, and keep a viable forum, though. I've seen the forums that did succeed become first, an "Old Boy's Club", and then die or become totally irrelevant. I'd hate to see either fate occur here.