me First..
i think this forum was Great.....


isn't it?

I quite like it so far, well moderated, low levels of spam relative to most forums.

You still seem to get the "how do i do this?" "go to google noob" responces which i find a little silly (and ironic seeing as google sends me to forums when i look for a specific problem on there most of the time) considering the forum is for helping, learning and discussing. Why would you send traffic away from the site.

I was a little more surprised to see a moderator doing it!

But in general, great forum

Originally Posted by Phunk Rabbit

Why would you send traffic away from the site.

I was a little more surprised to see a moderator doing it!

Explain please?

Why would you NOT want to point people to where they can find the information they are looking for.

Well, because a one line answer (for example) pointing someone to google discourages discussion, will generally kill the conversation and just creates another empty thread.

imo, the idea behind forums such as these is to discuss techniques, process, ideas, theorys etc etc etc so that not only the original poster can learn from the discussion but the contributors and then anyone who views the thread today, tomorrow, next year etc.

Obviously its subjective, your approach is to refer people to google to find thier answers but in my opinion that takes the point away from having a community of people soposidly willing to contribute ideas, suggestions etc.

Foot note, dont take the tone of this wrong, its none of my business how you interpret your role and or contribution to this forum, after all it is just a difference of opinion. Hope i havnt got your back up about it

Sure but sometimes a one line reply or pointing to another source is all that is needed to actually help the questioner.

There is little point in having "discussions" that simply reiterate points that have been made dozens of time before. Surely pointing to previous topics that are still relavent and active prevents the dilution of, and mis-interpretation of the pertinent points raised.
One example could be be this thread There are dozens of threads on "duplicate content penalties". What would be the gain in keeping yet another one going.
SGB PR threads are another.

We do try to keep the signal to noise ratio at a reasonable level, rather than allow the "empty vessels" to take over, as happens at some Discussion Places and the "noise" becomes intolerable.

You have a very good point Chris, although maybe pointing the questioner to an exisiting discussion on the ( read: this ) forum that relates to thier specific need.

Orginal statement still stands though, great forum and friendly, unlike too many others.

For those who try to help, I've always seen pointing to specific search results can educate the OP by teaching them different ways of searching. If you say, simply, "Google it", then I don't see that as generally helpful, but if you say, "Try googling these specific terms: ....", then you're helping people to understand. Searching isn't as easy as some think -- we've all gone searching for awhile and just couldn't find what we thought would be obvious, but with the right terms, we get exactly what we were looking for.

As an example on this forum, see Chris' assistance at http://www.webmaster-talk.com/php-fo...indicator.html

Originally Posted by chrishirst

... Why would you NOT want to point people to where they can find the information they are looking for.

Because we want you to go and collect the information we have asked for, including the bits that we need but forgot to ask for. Then we want you to understand it all, and organise it nicely. Then we want you to set it out in a simple way, preferably as SEO-by-numbers.

Some Threads and their answers are good and beneficial in all the forums and some are the wastage of time. So here is the same condition.

I wonder if that was meant to be irony????

Some comments and suggestions are too difficult in the forum for new comers.
Please also care for them.