I received an initial favorable response from some members concerning this topic and was asked by one to start a fresh thread.
When attempting to help a confused (many believed new user) I did realize that any new person walking in to the devices and platforms forums here really does have to dig for answers, solutions, and info.... . . I know hunting down topics here aren't just word sensitive...but seem to be concept sensitive....type the same question two different ways and you can get a lot of diff. found searches...so not only do you have to know what you are looking for...but you have to query it a specific way.
Not easy for the new. But the purpose for people coming here isn't just to chat...and if there are fewer people using the platforms and devices who are around to help....then the purpose of the forum is 4-fold disasterous

1-Nobody is left around who is informed enough to help.

2-The forums are a very thick mess of imp. and casual talk...not making it easy to find stuff for the new person on their own. Let alone people who ARE familiar with it.

3-Those who are here not only are trying to explain concept and process but have to play safari guide through the overgrown forum jungles here...sometimes resulting in confusion and an increase in tension that doesn't need to be.

4-And that can lead to not only poor tempers...but new people who may have become valuable members ...leaving...and subsequently good current members being soured and likewise leaving.


I do know full well that the issues that brought me to start this thread...will only continue...regardless of whether or not we get "persons of interest" like Buffalo again or the situation that developed. This is an endemic issue. The next new person could start out being really nice and enthusiastic about being here and learning.... and very possibly shortly leave.... confused, upset and angry....mainly due to the clutter.

Can we do something here?
Lets throw around some ideas ...take the best one(s) and start doing something about it.

Very long post.. Well it deserves to be as its really a mess to find information on tmo

That's why many of us use our wiki user page instead of our browser fav bar to gather info, so that it can be useful to others too.

Yes the wiki is great. But I do see that we need more than that. Is the interface for this place perfect, adequate or terrible....and for whom? New people are more than simply confused when they get here. Especially when they are coming from a completely different operating system mindset. I am positive that what sounds perfectly fine for us sounds like martian to new users. And that doesn't help. I honestly believe that someone coming here and figuring things out at least for the n8x0 should get a diploma for getting through it.....either that or session with a good therapist and at worst walk away damaged and needing anger-management classes.
I am not the only person to have had probs that didn't need to happen with helping new users.There are tons of similar threads and posts dealing with the self-same issues.
We definitely need at least the simplest walk-me-by-the-hand tutorial that makes sense to a non-maemo user. Especially when no one is around at the time to help them. A proper vid or something...anything easier. Take a good long hard look at all of Buffalo's interactions and you can see the prob quite plainly. I eventually found him and helped...but wow...it doesn't need to be this way.
In part the issue does stem from the fact the devices themselves are a hacker's delight and as a consequence ...official nokia manuals don't cover what is needed.
Hence the absolute necessity of the info inside the forums to learn and get done what is needed. And the forums here are a snarly mess with snippets of important info. snagged up in miles of posts...in some cases for one topic alone...that can take DAYS to go through.

If members here ever feel that everything appears fine ...why bother? I can tell you that is always the time to be most concerned.
I know this is no mole-hill disguised as a mountain...it is a mountain.
And if the mindset is that "Everything works, it's fine ...there is no problem because I (either went through being in newbie-hell and now understand and don't want to remember or ....I have no prob with Linux to begin with or....... my I.Q. is so high I read calculus and algebraic journals at the breakfast table while trying to wake up in the morning) get it....I have no problem...therefore others should get it." There is REALLY a big problem here. I honestly believe that someone coming here fresh and new should find a concise learning method that makes sense FOR THEM.
If aliens came down right now ...and wanted to learn the maemo platform ..and walked into the forum ...it wouldn't be long before they would be walking out talking of how best to euthanize our species.

Come on guys...are you giving me the "I'm Alright Jack..." line? Is that our new party line? If so then there really is little point to the thread here....right? I mean ..there is no problem.....everything is just...."fine" ...is that the way of it?

No, Jack, I'm not fine, I would also like to see full color manuals on how to install u-boot for nitroid, nemo and fremantle, but I understand nobody is getting paid to write docs, so I'm willing to search. And by the time I learn what's the recommended way of doing something, it changes. By stating the problem, it's not gonna be solved. If you'd like to help, you can start contributing to the wiki, and maybe other people will follow. If not, we will still have marginally better documentation.

You can still announce your initiative here and call for help but it's one thing to go "I'm gonna work on documentation, come and help me" and another to say "documentation is crap, and you should do something or else community will die"

Even I fully support your initiative here, I have to agree here with qwazix.
Of course the forum is full of threads pointing you here and there. But at the end you will find the answer.
This forum/platform is made by 'us', not by a big company (never was, just paid a few fees). So everything is voluntary. In free time.


I thought more to direct this into a 'we all may try to give better shorter answers and a final book where all is explained'? No!
Impossible. Show me any forum doing this.

And for me the buffalo fiasco was more like:
”Hey I asked YOU something and I needed to read and do something on my own”.

TBC...

Did I say that?...no ...I don't think so..at no point did say " ...YOU should do something.." I said lets talk about the issue...and " WE should do something" ..a big difference....so point that finger elsewhere please. The "... but it's one thing to go "I'm gonna work on documentation, come and help me" and another to say "documentation is crap, and you should do something or else community will die" line should be patented...I have seen it before in other threads...a fairly pat response.
If there wasn't enough input or help coming...I wasn't about to try a herculean effort on my own that would take forever....if there was no interest in helping would have been answer enough. I also understand that solutions change...that is a given. That is part of the difficulty and challenge with proposing this.

Also..I did state...at the least we need something for the total newbie..( I said nothing about colour manuals......not a how to boot other os's or multiboot for that matter.....that.it does illuminate one of my points though....you speak about what YOU need... not what a new person needs....an absolute newb isn't even ready for that yet )....and then take it from there and hopefully work up to the bigger task of sorting valuable data...for a concise how to for more advanced topics ..
Unnecessary defensive behavior I don't have time for ..so taking this personally is wasted on me....but it does illuminate
Subsequently.. I do thank you for your clarification.
I'm done

Since I was asked to comment on this thread here is what I think:

• The OP really needs to learn to keep things short and simple
• The wiki is a very useful tool to do such things
• As a mod I do try my best to keep my sections clean. I would appreciate it if people, when reading a thread find a solution somewhere in the thread, and the solution not in the OP to report for mods to edit the OP linking to the solution
• Nothing is stopping people from doing nice wiki pages like this for the N900. Such wiki pages would help new users greatly.

(Re-)Classifying threads is a very time-consuming task that would not be too helpful as a google search may always lead back to old redundant threads. Instead wiki is much more flexible and useful in this matter.

@endsormeans

Can you imagine that some see the problem to be the other way around?

But let me be optimistic here, as your best case scenario would be to educate:

Esoteric geeks to swear less and use less complicated words to make a point or explain the solution to a problem.

Silly users to stop "rm -f" everything they can put their hands on, because they read it somewhere... RTFM, it's Linux, dammit. Also, teach them to eat with a fork, rather than demanding to be spoon fed all the time.

Seriously, the Linux world is largely comprised of people who are autodidacts, who have plenty of curiosity, coupled with an eagerness to learn and who prefer to deal with trouble in a self-reliant way. You don't really expect these nerds to become like Apple Geniuses,do you?

Yes, this is a good approach, thedead.
But also relies -as always- again heavily on user base/actions.

Yep, exactly.
A first step could be to provide your (endsormeans) link collection in a wiki page (again endsormeans).