The problem with that approach, fatalsaint (as you may well know), is that too few of the answers for this product lend themselves to a quick one-line response. Many are the result of hours or weeks of effort by one or more advanced (or just plain stubborn) users and require a detailed explanation or set of instructions to solve. Then too there's what I call the General Antilles Factor which is a formula that figures in number of times the question has previously been asked, hostility level of the current asker, ratio of lines of text involved in the answer versus what the asker is willing to read, and when the potential respondent(s) last engaged in meaningful relations with something (or hopefully someone) more fulfilling than a 3-minute youporn video.

And don't mind geneven-- he's just ticked that his glass is half empty.

That's exactly the point Tex, and well put...
The perfect example is a question "How do I boot from my SD card?"

There are about (at least) 3 complete How-to's; all different approaches and yet all functional ways to do this. So when I come across this question I have 3 choices:
1) Explain, all over again, all the steps involved in booting. (Sorry.. I don't have the time - or the patience)
2) Do the search the asker should have done first, find the post, copy the link, and give it to him (thus; throwing him the fish; I can only do this so many times before I get bored - and eventually annoyed.)
3) Tell the asker the answer is out there.. he just need to search for it. (easy for me; and provides him direction).

Thus.. many people choose option 3.. we keep our sanity - user at least knows his answer is lurking around here somewhere.. he/she just need find it.

Tablet Scene is built around options 1 or 2.. that's just not my scene . And I know I'm not the only one. I also know this is unfair for new guys - but at the same time... I (we) can't be fixing everyone else's problem, and our own, and still have anything productive for US get done.

And hell.. last I checked - the glass was damn near evaporated .

Maybe Tablet Scene should present, first and foremost, a guide to effective web search techniques...

What I mean by "more technical" is by people who know how to answer some of our questions at the Tablet Scene.

Having a forum full of people who don't know more than what the Internet Tablet School tells them isn't all that helpful.

Lurking somewhere in that post, disguising itself cleverly, is the reason why some here feared fragmentation of the user base and duplication of effort-- even if it is technically one group shared by two forums.

"And of those who do search, I'll wager that a large number don't search efficiently and strategically"

But of course, that goes without saying, especially if you take into account that most neophytes don't know a lot of the key words. I stand by my 95% estimate of people trying some kind of search before asking questions; I guess there is no way to prove anything one way or another. It's true that some people want to announce their arrival by asking a question, nefarious and wicked though that is.

I myself would rather not know the answer than ask, in most cases.

But I know many unskilled computer users who will go for years doing things horribly without asking why they have to reboot before printing, or something ridiculous like that -- they will put up with practically anything rather than ask. Personally, I vastly prefer the blabbermouth question-askers.

And no, my comment about you wasn't sarcasm. You are an essential feature around here.

Here's where I hope the effort on the wiki can come in: https://wiki.maemo.org/Booting_from_a_flash_card

Not trying to perpetuate any sort of argument, but experience and observation has shown me that your estimate can be easily flipped and be more realistic-- I was being facetious when I used the word guess.

But hey, I decided to search on the subject and found a slightly relevant study on search habits:

http://www.webology.ir/2004/v1n2/a4.html

So in other words as the internet progressed, users regressed. Nice.

Granted, nothing about forum posting per se, but it does indicate the general laziness of web searchers. Unfortunately, that same laziness applies to people posting questions. And I'm betting we *could* perform an analysis of this site to determine a fairly accurate post/search ratio, but even though I'm actually intrigued by the idea I'm too lazy to do it. I do however have a statistic: 150,000 hits on Google for "search before posting". Hmmm... a little on the low side...

Oh, and thanks sincerely for the compliment. I apologize for ribbing you about your drinking glass.

I said that I thought that 95% of posters did "some kind of search" before posting. By my definition, 100% of people who glanced at the first ten results of a search did "some kind of search". But they didn't have to use a search engine at all to do "some kind of search".

I'm not sure if any/most of you have actually visited tabletscene.. it seems to work out quite well, although it's true that there is currently not enough coverage of knowledge between those who currently answer questions there (I, for example, would know nothing if questions about e.g. canola or windows shares came up).

The site is relatively low traffic for now. The way I see it is that questions that should be relatively simple to answer could be posted there, if anyone asks the complicated ones (that is, those with complicated answers, e.g. 'how to boot from SD?'), then they should simply be sent over to ITT to ask there (with all what that implies). Then, when we answer questions there, we're easy on the jargon and we provide useful information with simple to follow instructions, if possible. If that's not possible, we don't answer (and never with a 'dude, go search'. I'm fine with that on ITT, but not on tabletscene).

I imagine this is more or less how Krisse meant it to work, and it actually does work, despite all the somewhat negative opinioning in this thread. The only problem is the limited number of people to answer questions. Unless the traffic there rises dramatically it's actually very easy to follow, and you're welcome over, but please be easy on those who post there.. OK?