I think it'd be better to have a separate thread to discuss this, rather than hijacking another thread, so...

Do we really need the "Newbie" forum? I understand the point of having somewhere that people who don't know much can post simple questions, and not get flamed, but I think this attitude should be carried through all the forums. Besides, it's quite easy to tell if someone is a newbie or not: look at the post and thanks count.

I'd rather see this forum converted to something like "Pre-purchase" or "Pre-device" -- a place for people to ask questions about the tablets/maemo before they purchase/receive a tablet. This keeps it similar to the "Newbie" theme, but gives the forum a more defined purpose. "Newbie" is much too vague and could be anything.

On top of all this, I see newbie as having somewhat of a negative connotation. Yes, everyone has to start somewhere, but it seems like saying "You idiots go play over there, while the rest of us have a good time over here."

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

I basically agree. It might be enough having a sticky topic with the word 'Newbie' in the General forum where newcomers would be pointed to the generic user documentation and wiki pages and would be encouraged to Just Ask. The General forum would be offered as default placeholder in case of doubt, and we would move the threads to better locations, if any.

In fact the best favor we can make to newcomers is better official and community documentation, editing and linking to it whenever somebody asks. Most newbies have similar questions, searching answers through long threads is not easy and for most having to ask (in English etc) is already an entry barrier.

Any objections to proceed as proposed, create the "Newbie" sticky topic under General and move the Newbie forum to Old?

My $.02:

Stickies in General seem fine, but if you want something higher up how about phrases that people are already used to when they open new toys:

• Read this First
• Open this First
• Start Here
• Welcome to the Exciting New World of...
• Congratulations on your New Purchase

In general, General is too general.

Now there is Welcome to the Internet Tablet Talk forums, which falls in one of your categories. Any suggestions improving the title or content of that sticky topic are welcome.

I will consider myself a Newbie in Linux, but this is how i see it, prior to my purchase i first joined this forum to find all the answers i needed then two months later i bought my N810, the SEARCH has been my companion, now when we talk of newbies how do we define it? Linux newbie, general computing newbie, Tablet device Newbie, what exactly, many people are new to Linux but not new to mobile devise usage so if we want to facilitate and encourage newbies let's clearly define what is what and properly ARRANGE the forums as to Allow the Search to function properly and we would not have to create a newbie sub forum. I remember Someone recently joined the forum and his first post was needing help because he was porting a particular useful app to the Tablet, is he a newbie or what so please make the Search button BIG and people will use it to find already answered questions.

If you have specific suggestions for improvement please share them in this thread.

Did you find any problem with the search? It's located in the top navigation bar and I would say it is easy to find.

Since i only use the new posts did not see the arrangements already made sorry, it was difficult searchings for articles then.
for the search button i was suggesting a button like a space bar used on most websites you type in your question enter and you get quick results that is why Google is successful making search easier, it took me some time to discover the search button i always did my search from Google which led me to a specific post in this thread.
My earlier post was not well worded sorry.

Now that we have the sticky topic READ THIS before posting a new thread I think we can go and proceed moving the Newbie thread to Old.

I will request this to Reggie tomorrow unless someone has a good reason here to stop the move.

Who are you asking? people from maemo.org? or the people on this forum? The people on this forum have countless times asked for more consideration to casual users, and here you propose to delete the "Newbie" forum as well as "Tablet 101"?? Don't you maemo guys have hundreds of other things to do? Why so much attention to changing the forum??

The objection to the term "newbie" is noted; that can be addressed by changing Newbie to Beginner.