Derek Uzzell Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 Just a reminder to inveterate respondents to motorhome-related questions that inquiries (from new forum members particularly) are, in future, more likely to be posted to the Hints & Tips forum than to this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 Funny that I was thinking the same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naittaw Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 I think it's a pity myself. Why not keep everything together ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J9withdogs Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 I thought it was originally supposed to be a collection of all those nuggets of wisdom we had discovered along the way and wanted to pass on to others *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naittaw Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 If hints, tips and inquiries are going on the Hints and Tips Forum what's going on the other one ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted May 20, 2008 Author Share Posted May 20, 2008 The Hints & Tips forum was IMHO one of those well-meaning 'good ideas' that never had a proper chance of success. Out&AboutLive forums are rather like the traditional fairground attraction where a line of metal duck silhouettes moves across the background and you try to knock them over with a rifle. You've got a limited amount of time to knock the duck down (ie. comment on the forum posting), otherwise it disappears from sight. Essentially, the O&AL forum structure is cheap and dirty - it works fine for simple ask-a-question-get-a quick-answer subjects, but poorly for anything else. (This should be evident from the Fiat juddering debate that is all over the place thread-wise and needs to be constantly 'bumped' by forum members to keep it in plain view.) When it comes to forum-provided hints/tips, you really need a different type of structure that doesn't 'roll' and a look-up index. What you've got are individual hints/tips that disappear off the bottom of the web-page (and will do so much more frequently in future as inquiries are increasingly posted to that forum), plus a single "USEFULL TIPS" composite thread that's 'stuck' towards the top of the forum. Logically, any new hint/tip should (I suppose) be added to that thread, but there's no guidance on this and, inevitably, the result would soon become unmanageable. The reasoning behind the recent change to the forum's homepage that now instructs members to use the Hints and Tips forum "to ask for advice on specific subjects" is (so I'm led to believe) that an answer to a motorhome-related inquiry could be of general interest to all and thus could be considered a 'hint' or a 'tip'. Sadly, not being a graduate of the University of Ass-Backwards Thinking, I'm unable to get my brain around such an advanced logical concept as this. I always thought it was pretty straightforward to tell the difference between an inquiry/question or a hint/tip, and that inquiries/questions should be posted to Motorhome Matters, whereas hints/tips should go into (well) Hints and Tips - but clearly it's a lot more complex and subtle than that. I've also got a lot of difficulty understanding what ISN'T a "specific subject" when it comes to asking for motorhome-related advice. Even something like "Are motorhomes better than caravans?" is 'specific' as far as I'm concerned. As naittaw acutely observes, if hints/tips and inquiries on "specific subjects" are all to be directed to the Hints and Tips forum, what's left to go into Motorhome Matters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 Very well put Derek . Nice easy reading that makes perfect sense .. What you Mods doing in that office all day 8-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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