some thoughts on the forum moderation

[dontflinch]

I am a new user here and I have some comments.

I am trying to be a responsible and self-helping user of the forums as I love free (open source) software and have made use of many, many such programs.  I understand that part of the process includes seeking help on these forums and looking for the question you may have and see if it has already been answered.  This is my first entry into e-commerce and as such I have found many problems and questions in setting up the joomla/virtuemart combo.

I really feel like someone can go through and combine numerous topics that are asking the EXACT same thing.  I was especially looking in the checkout section tonight and I see numerous topics with the exact same and very similar title.  It would be very helpful for someone to just go through and click combine (I use smf myself and know that that is pretty easy).  It would really help those of us trying to search the topics and not get bogged down in numerous posts that all belong in one topic.

anyway, I appreciate the software and effort of those on here trying to help and hope my comments spur someone to help those of us that want to help ourselves. 

[unleash.it]

I'm only speaking for myself, but it would be very time consuming to go through all the posts. Since everyone's a volunteer (and since it's not an enjoyable job), my hunch is its probably not going to happen.

Have your tried search? That's my best friend when trying to find something. Think about the keywords you use carefully. Use as few as possible and try to be specific. If they have too much in common with other topics, you'll bring them up as well. The better you get at searching, the better you'll get at using forums everywhere you go. And the more people who search first... the less duplicate posting.

Lastly, hang in there. The reason why things sometimes don't "just work" is because of a problem with your server configuration, some settings in the backend and/or template. VM's pretty complex but once you get to know it it works pretty good.

Hope that helps!