Newbies and Advanced forums

Any thoughts on a newbies discussion, and an advanced user discussion? I can't remember having to suggest people read the manual so many times in a couple of months as I have had to lately.

Or perhaps some kind of moderation... no questions of this type (obvious that the manual or help menu have been cracked) for the first 25 or so.

Or maybe a FAQ that lets someone know about the YouTube videos, or Mac Pro Video, Groove 3, or any other class, or any of the number of great books out there.

I really love helping people who take a bit of time to actually learn enough that their question has some intelligence and a margin of understanding of how Logic works, but this kind of RTFM type makes me wanna take a hike after 17 years or so around here.

Is there anything that can be done, aside from leaving or having to scan yet another post number 1 or 5 from some intelectualphobic individual who can't take a few seconds to crack anything other than their.... beer/soda/ "name your favorite drink or body part here"

Anyways, sorry to rant, the "noise" in the LUG is getting a bit loud.

Thanks admins, I know you have a difficult job, and I appreciate the work you put in.
 
I've moved this from the original thread it appeared in to it's own thread as I think it's really worth discussing amongst both the admin team and our very valued and helpful members, both those who spend their time answering people's questions as well as those who participate by asking some good questions that often lead on to all of us learning a few things.

We do have an FAQ and are currently looking ways to make it more obvious (which may mean upgrading the forum sofware or even switching platforms).

We are very concerned that we shouldn't lose people such as yourself George, so I think I can speak for all the team in saying we take it very seriously.

However it's not as simple as just creating a newbie forum if what it means is that experienced folk just assume that would be full of RTFM questions and ignore it.

I'd like to throw this discussion wide open to everyone and get all kinds of points of view from all members whether you are a guru or a newbie.
 
I think making the FAQ more useable would be a great help. I just did a quick test. I pressed the FAQ button in the toolbar and the database search engine came up. I entered "punching in", then I tried "comp tracks", then I tried "quick swipe". Each attempt yielded no matches and no results. It seems to me that something's not working right with it.
 
I think making the FAQ more useable would be a great help. I just did a quick test. I pressed the FAQ button in the toolbar and the database search engine came up. I entered "punching in", then I tried "comp tracks", then I tried "quick swipe". Each attempt yielded no matches and no results. It seems to me that something's not working right with it.

That is very interesting Eli, and points out an element of "not seeing the wood for the trees" on the part of us admins. The FAQ you are referring to is actually the vbulletin FAQ, intended to help people who are trying to use the forum software. You won't find anything about Logic there! The Logic FAQs may be found under "articles" here:

http://www.logic-users-group.com/index.php?q=articles.html

These are simple collections of information I have gathered working with Logic 8 and 9 and seeing the kind of questions people have been asking on the forum. An awful lot more could be added to them, but going on experience, this will not prevent people repeatedly asking the same questions in the forum. At least they can then be referred to the FAQs, something I have been known to do 🙂

May I take the opportunity to say a very big thanks to you, George, Doug and so many other regular contributors who have brought so much to the community here over so many years. Words of thanks are too few and far between, but you guys are, and always have been, the heart and soul of the LUG :thmbup:

kind regards

Mark
 
The FAQ you are referring to is actually the vbulletin FAQ, intended to help people who are trying to use the forum software. You won't find anything about Logic there! The Logic FAQs may be found under "articles" here:

http://www.logic-users-group.com/index.php?q=articles.html

Maybe you could put a button in the toolbar leading directly to the FAQ for the current version (which is still 9, as of now anyway 😀 )


May I take the opportunity to say a very big thanks to you, George, Doug and so many other regular contributors who have brought so much to the community here over so many years.

Mark

Thanks for the thanks :redface:
 
Any thoughts on a newbies discussion, and an advanced user discussion? I can't remember having to suggest people read the manual so many times in a couple of months as I have had to lately.

Hi George

I agree, and FWIW this is not just a LUG phenomenon. I help out on the German language logicuser.de, and the same thing is evident there, it has been for some time. I do miss the fascinating, in depth discussions that were such a feature of the LUG ....

As Pete mentioned, we take these comments very seriously. Personally, I can see a lot of sense in having a newbie forum, where any question can be asked (within the framework of the forum's rules of course). If it helps keep discussions in the main areas more interesgting and keep annoying questions from people who seemingly just can't be bothered to make the most basic efforst to learn the fundamentals, and particularly, keep them out of the way of those who contribute to the community, that seems to me to be a good thing.

Or perhaps some kind of moderation... no questions of this type (obvious that the manual or help menu have been cracked) for the first 25 or so.

Where to draw the line could be the issue here. I am also reminded that people mostly join the forum because they have a problem and are looking for help. I'm not sure if telling them that they have to write a certain number of posts beforehand is realistic ... My gut reaction tends towards the idea of a newbie area. While I wouldn't expect that everyone with a newbie question would post there, I think most of us are capable of recognizing such questions and would wait until we admins could move questions, as may be required into it. OTOH, as Pete mentioned, the danger might be that it just gets ignored.

Or maybe a FAQ that lets someone know about the YouTube videos, or Mac Pro Video, Groove 3, or any other class, or any of the number of great books out there.

We have some lists of resources. Admittedly they are not as up to date as they might be, but you will recall that setting these things up takes quite a lot of work, as does maintaining them. Remember the old LUG FAQ that Hendrik Jan hosted? It was interesting to see take shape, but it didn't prevent people asking questions on the LUG which it answered .... frustrating!



Anyways, sorry to rant, the "noise" in the LUG is getting a bit loud.

Please don't apologize! The noise has been getting louder, you are right to bring this up.

Thanks admins, I know you have a difficult job, and I appreciate the work you put in.[/QUOTE]

Thaks for the thanks, and once again, thank YOU :hippy:

Mark
 
Maybe you could put a button in the toolbar leading directly to the FAQ for the current version (which is still 9, as of now anyway 😀 )

I agree, being under "articles" is not the most obvious place, it needs to slap people round the face.

We need to also make it and the vBulletin Forum FAQ not get confused. Tricky as that is part of the default vBulletin forum navigation bar (as opposed to the higher up LUG site navigation) messing with the vBulletin code can cause problems, but let's see what we can do. In fact, I doubt anyone would be the worse off if we could completely remove the vBulletin FAQ
 
Maybe you could put a button in the toolbar leading directly to the FAQ for the current version (which is still 9, as of now anyway 😀 )

That makes a lot of sense. I'll see what we can do.

kind regards

Mark
 
I've been thinking: Maybe a more dynamic FAQ, a place where we could put questions that are basic, and often asked. It seems to me that we end up going "open the inspector window, select the quantize and set to 16th notes to quantize your midi data" 10 times every month (well, that isn't the best example, it was the one I could pull off the top of my head in half a sec), it could be put as a point in the FAQ. or maybe even something like the old database I had about 8 years ago. It was a simple thing that had topics and then a number of answers for that specific area of Logic. I took as many questions and answers as I could over about 4 months, and had another member help me get them organized, and another made the simple pop up database that was very easy to use.

Does anyone remember that? It was very good, and really helped me to get people out of the way so real things could be talked about other than the very basic things new people deal with.

As for your thanks for my contributions... I love Logic, and I am always happy to help out. My favorite thing is when someone :gets" it, and finds that they can get to a new level or learn something about Logic that makes it more transparent to their creativity.

Heck, I think you admins deserve a real pat on the back (and a bottle of wine or whatever you like to enjoy when being thanked). You people rock, and you are the people who have kept this thing going for so long. My involvement is minimal to yours.

Take care
 
Geez, I gotta read more parts of this forum more often. I realize I haven't poked in here since last year - I just saw the post on the SOS compliment.....:eeek:

Catching up here on this thread:

From Markdvc
May I take the opportunity to say a very big thanks to you, George, Doug and so many other regular contributors who have brought so much to the community here over so many years.

I will respond with a comment from George which says it all:

As for your thanks for my contributions... I love Logic, and I am always happy to help out. My favorite thing is when someone :gets" it, and finds that they can get to a new level or learn something about Logic that makes it more transparent to their creativity.

Heck, I think you admins deserve a real pat on the back (and a bottle of wine or whatever you like to enjoy when being thanked). You people rock, and you are the people who have kept this thing going for so long. My involvement is minimal to yours.

Regarding the subject, I think you have to have beginners here - that's part of what the forum is for. If they could be directed to an obvious FAQ with a good search engine, that would be great. (I understand and respect the time for the moderators that might go into this - and confessing ignorance, haven't really looked at the existing one.) I have mentioned on this forum before that back in the day I printed out the LUG FAQ that Hendrik Jan hosted, read through it and used it as a reference (and learned a lot!).

I think we're seeing a new generation of users as Logic becomes more popular - they just need a heads up on how to proceed. I confess I skip over posts because they are basic (I know many people can answer them) or they are poorly written and need further clarification. So the FAQs could minimize basic posts, but additionally, I'd also like to see system specs mandatory - a bit frustrating finding out you've answered the question incorrectly assuming certain hardware/software configurations.

Anyway - this is a great forum, even if perceived to be slightly imperfect. And George, thanks for all your posts - don't let the newbie questions drive you nuts. Pick and choose the ones you want to answer, it's all volunteer. I'll try to remember to post a tough advanced one for you 😉
 
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