Help Me! Forum; In or Out?

[WILL]

Hey guys,

I've been thinking about the Help Me forum lately and I'm starting to question it's reason for existing. Here is why...

1) It jumbles all the possible topics (everything) into one massive messy forum where sorting it out after becomes an issue of 'wasted' time.

2) You can really just post in any other forum that best matches the thread's topic.

3) Noone is following the posted "Help Me! Forum" rules anymore. (See item 3 'Help Me! FORUM RULES') These rules are also set as a sticky at the top of the forum it's self.


So what I'm getting at is, do I continue with these rules and put forth the energy to keep up the forum OR do I eliminate the forum all together? It just seems like a whole less hassle and heart-ache (on both the Staff and Members side) to keep it going. It had it's time and served it's purpose, but I think it's ready to be put to bed.

I'll put up a poll, but I'm leaning to killing it, unless someone wants to take care of it and gives me a really really good reason to keep it.

[chronozphere]

Not many posts are made there and most people seem to be unaware of the rules of the forum. If I go to those forums I don't get the impression that each post is a well formatted/formulated question, so I wouldn't feel obligated to spend more time adding my system description etc...

Also, most of the information that is required is not even relevant. For specific questions about the libraries (Delphix, GLScene... ) people should post on the special library subforums. Delphi and FPC also have their own boards. And the operating system is not really needed to solve most problems.

I guess we could live without this forum.

[Traveler]

I vote to keep it. It's not like we get dozens of questions each day that need sorted out. It doesn't hurt anyone imo. Besides, if you remove it, people are likely going to post in 'general'.
If you want to talk about cleaning up, I'd rather choose to remove those older dx-wrapper categories. In fact, any category with the most recent post dating back to 2008 or earlier should be archived. Btw, with eliminating, you do mean archiving right?

[WILL]

Yes, by eliminating I do mean moving all the posts to their more on topic forums and just deleting the emptied 'Help Me!' forum alone. My primary reason for wanting to get rid of it, is that no one follows it's rules, enforcing them causes hardship for the members that don't understand and it really just gives new users an excuse not to follow proper forum posting practices.

[code_glitch]

I agree with bin it. I havent found an instance where I needed it too much, and couldnt get help fast on other forums. Also, I read the rules once, but there are so strict criteria, i dont think anyone would follow them completely and its a bit discouraging as such so everyone avoids it and goes to post somewhere else... And for browsing posts, it doesnt make life any easier. =p