Okay, apologies to the community for that, and just to keep this post somewhat on topic, I think a wiki would be a great idea, but how much in the long run would that do for noobs? If they hardly find the time to read notes.html, or use Google, what makes you think they'll read through a wiki? :( It would be a great thing for those average members though.
The wiki discussion was off-topic, as I recall, but I suppose since it's dominating the thread now...
To be fair, Essentials' notes aren't as accessible as they could be. Plus, with an official community wiki we can have links to it all over the place, so the "noobs" are more likely to see it. And the wiki would be better laid out than a single huge document (okay, two, but the advanced notes aren't in demand quite so much) and a couple of much huger threads.
And finally, "noobs" are the ones that,
by definition, don't get it right all the time. They're the ones asking for hacking advice. There'll always be "noobs" (I don't like using that word, not sure why), and we'll have to teach them the ways
regardless of the systems we have set up. So having a wiki or not won't affect the "noobs", but will benefit the other users, so I don't see a downside.
I'll put it like this on why a section would be better
---
If to many post at the same time, then some problems are going to get overlooked
If many problems are posted, and someone answers one of them, then how is the person gonna know which out of the plentiful amounts of posts was meant for him directly.
By having you own sections, mods can easily mark whats resolved and lock it... plain and simple =3
-Just my two cents
That looks dangerously like the original thread topic. Wasn't expecting that.
You raise good points. However, I think some problems will always get overlooked, whether they're new threads in a section or just new posts in a thread. A quick analysis of the responses will tell you if it's referring to your problem or someone else's, because odds are the posted problems will be quite different (plus some nice people quote the person they're replying to).
Having a section, in which resolved questions/threads are locked, means much more work for the mods. I'm not suggesting they're a group of lazy... individuals, but dumping this extra load of work on them is a bit harsh. Besides, the threads have worked well enough so far.
Also, locking threads precludes the possibility of follow-up questions, leading to repeat questions (which makes things untidy, and the mods don't like untidy things here). And since many people will title their thread "i need helps!" rather than summarising their actual problem, navigating through them to find what you're looking for would be even harder than scanning a single thread.
I don't think one way is inherently better than the other, though (providing both ways are used correctly). Both have their merits and their flaws. And when it comes down to it, we're already used to single threads, so we might as well keep them.
