Are the Joomla forums a victim of their own success? Over the holidays I had a lot of extra time
on my hand. While my wife was working
hard to max out my credit cards, I stayed at the house and watched some TV and
do some surfing. I was working on some
of my websites and found myself in the Joomla forums looking for advice and
solutions to some problems I was having.
As I looked through the questions on the General,
Administration, Installation, and Extensions boards I realized that I knew some
of the answers. Many of them were
typical new user questions, and I was able to help a bit with those.
But, of course, many of these questions had been asked and
answered many times already on the boards.
The answers were there. (One
moderator has in their signature "All of the answers are here on the
forum. Use search before you ask.") But, they are hard to find, especially if you
don't know how to phrase the question.
And, with 1.2 million posts on the forum, it sure can be hard to find
things, even with the search. I was
looking for a post that I had seen just a few days earlier (but I could not
remember which board it was on) and I absolutely could NOT find it with search. I've found that using Google to search is
more effective than using the forum search.
So, I understand the frustration of the moderators who
answer a new user question with "This question has been asked and answered
thousands of times already.
Search!" And, I understand the
frustration of the new user who feels that they tried the search, and just did
not get meaningful results.
My advice? When
searching for an answer to a Joomla question, use Google or Yahoo or one of the
major search engines rather than the search built into the forums. You'll find the answer much more quickly.
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My Joomla Journey 
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