Our little Aussie MCE forum is rapidly becoming a big one and with new members joining at a rate of more than 80 per day, and with Media Center computing destined to become a big deal downunder, providing quality support will become increasingly challenging and therefore we need your help.
We have 5 moderators and myself on this site who have worked hard to answer literally thousands of questions about hardware configs, driver issues, MCE functionality and of course the much needed EPG. In addition, we are fortunate to have many willing members who jump in, answer questions and provide a much appreciated additional resource, but even between all of us, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get to all the new questions quickly. We certainly don't expect that everyone is going to be a "geek" or even technically competent, but to be honest, most of the time, any answer we provide today will be exactly the same as one that's already been posted on several if not many previous occasions.
Quite often we are told by new members that they have been "lurking" for weeks and have pretty much found the answers to most of their "pre-MCE" questions before joining and then they only require very specific advice on an issue they've been unable to locate within the forum. On the other hand, we see others join and seemingly without taking the time to read up on the issues they're facing, begin asking question(s) that have already been asked and answered many times before.
The need to continually repeat answers to the same questions can become a little frustrating for the guys who are trying to help, and may ultimately lead to short, terse suggestions to use "search" first and then come back with specific questions, and we want to avoid that.
Another suggestion is to avoid including support questions or requests for assistance when you say hello as generally, members don't look in this forum to provide help and either myself or one of the Moderators will only move your post to the correct forum.
So in summary, please take the time to search on your problems in the first instance, read all you can, and take responsibility for meeting your own challenges using the resources that are already in place. Remember, we will always be here for you with help and guidance when that unavoidable brick wall positions itself firmly between you and your perfect Home Theatre PC.
Thanks for your understanding and assistance.
Mike
