I love what Trap17 is doing here. I love being apat of communities like this, and here you got hosting for it! What more could you ask for!

Well ive got an idea: The all purpose help desk. We have so many users here, all of us together probably have knoweledge about pretty much every thing. So why not open a "Help Desk"?

At the "Help Desk" Users could submit a question about any thing (Probably via email) then us here could sort of "Claim" the message if we know the answer. All the question could be posted in a forum here, then once a user "Claims it" the topic that its in becomes closed so that no one else can get at it.

The person who claims it would then conatct the slender with the answer to their question (via email), or help them fix a problem.

For each Question sucessfully finished, the user who helped with it would be awared so many hosting credits. (The slender would notify an admin, then the credits could be awarded to the person who helped)

You are probably reading this and thinking "Whats the real difference between this and what a forum can do?!" Well i this would just be for support, not just posting about programs ect. that would be use full to people. When people post here for help (at least I find) they are over whelmed by posts suggesting what to do, most of then dont work. So here the person would be dealing with one person, and only one person.

To bring this farther, each of us here could have a certain departement, either it being Computers or what ever that we are good in. Then a person submits a question, they assign it to a certain departement. That way if some one from a departement doesn't know the answer, they could forward it to another person in the same departement, to see if they know.

Let me know what you think...

I am not sure if I fully get what you are saying. Do you mean help as in with computers or something? A forum would do the same thing. Everyone could post multiple maybe different ways to help that way the person has a choice and maybe find a way that suits them or makes it easier for them. If one doesn't work then they can just try the next. When people e-mail their answer to the question asked it might not be very helpful and the person might not tell the admins that they had helped them out. When people post their support they get hosting credits anyway. It would probably be too much work. This is just my opinion though.

My thoughts are that the private email method doesn't make the issue public, therefore, only a single member benefits.
Using the forum approach, all members who read the thread get informed and are better off. Assuming they understand the Question and Answer.
Also, if it is on the Forum, it becomes searchable, so others can find it when they need it.
As for Departments, you will soon discover who knows what around here. If there are any doubts, look at a member's profile to see where most of their posts are made. If they post lots in a specific Topic, at least you know where their interests and possibly their expertise lies.

Just my thoughts.

I think they make a point here. It sounds like a good idea, but when you think about it, it's not the best way to get help I think. Of course with a serious problem you should get proffesional help. And then it would be a good idea to have a contact person. But when it's only a little question, why don't ask it on forums? The asker gets credits for it. He gets muliple answers (one could be the good one). And the answerers get also credtis. If you have a serious problem with astahost or trap17 you can always mail the technical support.

So far my opinion. Good idea, but not very usefull i think.

Yeah i never thought about it that way. If its in the forums, every one can read it. O well i guess so much for my idea