A few things came to mind...
1)) A dedicated effort by those considered to be among the best in their categories
(scripting, modeling, tabling, textures, etc) to make tutorials or knowledge updates
for whatever program they feel comfortable with.
Please understand that I'm not trying to come off as a jerk or a noob here, just state
what is seen from this point of view. I've been told I have a "matter of fact" or "in your face"
style of typing - I'm pointing out now that's not my intention here.
We all want more help on our projects, we all want to get better in our own skills,
we want more and interesting mods that promote FS2. Cept the problem with this is
that the main bulk of information lies within a select group - and that group is already
stretched too thin. The new capabilities have been produced faster than they have been
documented. New folks can't learn, the wise have too much to do. It's a self defeating cycle.
So instead of continuing along this course, why not stop and update what needs to be done
in order for the community to catch up again. It might also be wise to re-evaluate how documentation
is set up/submitted in order to help limit the problem in the future or streamline the system.
2)) Since there is such a need for information, there should be some dedicated section either
for tutorials themselves, or at the very least links listed in one spot for easy access and divided by program/usage. The "tutorial" section that is part of the Wiki is not what I would consider a true tutorial
on most of the topics - they are closer to listings of capability or features.
An example of what I mean:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/TexturingThe response to this would typically be something along the lines of "they can go find tutorials on the net", "look around", "just play with it you'll get there". Well, that sadly does not work for a few reasons. 1. A majority of net tut's are written from the perspective that the person has a pre-knowledge of the program. 2. The internet changes every second, what you may find as a good tut today is gone tomorrow. 3. Not all of them apply in the same sense to topics that would have to do with a space game, or flight as demonstrated with the SoL mod. 4. A lot of tut's leave out some steps or contain mistakes - thus leaving the noob lost as to what to do. 5. In similarity to point #3, the tutorials that "could" be made, would be much more applicable to FS2 SCP due to the people writing them... an example being the detail boxes. 6. Lastly, some people just don't "get it" as well as others. HLP's modding support is great for individual questions or problem solving due to the people - but on a entry-broad spectrum topic it lacks.
If nothing else, think how much time you'd save telling the new folks "how" when they can be given a link to a section (sounds like the HLP welcome beam doesn't it? ^_^ ).
Another idea that just came to mind, is start a tutorial review section. There you post a tutorial from somewhere else in order for the members to look through it and provide a review comment. If it's incomplete or missing something, too hard, written in uberGeek, etc... then it should be able to spotted and fixed/edited or rejected. Sort of like a certification process or "HLP approved" tut that would get the job done.
Looking over a tut with illustrations in a thread shouldn't be any more difficult than reading a regular topic of posts and making a reply there.
3)) It appears that you could at times use a longer list of available poll options. I've not been on the operator side of a SMF board in a very long time, so I don't know how well it could be fixed/upgraded.
4)) The icons or avatars would be nice I suppose, so that's another "for" vote - but in the interest of keeping
things quick to load I understand if not.
5)) Strangely,when using the search function from the index, it always comes up with no result - until tried a second time. If there was also a way to make it more accurate, that would always be appreciated.
6)) Keep up the good work
