Well, you are a big boy and can handle it.
As this subject keeps popping up every once in a while, I thought I could finish and close this sorry thread with my thoughts about the whole issue. I state clearly that these are my own feelings about this board and not a board policy or whatever. And I don't care if this opposes everyone or everything. I really don't.
The issue is either we show people here how to do stuff without being patronising, idealistic, moralistic or trying to enforce values onto them they might not want or indeed need. If we don't, then the new or less fortunate ones (or those who don't have the brains for rewriting/editing/etc files), will download whatever Image there is that uses a built in download facility. Then we really showed them, didn't we? We made our f**** point and they use automatic installers forever.
This is the reason I have started the Idiot Guide, I can't hear those arguments anymore. I am spending hours of my time searching for stupid things in all sorts of boards who have the same attitude. I am not complaining about the lost time, I do it because I want to. But what for? Am I searching for something that is going to improve mankind? Am I searching for something that improves me as a human being? No, I am searching for a stupid file or program that will make me be able to watch the next football match or Johnny X have a toss in front of some XXX channel. And I can't for the life of me understand why some other poor sod who might not understand English that well needs to go and try to find these answers in some godforsaken Hungarian/German/whatever site if I can tell him where it goes and what to do. Is it my purpose in life to be mysterious about those things? Did it improve his Programming abilities? No, it only wasted exactly the same amount of time or more that I wasted. Am I going to demand a certain level of computing ability or IQ or whatever for being able to watch far away channels on the Dreambox? Is it for the clever ones only??
I want people who come to this board be able to find the answers here, I don't want to send them to toes or shmoes or any other board (unless it is for getting files we are not allowed to post here.)
When newbies ask silly questions that are already covered in a reasonable way, then the answer is clear. But there are things that are not covered, there are things that are really difficult to find out, not everyone has the ability to do the things some of the more advanced members do. Some people don't worry if their Dreambox will go bang, some people don't care if it doesn’t work for weeks, and then there are people who do. They are not confident in changing config files or whatever, and maybe they would if someone showed them how to do it. Afterwards, they may be a bit more daring.
I suppose there are people who get a satisfaction out of spoon feeding their knowledge to people, maybe they crave the recognition and adoration, who knows. I am not saying you are this type of person, all I know is that if I know the answer you can have it. Period. In such a way you can understand it.
I am lucky in that sense as there is a dear chap who has spent hours and hours in endless online sessions with me helping me to get the Dreambox or other sat stuff going. If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably given up on it already, or not even went into it as I don’t understand this complicated sh*t for the life of me. Unfortunately he can’t do this with everyone, so I for my part am trying to return the favour to everyone else who wants/needs it.
I pleases me a lot to see that thousands of hits have registered on the Idiot Guide, and it pleases me that compared to many other boards it reduces the amount of silly questions and lets us tackle the more difficult things. Or just frees up time so we can have a laugh in between the games/programs in the Chitchat section.
I am disappointed though that there haven’t been any contributions to this guide from members who could enlighten us all……