The trouble that happens I've mentioned already, people assume this is a good place and they plop down their question wherever and hope someone will come along and take the time to do the research and answer it or have the knowledge and take the time to write it all out. After you do this often enough (we all have) you have the same answer several times on non-sequitur threads that aren't going to turn up easily in a search, you've had one or two visits from that individual and then they're gone, and you test the patience of those who can answer the question. Again. And again.

That poster with that name visited exactly once. Would they have even come back for an answer? A Google keyword search on topics we have discussed may land here at Mudcat. I knew my topic had been discussed here and after posting about my current problem (they're never exactly the same from one occurrence to the next, are they?) I was also able to take time to read through previously posted messages (I had to search my own post archive to find it, a keyword search wasn't working to bring up that thread, and it was 18 months back.)

The fact that we can answer some of these questions doesn't make it the best place to start out. People need to be patient enough to do their own search, to evaluate the potency of the answers on the answer site, and if they do post here for help, report back to pronounce the problem solved and offer a brief description of how they got there. In a perfect world this might happen, anyway.

That earlier post was put up in a matter-of-fact tone but might be read as churlish. That wasn't the intent. Mine was a brief response to a rather general question by a first-time visitor. It was a question from a stranger, versus a non-technical regular, so I wasn't willing to stop and research myself when all he needed to do was search on the virus itself as a keyword.

Now I need to get back to working on my own computer. . .

SRS