The moderator can regulate discussion by chastisement or removal. A membership fee may be a good way to discourage newbie frivolous questions.
You miss the point *entirely.* This has absolutely nothing to do with newbie frivolous questions and *everything* to do with old guy frivolous answers. As Bart says -- what I am asking is for all of longer term users to quit dragging some of these discussions out with useless, pointless and ultimately unhelpful anecdotes. (Love the PenPal analogy, Bart!!)
I wasn't asking for a lot of discussion on this, but to sum up ... There are no dumb (or frivolous) questions. But there sure are dumb answers. Try not to give any of those.
And while we're on the subject, I do not want to see "Use the search function" as a snippy answer to a perfectly valid newbie question. I don't care how many times we've answered it in the past, ANSWER IT AGAIN! Help the guy! Especially if it is a simple answer to a simple question (which they usually are.) Few things turn a new user off faster than getting flogged on his first post for simply asking a simple (to him) question. Like Otto says, if you don't like the question, leave it to someone else with more patience.
We have tech tips on the Insurance and truck value questions (which I will be updating soon). The one about titling and registering shouldn't need one. But if you all feel the need to have me do a "How to boil water" tech tip on that, it shouldn't be too difficult. It probably goes about like this:
"Call your state DMV office and talk to *them*.
The End."
These three questions are perfectly legitimate. And the best help we can give these knowledge seekers is to direct them to the best knowledge sources quickly.
If you all want to trade stories, take it to the 'Spoon.
Carry on.
