You know what this forum needs?
 

I honestly believe that this forum needs a how-to section. I've seen many post where people ask how to do stuff and other people replying saying that someone posted a how-to to do something awhile back and to search for it.



Maybe we should start a sub forum for how-to things that are often asked. I know we currently don't have any in the 87-96 f150 but this could be slowly built up over time. How many people think that this is a good idea. Mods could authorize how-to's and place it into this section. That away we don't get 8 different ways on how to do something and add to the confusion.




This idea could build up over time and prove to be a valuable asset to the community. Every car forum that I have been on has this type of stuff... even the ones for a wide arry of cars!

I agree with that

I dont have very good luck with the search . I rarely find what I am looking for. dos anyone else have this problam or am I just stupid.

if the moderator could just put together a list of links to useful threads it would do.

but if not I still really like this fourm.

a lot of the time when I do a search it pulled up a ton of crap that has nothing to do with my search, but if i dig long enough ill find something helpfull. The perfect example could the converstion to a electric fan topic that apears to be real big right now. Someone coudl do a graphical tutorial on how to do this. Just an idea to thorw out.

the search function has always worked for me.

within 2 or 3 minutes i always find what i am looking for.

a how to section is a good idea, but a lot of people never look at the article/spec section and would never look at a how to section either.

Even if they dont make a dedicated How-To forum, one nice thing that the mods can do is Sticky some of the most frequently asked questions, so the most important and informative threads will be right at the beginning and always easy to find.

something to think about, and something I have found very useful in other forums

they used to have that and i bet 90% of new forum members never looked there.

that is the group that needs the how to section more than anyone else.

Well even if majority of the forum users didn't use it. Newer members can be directed to it. Also on my mazda forum its used all the time, and my mazda forum is for the entire line up of mazdas.

On the RX-7 club we had a Archive. The mods would put the important how-to stuff inside of there. It worked really well.

The mod seems to be putting together a how-to for a MAS conversion via junk yard parts. I don't know where he plans on putting the article.

Search function seems to work OK for me most of the time, but I usually have to sort through alot of irrelevant stuff to find what I am looking for.

More often than not, and I do this to sometimes, when someone wants to know something they ask instead of look around for the answer. That is probably why stuff gets asked that has been asked before. It's called the path of least resistance.

I've never been able to get the search function to give any meaningful results. The only way I've been able to search the forum is by using google and limiting the search to the www.ford-trucks.com domain by typing in "site:www.ford-trucks.com" after my search criteria.

I once searched for a thread I made using the exact thread title and the search function could not find it.

the ebst way to search FTE specifically is NOT to use the built-in search feature. This feature is not always available depending on load at the time, so I've instead figured out how to use google for this function.

Go to google.com, and type in your keywords, then "site:" like so, to search on F150 brake rotors for example:
+F150 +brake +rotors site:www.ford-trucks.com/forums

It's 1000 times faster than searching using the FTE search as well, and uses google's cache so the load on FTE is reduced until you start clicking links, so this should help the FTE's server performance as well.

I've heard the term sticky before & have no idea what it refers to, but apparently it cost too much.

When I looked at the FAQ upon stumbling into this site, it answered very few of my questions.

What I would like to see is a series of locked threads at the top of our forum that could be updated periodically with help of members on the common issues/subjects/questions that arise day after day. I started a list after my first week on site.

There are very few articles that are specific to our series.

I have to wonder how many folks on the "rolls" drop in, sign up, ask 1 quetion, get no answer and don't even log in again for a couple of years?

Well I agree that search sucks. I entered in thermostat direction and about 1/2 way down on the second page what do I see, I see a post named thermostat direction, wtf. That should have been the very 1st post on the search.

Scndsin, thats exaclty what I was referring to when i mentioned sticky threads, ones that are stuck at the top of the forum so they should be the first ones that people see when they open the forum.

Choose a subject. (Lawd, there's sooo many).

Say, headers. That's been popular lately.

Open it for discussion. Materials, prices, suppliers, fit, durability, gains and applications all in direct relation to this family of trucks. Beat it to death for X amount of time.

Those here who are handy dandy with cut/paste, slice & dice, links & cross-posting etc. can all have a hand in creation in the final product.

Come to a consensus on some basic disitled info and post & lock.

List all who hand in creation in sig.

As conditions change & info needs updating or links expire, open it back to the populace & beat on it, then edit.

Sure it won't stop all the redundant questions...

But at least you'll have an informed member who starts a thread.