F4 - Connect (The new way to get help)

[ATannahill]

I agree with most people that I am concerned about the factual accuracy of the responses. Case in point, the F4 show about districts vs. regionals was littered with inaccuracies and half truths from both sides of the discussion.

But I think Sam (and the F4 crew) has a point in the personal connection being helpful statement. I do not know how many threads I have seen asking about robot connectivity issues where I (and other people) ask questions like "What are you trying to do?", "What are the indicator lights showing?", "Can you walk us through the process and issue you have?" and the original poster never responds. This might be because they have trouble finding their thread again in all the minutiae of CD. In these cases, no one is helped. If F4 Connect can get a direct way to contact someone about their issue (email/aim/(jail) cell number) and actually walk them through the issue to completion, then they are providing a service that is superior to CD. It doesn't matter if someone with a nobel prize answer the question, if the person needing the information does not hear (or understand) it.

It might be good if these types of interactions happen in a glass box so that others can watch and bang on the glass if something isn't quite right. This might be able to be accomplished by posting solutions on a blog with the asker's information redacted.