I guess the discussion groups are a valid source for help as long as one is willing to put up with a major dose of arrogance unless and until one has apparently passed their muster and is deemed worthy of a response. I tried a few questions over there and offered some answers as well. I was respectful, posed well thought out questions and comments and received zero response except for a couple "yea, I see that too" comments. From what I can tell, if you have a question that has no ready answer, the silence is deafening. The discussion groups are fine if you have a question you know has been answered, but can't find or need to verify some procedure to solve something, but other than that I find them a waste of my time.
DinØ
I have other reasons to dislike the News Groups; just try to do a search and get a reasonable number of returns.
You get all manner of answers from all over the place. They may be indexed, however they are not searchable in a useful manner.
Further once you do find an article that might answer your question, one must weed through all the folks with "signature lines" that include every possible manner to contact them; because there tends to be a large number of Vendors representatives trolling over there hoping to find someone to market to.
Lately the trend is to see a user get 'ganged' up on by vendors from a certain company/website to the extent that I wonder, do they have any customers at all?
Combine all the snarky comments, with the feeding frenzy from vendors, and the draconian rules about what can be discusses, and how it may be discussed, and that's what you get. A bunch of folks trying to thump their chests, and or link you over to their marketing portal. (website, blog, whatever) If their purpose is to help the users they should POST the solution, leave off the encyclopedic signature lines, and the links to their website. The user came there for an answer, and the answer should be what is posted right there with no stinking links.
Trust me, if the users want to contact you, and want to do business with you; they will find you.