Isn't there something somewhere on the site about counting laps in the pool?

It's obvious that the OP has spent some time on it and approached this in a spirit of service. It's a nice bit of work and certainly deserves to be considered as an article. The thread won't, however, be made into a sticky. The issue of an FAQ or something like it for the forums comes up every once in a while, about once a year, and we've always said no.

I've posted versions of the following a few times to explain why.  I'll post a slightly updated version here.

This is a forum, not an article repository. We're not here to answer questions like "How do people who were here 3 years ago count laps?". We're here to answer questions like "How do YOU count laps". There's a big difference.

For every person who actually posts a question, there are probably 10 or 20 reading the first page of that forum at that moment who are looking for the same information. And sometimes they're not just looking for a way to count laps. Sometimes they're looking for a bit of community around this small, odd sport of ours.

When starting something like triathlon, it's a big mental boost to know that there are people out there who are at this moment in the exact same position as you, with the same questions. Knowing that there were people like you isn't the same. There's a world of difference between "come sit in the circle" vs. "go look in the library".

The Forum Search feature is useful. I just used it to find the other versions of this post from 2006-2008. For people who want to look for questions asked previously, it's great. But our forums are the gathering place for a community, and one of the things communities are very good for is passing on information to new people on a person to person basis.

From a practical standpoint I'd hate to see people discouraged from asking questions. Quite the opposite. We want to encourage it. We want them to gather the courage to ask a question and be confident that they'll be responded to politely, accurately and enthusiastically rather than just be told to do a search or go to the FAQ. If that's the case, how is someone to know what constitutes an ok question? How many times can something be asked before it's no longer ok? Following the logic of "that's been asked already" you eventually end up with a situation where you only get a small set of cranky old coots arguing over the aero characteristics of the newest ultra-light carbon bottle holder.

There are no stupid questions, no questions that are not ok, no questions that have been asked too much already if they're asked honestly. If you're wondering about something related to triathlon, ask away.

BT is here to disburse information on triathlon, but we're also here to provide community and support. We don't want to lose the latter in the name of adding a bit of efficiency to the former.

Stuff:

• Rock the Core WO Link
• How to do a LT field test Link
• BT Thread with lots of links

I don't see any rules in that we can't consistently bump this forever since it won't be a sticky.  right?!

Here's a list I've started about XTERRA tris:

Who's racing Xterra? What are you doing differently? - About training for XTERRA

Your opinion: Am I ready for an XTERRA? - Newbies to XTERRA

Xterra - off-road triathlon Advice - Riding tips for the mountain bike portion for newbies, and what to carry.

Any XTERRA Triathletes here? - Training tips different from road tris.

Official site: XTERRAplanet.com