Just an opinion, with a proposal.
I am not religious about my choice for VERA but I feel that the overall picture that appears by looking at some of the topic lists is not creating a proper image of what at least is my short experience with VERA and its capabilities. A lot of this is down to the subject titles used.
Many topics are created as “…does not work”, or “failing…” or even “massive failing…”
Some of these point to bugs that are fixed but some are in the end solved with some guidance by forum members HOW TO DO SOMETHING.
Often the information how to do something is already available in the manuals and on the forum .
Of course it can be much more convenient to get some guidance from fellow-members rather than reading pages of manuals and topics that can get rather technical.
I find that a valuable part of the forum. Challenge is to strike a balance in asking for help and doing research oneself.
Doing some basic research first with the search function on the forum seems reasonable to expect from forum members.
Overlooking something is however easy and I really appreciate the tolerant attitude to help eachother and not point to manuals only.
In the end when someone received help how to do something to solve a perceived “fail” or “does not work”, it would in my view be good practice to change the name of the topic in “Don’t know how to do…” or “Need help how to …” or simply “How to …”
Of course many do already start their topic on this basis.
I noticed it is possible to change the name of a topic by the one starting it.
For some reason, the name remains the original one in the subsequent messages, but in the topic list, it follows the name of the first message.
I believe it is our joint interest to not unnecessarily discourage people to use zwave and its capabilities and profile the forum more as a help facility rather than a complaint collector.
That VERA, the UI and its applications are still rather complex, constantly under development, struggling with upgrades and requiring some affinity with technology (preferebly) will be clear anyhow.