[Typo3] Blank Space help

[JoH]

> The fact is TYPO3 has lost a lot of customers because
> of the *perception* of rudeness, and it needs to be addressed if
> TYPO3 is to gain more acceptance in the US.

Maybe you didn't read my last posting in the "helping new users" thread.
I think the major problem is a completely different interpretation of "new
user".
All the lists that are available for TYPO3 have never been aimed to support
customers but professionals which is definitely not the same.
A customer is somebody who will work _with_ TYPO3 as the owner of a site or
maybe as an editor.
He will pay a professional (be it a company or a one-man-show) to setup
TYPO3 for him and modify it to fit his personal needs.
Its up to the professional to support these customers because an average
customer usually doesn't have the knowledge to master any CMS.

If you are a professional you can get any advice you want from these lists.
But being a professional means, that you should have at least a basic
knowledge about HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL just because these are the
foundation pillars of TYPO3.
Without these basics it simply doesn't make any sense trying to master a
system as complex as TYPO3.

Of course there are many people outthere who think they are professionals
but in fact they are not. They are coming to the list believing they are a
real webmaster just because they were able to download TYPO3 to their local
PC and create the "FC bigfeet" site. In fact they should have been customers
and maybe they would have been excellent editors. Unfortunately these people
will always call anybody "rude" who tells them the sad truth and this is
something you can never avoid. The only chance you might have got is to
inform people about the fact that TYPO3 is not a toy for beginners but a
professional tool for advanced webmasters before they start overestimating
themselves.

I think the major problem in the US is that there are not very much
professional companies offering TYPO3 services and this is why so many
possible customers try to do it on their own which means they are doomed to
failure in most cases.
So we should not try to attract more "new users" in the US as long as we
were not able to attract more "new professionals".

You can read the rest in my original posting if you like ...

Joey

-- 
Wenn man keine Ahnung hat: Einfach mal Fresse halten!
(If you have no clues: simply shut your knob sometimes!)
Dieter Nuhr, German comedian
openBC: http://www.openbc.com/go/invuid/Jo_Hasenau