Hi
I am looking for a Drupal mentor and any assistance I can get.

I would like to say a big thanks to Drupal and all the people who have contributed to this wonderful CMS. You know you are doing a great job when a 56 year old chap like me with no programming experience to speak of can get his head around it.

This time last year I was at deaths door and did not know it. Lucky for me I got caught in time and have made a full recovery. I am telling you this so you will understand my motivation in creating the free website I am working now. It’s called Roots2life.com
Who hasn't heard that diet is so important for health? Well it’s seems many have heard but have failed to understand what it means. So this my way of saying thanks to whatever power up there saw fit to save me. I want to create a community around making healthy choices in one’s life. Not a finger waving exercise that excludes those who don’t agree. A website that informs and is fun o be part of. I have all the main stuff in place. I would like some specific stuff but am at a loss as to how to do it. I would like a recipe upload form where members can post recipe in structured way.

If you are vegetarian, vegan or into any other topic around having a healthy lifestyle or you just think his is worthy idea perhaps you like to get involved. Or you may know someone who might. Anyway thanks for reading this post and have a good one........
Hadrian

Comments

You might want to say what

You might want to say what you could use help on.

Roots2Life

I would like some specific stuff but am at a loss as to how to do it. I would like a recipe upload form where members can post recipe in structured way.

I am at my limit now regarding what I can do. so I guess I like help on improving the site in general. I am excellent on graphics vectors and images. (So be happy any time to help anyone with these)

I sent you more on this using this site mail.

The place to ask specific

The place to ask specific questions here is on drupal.org, I only answers email questions from clients.

I have a basic understanding

I have a basic understanding about css files and html but not enough to tackle layouts etc. I love the front page to be more interesting and active.

Little bites of text with pictures etc, so i guess more blocks . most of all i like everything to be more standardised looking. here is something very crude but its help get my meaning across Mockup i would work on it more if had the skill to put it in place.

I want to invite the users to summit recipe which will be tested and then placed on the site with photos etc. I would like have a form on the site that puts structure onto how the data is collected. Name, description, ingredients & weights, cooking instructions, and extra info like what to watch out for

Criticism or Help?

People seem quick to offer criticism about your question and not so quick on practical help!

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Nevets wasn't criticizing, he was simply trying to help you get a better response to your request.

As it stands, you've asked a very large and generic question that is not really drupal specific (css styling is something you can learn in multiple places) and difficult, if not impossible, to answer in a forum thread.

And asking for that kind of hand holding ('mentor') for a non-drupal specific issue in the drupal.org forums, for free no less, is not really likely to get the type of response you're looking for anyway.

If you have specific drupal related questions by all means ask them. If you follow the tips at http://drupal.org/forum-posting you can increase your chances of getting useful responses.

If you're really just looking for generic designer type mentorship for free, you're not likely to get a response here. That's not an indictment of these forums, it's a reflection of looking for something in the wrong place as well as looking for something quite substantial for free.

If you're looking to hire someone, you should post in the paid service forum.

I'm sure that's not the type of response you want-- but those are the facts.

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Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.

I have personally already

I have personally already spent a great deal of time on the project all unpaid and will spend even more. Others have given generously to this project too. Server space and support etc. etc. You make sound as if everyone here is only motivated by money, which I find strange as so many have given their time for free to Drupal over the years. Maybe there are some who only surf these post hoping to convert questions in clients, I don’t have a problem with that.

What I can’t accept is that everyone who reads these posts is only interested in money. There has to be members of the Drupal community who are capable of seeing that my idea is about saving lives not profit for me or anyone else and will have heart to give some time to helping Roots2Life. Clearly you are not one of them.

I am not an expert but I am also not a fool. I know to right person the help I am looking for (which in fact is help for millions of people who will avoid illness as a result of that work) is not as hard as you make it out to be. If I was looking to hire someone as you put it ,you would not be discouraging me from posting here at all.

I think there is little differenced between a con man and someone who pretend to helping others when in fact they are only sneaking to profit from them. I respect people who straight up as they are willing to help for a fee not people who say "I help in the Drupal support forums" when they only mean they help themselves to whatever paid work they can get.

I'm sure that's not the type of response you want-- but those are the facts too.

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you focused on only one small piece of my response. There are over 300k posts in this forum -- many with useful responses. All of them by volunteers assisting others for free-- sometimes involving hours of assistance. I have personally responded 10s of thousands of times without any fee agenda (i'm not a consultant and have never requested or earned a single penny from the forums). Of course there are charlatans-- there always are. But my experience is that they are unusually rare here.

The main point of my response was that you are asking a large nonspecific non drupal question that is not likely to get a response here and that if you want to increase your chances of getting a response you should ask specific drupal questions.

but whatever-- it's entirely up to you if you want to post in a manner likely to get a response. It never ceases to amaze me when people get hostile toward volunteers simply trying to provide assistance or guidance. I keep telling myself to let them twist in the wind but I can't seem to resist at least trying.

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Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.

I apologise

I apologise for what I can see now as my hostile reaction to your post. I have no excuse for my prickly aptitude and bad manners. In my defence all I can say is, I made the mistake of responding when I was tired out after a very long and frustrating day. It’s a poor reflection on me not you. It was a lapse of judgement on my part. One I now regret. So sorry for what it’s worth.
I don’t know what question I should ask. I only know I like get someone involved who has more experience in Drupal site development them me who would help me improve the site and perhaps free me up to do the other important work of promoting etc. Not a lot to ask.... yea right ..!

I know everyone’s time is valuable and important so I could well be asking for the impossible. Still I also know from experience that if you don’t ask you will never know what you may have missed out on.

So please, like me, hate my behaviour and accept that the idea is more important than my outburst.

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hey-- everyone has bad days. No worries-- apology gratefully accepted.

I'm still not sure how to help answer your question though. My website work mostly involves intranets so I don't have much marketing or user attraction type experience from which to draw (by virtue of being intranets, my sites have a captive audience built-in, lol). The site looks good to me. I know attracting users encouraging interaction can be a tough proposition. Maybe add some more social networking type stuff-- make a test install of the http://drupal.org/project/commons distro and see the kinds of things they've implemented.

Seriously though, that's not really the kind of stuff we discuss much on drupal.org. I would think there must be some generic webmaster forums that have lots more of that type of info.

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Don't be a Help Vampire - read and abide the forum guidelines.
If you find my assistance useful, please pay it forward to your fellow drupalers.

Thank you I will give it a

Thank you I will give it a look soon.