Why do so many of you seem to be so against people that are new to server administration figuring this out?

["Roy D." <webmaster@shadowmall.com>]

I am fairly new to the internet and server administration compared to
some of you.

I will get it figured out eventually.

I really like MiniVend and I plan to use it as a part of my hosting
package that I am setting up.

It seems to me that the Documentation and this list are both geared
toward keeping things so obscure that it is nearly impossible for a
newcomer to figure it out without a lot of headaches.

The Documentation seems to be so complete that it obscures the obvious
little things.

The way this list is set up the threads are not even followed.

The topic might jump from databases to sockets and then to MiniMate and
back to some other completely unrelated thing, like "no subject".

I wonder if it might be better to set up a regular bulletin board that
the people posting to it could better control threads and topics.

I have MiniVend running on one of my sites now at a very basic level and
I know a lot more about it than I did at first.

I would like to be involved in helping other people like myself figure
out how to set it up, and I am in the process of writing a more simple
version of how to install it as I figure it out.

I will post it here once I get it done for you experts to pick apart and
make it better.

I think that it might be good to have at least two versions, one for
installing on servers that people have root level and one for people
that are on virtual servers.

In order to install the modules that are needed I had to install my own
local copy of perl because I do not have write permission to install
modules otherwise.

I am still trying to figure out how to make MiniMate work.
The instructions for it are not complete as far as I can tell.
There is something not included that is necessary to make it work.

Does anybody have it working or is everyone having the same trouble I
am?
It does not work at all yet.
It only says something about contains no data.
Last time I installed it it said it was not a minivend page.
administration
Thanks,
Roy
begin:vcard 
n:Nicodemus;Roy D.
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
adr:;;;;;;
version:2.1
email;internet:nospamwebmaster@secrethost.com
note:Please remove the nospam from my email address if you want to send me a message.
fn:Roy D. Nicodemus
end:vcard