This website sucks for beginners

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Hopefully that got the attention of the website owners and the main contributors.

I see a lot of arrogance and sarcasm aimed at beginners here but it is really the main contributors that need to look at themselves and what they are doing wrong.

I did teaching for 7 years and there are some basic principles for learning that this website doesn't address:

* We learn step by step
* if it is too big a step we will get overwhelmed but too small and we will get bored so it should be just challenging enough
* repetition is important to reinforce learning
* we learn by doing and working things out a lot better than just reading - but it should still be small steps that add to each other in a comprehensive way
* people learn in different ways - some from text, some from video and others from personal tuition
* students are at different levels and learn at different speeds

So the problem with this website:

There is no dedicated section for beginners. A lot of beginners search the internet and come to this website so there should be an obvious link on every page to a beginner section where there is step by step training. 

There are some beginner articles but they soon get complicated and there are no exercises to reinforce learning so it is all overwhelming. The website is all text and no videos and doesn't feel  beginner friendly as the examples aren't simplified.

The purpose of the beginner section should be to get everyone up to a certain level so they are not asking the 'beginner questions'. 

Ok, that is a lot of work so instead there could be a review of online training where the best free and paid courses could be listed and evaluated so people get good training before asking you questions. 

Many people who want to make robots haven't programmed before so there could be reviews of basic computing courses as well.

Yes, that would take beginners off your website. But it depends whether the purpose is to help people, make money, or just continue as you are with a kind of loathing of beginners from a lot of the contributors. 
 
stuartmiles:
Hopefully that got the attention of the website owners and the main contributors.

As a intermediate coder I agree with all of what you have said, however, you seem have not mentioned any of the obvious good qualities and any of the recent improvements to the website -- as of just recently.

But I think that you do not frequent this website very often, or you would know that most of the posts from new visitors to the website, are NOT newbie coders, but those who are too lazy to do a search of the website before asking for a "hand out", and for the answers to be fed to them, rather than doing a simple search of the website for themselves, which 9 out of 10 searches they would have found the answers for themselves.

So while i agree with everything that you have said, and i, myself have argued with the demeanour of some of the moderators over the years, however, I have become a frequent visitor as of late, and I understand why many of the frequent visitors become arrogant. How can you blame them, when just in last few days, to a week at most, I have given the same answer to 3 different newbie visitors, who could have found the same answer that I gave to them with just a 5 second search for themselves.

As for coding for newbies, there is no reason for your criticism here, as several of the moderators have articles that they renew or update every couple years, and sergey and fernando have only recently listed pages of links regarding coding for newbies. All of this could be found with a 5 second search, and the search button hasnt moved in all the time that I have been signed up to this website.

 
stuartmiles:
Yes, that would take beginners off your website. But it depends whether the purpose is to help people, make money, or just continue as you are with a kind of loathing of beginners from a lot of the contributors.

This is the forum of software development company, and it is about how to use Metatrader.

And the questions about how to trade, how to use some trading systems for trading and more and more - it is related to the brokers (because all the charts, the price on the charts, the symbols to trade, the name of the symbols, the specifications of the symbols to trade, the money for trading, and trading accounts, and more and more - all of them are related to the brokers only). And, as far as I know - many brokers are having the classes for newbies about how to trade with the trading accounts they/people opened with them (with brokers).

----------------------------

But there are some information here on the forum for newbies, for example:

1. The article - MQL5.community - User Memo 

2. MetaTrader 5 Help - Open an Account

3. Where Do I start from?
https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/212020 

4. Broker selection - the thread with some advices

5. MetaTrader 5 Help - Trading Platform — User Manual 

6. How to make a search on the forum
https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/193510 

7. Find a Server by the Broker's Name: 
https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/214820

----------------------------

Besides, there are some summary threads/posts with some information collected (for the people who do not want to spent a lot of time by search and reading everything - because the people are asking anyway), for example: post with those threads/posts listed by links, for example - "How to start with MT5" thread, "How to start with MQL5" thread, video courses (several threads) about how to trade and how to use some indicators and more and more.
Just use search and you will find everything.

----------------------------

About coding - there are some articles for newbies, and there is one book (because many people/newbies prefer to read just one book with everything other than to read many articles related): Presenting the book "MQL5 Programming for Traders"

----------------------------

So, every information is available and it is ready/easy to use/to read etc.

But I want to repeat: some information should provide (or already provided) by the brokers so keep the contact with the broker (you selected for your money), and ask them about those educational information/video/classes etc. (in case you need something in more categorized way for example).

MQL5.community - User Memo
MQL5.community - User Memo
  • www.mql5.com
You have just registered and most likely you have questions such as, "How do I insert a picture to my a message?" "How do I format my MQL5 source code?" "Where are my personal messages kept?" You may have many other questions. In this article, we have prepared some hands-on tips that will help you get accustomed in MQL5.community and take full advantage of its available features.
 
Revo Trades #:

As a intermediate coder I agree with all of what you have said, however, you seem have not mentioned any of the obvious good qualities and any of the recent improvements to the website -- as of just recently.

But I think that you do not frequent this website very often, or you would know that most of the posts from new visitors to the website, are NOT newbie coders, but those who are too lazy to do a search of the website before asking for a "hand out", and for the answers to be fed to them, rather than doing a simple search of the website for themselves, which 9 out of 10 searches they would have found the answers for themselves.

So while i agree with everything that you have said, and i, myself have argued with the demeanour of some of the moderators over the years, however, I have become a frequent visitor as of late, and I understand why many of the frequent visitors become arrogant. How can you blame them, when just in last few days, to a week at most, I have given the same answer to 3 different newbie visitors, who could have found the same answer that I gave to them with just a 5 second search for themselves.

As for coding for newbies, there is no reason for your criticism here, as several of the moderators have articles that they renew or update every couple years, and sergey and fernando have only recently listed pages of links regarding coding for newbies. All of this could be found with a 5 second search, and the search button hasnt moved in all the time that I have been signed up to this website.

I can only go by my opinion as a beginner. I am sure the mql5.com website is more use for intermediate or advanced programmers. As a beginner we don't even know what terms we need to search for so need to build up the knowledge step by step. 

I looked at my laptop history and I have 998 pageviews on the mql5.com website since 8 nov last year so in about 2 months. I also used my phone when travelling and travel a lot so I would say I looked at the mql5 website maybe 1500 pages in total. I looked at beginner articles, functions, codebase and did a lot of searches.

Where I learned the most about mql5 coding was Youtube videos - maybe 60% of what I learned. 2 German guys Rene and Raimond and orchard forex. Next was learnmql5.com at about 30% and third mql5.com at about 10%.

Almost all my code came from the samples I did while watching the youtube videos.

Maybe I am unlucky but when I did tend to find the question I wanted answered on mql5.com there was some remark like 'do a search' or 'it's obvious - read the manual'. In particular I am interested in code for combining timeframes and didn't really get the answer how to do it. I have made a work around but doubt it is 'best practice'. My indicator has multiple supply and demand objects in multiple timeframes so I was researching what is done in the indicator, what is done in the EA, and how to move the data across. I am sure this is obvious once you are familiar with mql5 but not as a beginner. 2 answers I remember in particular were something like 'you use a boat and a car for different things' and just search MTF. Yes I had been reading articles about MTF on mql5.com with no answer that fit what I wanted to do.

One ariticle was 'data exchange between indicators - it's easy'. That article was 3700 words long plus lots and lots of code. Not easy and I was still unsure the best way at the end of it.

Anyway, I am not looking for the answers now, just saying how frustrating it is on the website as a beginner.

 
If you don't know how to code, there's a topic dedicated to teaching you how to program. I wouldn't expect this website to be "beginner friendly" for coders in any shape or form. Why should it be? People have studied programming for years and worked in silence. It seems like you're pointing the finger at the wrong thing. this website isn't designed to equip you with programming or trading skills ...you should gain knowledge and skill in your own time. I was pleasantly surprised how quick someone was to give me help here when I came here first. Sure it wasn't "beginner" help, but I didn't expect it to be.
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