interesting question. in my research (with eric von hippel) on user-to-user technical support for apache web server - we found that most information seekers had already invested significant time in prior searches before posting their questions on the newsgroup. having not found the answer they were looking for they then went to the newsgroup and posted a request for help. interestingly those on the newsgroup were not there to help - rather they were there to learn. most information providers just gave them information that they had at hand. the question-answer transaction had asymetric costs and benefits. information providers spent less than 5 minutes composing the answers and information seekers reported about 3 hours in time savings from those answers. so i think most people post for help in the hope that someone will have *exactly* or close to exactly the solution they need. so in your instance getting the right list (may be even vetted by an experienced person) from a person would be more valuable than just getting a gazillion hits via google. best, K -- =============================================== Karim R. Lakhani MIT Sloan School of Management MIT Free/Open Source Software Research Project e-mail: karim.lakhani@sloan.mit.edu voice: 617-851-1224 fax: 617-344-0403 http://spoudaiospaizen.net/ http://opensource.mit.edu | http://freesoftware.mit.edu http://userinnovation.mit.edu