Roger has written a good line that I keep going back to:

I think there should be a "proclaimer" such as, a statement on how to use the forum as a poster and reader, what to expect, the nature of construction design and specific problem solving and specification vs. the format of vague or non specific questions and equally vague, general and nongraphical answers

this is a good description of the problem of asking questions about timberframing in an online forum. There are times when you may answer a question, and you have the feeling that the person who asks the question has not understood things, and then they disapear from the forum... it can get a little weird just relying on words to talk about structure. The word I really like in Roger's peice above is "nongraphical".