I strongly suggest that we use some of our collective experience to give some training to our beginners.
Choose a topic that suits you and write something meaningful based on your experience to help. You guys have written comments about these things - write a thread:
Tom D - you could write about how to orient a map
Old ranger you could write about staying found
Wandering Daisy you could write about planning a trip
Mouse you could write about realistic expectations and pacing
Food you could write about how to cook over alcohol
Pika you could write about travel on ice
Glenn how about realistic clothes and rain gear
Trail runner - about avoiding SAR

Sorry if I didn't address you other experienced people, I mean no slight. Pick a topic close to your heart, or a piece of advice that has saved your butt. Some dos and don'ts. People come here seeking advice, give them something really valuable to take away. Pretend that the readers are people who will be camping with you next week and have never gone camping and you want them to come home in one piece and you don't want to carry them.
Jim

Sounds interesting - give me a week or so to organize my thoughts. Any problem if I write the piece specific to eastern US, and invite those with western mountain experience to add an appendix?

Glenn
anyone willing to share their knowledge can do it how ever they want, and thanks for stepping up. We all have experience that is invaluable, experience that will help others make better judgments without perhaps having to make a lot of bad ones first.
I think one of my most valuable threads was about climbing while backpacking for non-climbers. I'll do that.

Jim

"I think one of my most valuable threads was about climbing while backpacking for non-climbers."

My first reaction to the idea for this thread wasn't positive, as IMO there's so much "out there" written for beginners that it seems better to me to point people to the best of the existing material, rather than try to re-write it on the fly. And in general I still think this, but your particular example is a pretty specific thing that I don't recall seeing addressed --- I hope you do write something up, Jim.

As an example of what I'm talking about, I suggest that beginning backpackers make themselves aware of the whole "ultralight" movement, by reading a book. Or two. This isn't to say that they necessarily embrace it personally as their new religion, just become aware of the ideas and factor them in as desired.

Books that I recommend would be either "Lightweight Backpacking & Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Hiking", by Ryan Jordan, or "Lighten Up!", by Don Ladigan. The latter is an easier, quicker read, the former contains more depth. Both are good. Try getting one of these via your local public library system. If not available, ask a librarian if one of these books can be obtained via interlibrary loan.

I've got a first aid draft, but want to coordinate it before it gets posted. Who's interested?

Steadman, you can PM me and I'll help review.

Tango61

My stock answer to beginners is to refer them to the articles on the home page of this site. There used to be sticky posts at the top of the beginners' section that referred people there, but they disappeared with the big software/host changeover and have never been reposted. They are sitting out there in the 2005-2008 archives and just need to be copied over and made into "stickies."

We also need to think how this thing is going to be organized so beginners wandering in here can easily find the info.

Mouse I agree with you it needs to be easy to direct beginners to the information.

Hyson is much easier to train than my dog who was a rescue dog and only "comes" when she is through doing what ever she wanted to do. I can never let her off the leash except in the woods and then often I have to chase after her - ah the rewards of having a greyhound who has lived on the street and hunted for a living. My next dog will not be a rescue dog, sad as it sounds, they have too many bad habits.
Jim

You can train dogs out of the bad habits, but it's a lot of work and expense! The trainer where Hysson and I took our obedience classes specializes in pit bull rescues--perhaps the ultimate. Of course Hysson is the product of generations of breeding assistance dogs, so he was really easy to train. However, he also regards "come" as an optional command! I think that part of the problem is that we use "come on" as encouragement. The next time I train a dog, I'm going to avoid commands that are used in common speech. I will use "release" instead of "OK" and "recall" instead of "come"!

I really admire anyone who is willing to take on a rescue dog. My daughter did that, and, once Hysson goes, assuming I am still able to take on a dog, I will, too--but the first thing I'll do is to sign on with the above-mentioned trainer for lots and lots of classes!

Re making the posts accessible: Can we perhaps get the moderators and Packlite to approve the posts and then make them "sticky" posts at the top of the Beginners section?