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Post holiday wave
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Post hardware launch wave
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Post āUltimate HA set up guideā video wave
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Post cloud service shutdown wave
Itās almost like clockwork
I agree, but my gripe is the search box itself. If you search for two terms, the assumption is made that those words are consecutive, not that both needs to exist independently. Youāre better off searching the forum from Google, generally speaking. Maybe there are forum search tricks Iām unaware of.
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The HA condition may be a little unusual in that its main function is to stop the automation if it is not true. Most people probably think in terms of continue if trueā¦
It has improved a bit, but yes. Also links to generic topics are swamped by links to integrations for particular products.
Still, lets be positive. When I put a link to the docs in a post I usually come back to find several people have followed it. Which is a good thing. Isnāt it?
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and yet there is the confusionā¦ soā¦ i think empirical proof is on my side 
thatās UI design for youā¦ āi donāt see how someone could misunderstandā is the trap of underestimating the nuances of good UI. if thereās a way to misunderstand ui, people will find it.
Iām not going to get into a contest of credentials. You can search me if you want.
At some point people have to learn too: home automation introduces concepts not usually seen elsewhere and it is technical by nature. Iām not against simplifying or clarifying, but there is a limit.
Maybe we need a collection of simpler stuff in Community Guides - or a new āCookbookā category. To go back to the OP, @tom_l has done a post on this which deals with the question in a few lines:
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Natural language is not used the same way as programming languages are. No one takes everything literally. Most of the time that is a good thing, sometimes it is not.
When people ask you to pass the salt at dinner they will assume youāll give them the the salt shaker too, not just what is in it. Technically speaking, that was not what was asked. To most people that is clear without them even thinking about it. But it shows people will automatically make assumptions about what is said. Those assumptions are based on how people view the situation. Assumptions that can be wrong if people lack experience with that particular situation.
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Home Assistant seems to be making efforts to enhance user-friendliness and accessibility, catering to individuals stepping out of their comfort zones. While itās unfortunate that not everyone possesses the same level of expertise as some of the users in this community, itās worth considering whether the repetitive nature of certain questions is due to user oversight or if it reflects shortcomings in the simplicity and accessibility of the documentation?
I acknowledge that the comment may sound somewhat provocative; Iām partially adopting a devilās advocate stance. Itās important to recognise that there is no definitive right or wrong in this situationājust differing perspectives.
Yes, I agree very much here. Although there are youtube videos, these do not always have the simplicity required for beginners.
Having mutiple clear examples, videos, and prebuilt automation examples.
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Letās ask the moderatorsā¦
Can we have a new Cookbook category, with the first post editable by anybody, as with Community Guides?
Posts would contain clear practical examples of how to do specific, simple things (as in the example mentioned earlier). Unlike YouTube videos, they could be updated, or removed.
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Why do we need another category?
This is what the Community Guides category is for, not just weird installation methods.
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Fair enough. Cookbook added to tag list. 
I always search from google first, and ALWAYS ignore the reddit answers.
Wish I could block reddit responses, honestly.
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Itās only my opinion. I have brought this to the teamās attention.
My thought is if you want better community guides, write themā¦
If there are some posts out there that should be a community post, change it.
If the tag ācookbookā helps, add it to posts. Many of you are Regulars, it is well within your power or you can poke at one of us who are and we can help.
What the forums really need it a category that is limited to lvl 3 and up where we can pop up a topic (like this one) and discuss these kind of things. I have asked officially and a decision has not been made yet, but that would be helpful when we see things that we are not sure about and want to get a group opinion or have an idea and want to float it out there.
Regarding the actual title of this topic, there may be an answer. I have helped numerous people fix the canned blueprint for motion ligtht. Many start there. I believe if we fixed that to have a user based condition selector and maybe a couple of other things it would actually do things like light on and off like they are asking, We can then just tell them to use the BPā¦
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I use duckduckgo with this syntax:
Keyword/s site:https://community.home-assistant.io/
I also have duckduckgo setup to open links in a new tab so the results remain molested.
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My google way also sees the actual HA docs which is the other thing I look at for answers to others questions, but I see with that it is also possible. I might try it.
What about just using -reddit in the search?
I use https://www.startpage.com/ as google was giving me the shits with constant capcha prompts because I use a VPN.
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That works. the site: thing works in google as well to either search only or with a -site: to exclude a site.
I might make a copy/paste thing on my desktop to plaster that in every time.
This works like a champ on google. gets the forum and the docs and none of the reddit / ābuy thisā / ālook at my youtube out of data videosā stuff.
site:home-assistant.io search-terms-here
Thanks @SCClockDr
If you use firefox thereās a right-click context menu extension for custom searches, Selection Context Search ā Get this Extension for š¦ Firefox (en-GB)
How about doing a short one (tag cookbook) on searching the documentation/forum?
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